The crystal lattice of light had not yet fully vanished when the temperature in the chamber dropped. Not a winter chill. Not something of wind or storm. This was the cold of memory, of old laws brushing up against something they had tried to forget. Lynchie's hands trembled, not from fear, but from something deeper, something that clawed up through the seams of her soul.
She stared at the sigil—no, the brand—that now shimmered above her palm. A spiral etched in burning silver, pulsating in a rhythm that did not match her heartbeat. Or this realm's heartbeat.
Somewhere, deeper in the rift, a voice laughed. It was faint, half-formed, but it carried the weight of an era. It didn't speak in words, only meaning: "You are early."
Professor Liora's barrier fractured with a hiss. A line of divine code tore free from her staff and scattered like dying fireflies. She spun to face the southern arch of the chamber. Her knuckles blanched around the staff. "Someone... crossed the seal."
No one had touched it.
That's when the sound began—low, guttural scraping, like stone pulling itself from sleep. The glyphs carved into the far wall flickered, not with light, but absence. The light died as it touched them.
Viminda stepped forward, her usually perfect composure gone. "That's—impossible. The seventh layer shouldn't be... active yet."
But it was. The floor beneath them began to ripple. Not physically, but in perception. Reality bent like light through water. Blades of distortion cut across the space.
A fissure opened in the wall. From it, darkness billowed, not empty, but sentient. Hungry. It peeled into the world like something unraveling skin. The blackness held a shape.
A figure.
Lynchie's eyes widened. Not because it was demonic—its horns too perfect, too cruel—but because the thing looked like her brother. Just a little older. Just enough to be impossible.
And the figure looked back. Tilted its head. Smiled.
"You were supposed to forget," it said.
Then the chamber shattered. Not physically, but conceptually. All around them, layers of the world peeled away, revealing an endless spiral of stars, constellations reeling like a clock turned mad.
Lynchie's mark burned white-hot.
Then—
The stars screamed.
And the last thing she heard was her own voice, whispering something her mouth never moved to say:
"The Crown... has begun to remember."