The deeper we go, the less the world feels like ours.
The path winds into a spiral—not natural, not designed. It *wants* to confuse. Wants us to forget the way back.
Symbols twist along the walls. Bone-thread stretched thin across stone, humming low. The air tastes of ash and metal. Somewhere far ahead, something pulses—like a heart not meant to beat.
"We're in it now," Branvel mutters. "This is his domain."
"No," I say. "This is what he *took* from someone else."
The seal-holders stay tight around us. Voul and Nera take point, channeling small bursts of warding sigils to keep the pressure off. Kett threads thin lines behind us, mapping every step with touch-signature we can trace if we fall apart.
Wren's eyes keep shifting.
She sees something we don't.
"It's not just bone," she whispers. "There's a *pattern.* A rhythm."
Sov catches it too. "It's calling. It's not just a trap. It's a message."
We reach a chamber. Not large, but *loud.* Not with sound—again, with weight. The rival's mark is carved into the ground. A circle made of pieces: bone, thread, ash, memory.
And blood.
Fresh blood.
He's been here *recently.*
"He's summoning something," Lira says.
"No," I correct. "He already did."
A low groan rises from the walls.
They *move.*
Not collapse—*shift.* The bones in the wall push forward. Not breaking. Assembling.
Figures peel out. Blank-faced. Thread-wrapped.
Not illusions. Not puppets.
People.
Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Once citizens. Now something else.
"He turned them," Wren breathes.
"He *rewrote* them," Sov says, stepping forward with blade drawn.
The ring burns. Harder than before.
The Vault feels it too. I press my hand to the wall and channel—not power, but memory. Vellidra's voice. Her silence.
The bone shudders.
They hesitate.
Only for a moment.
Then they *rush.*
"Circle form!" I shout.
Seal-holders tighten around us. Branvel ignites a ring of flame. Narth raises a barrier. Sov and Kett strike the first wave—fast, brutal, clean.
But they don't stop.
They never stop.
They don't scream. Don't speak.
Just push.
Push.
Push.
And at the center of the spiral below the city…
We are the last thread holding it together.
And the bone is still *writing.*