They fell through nothing, but it was a nothing that knew them.
It clung to Lynchie like a second shadow, brushing past her skin with ghost-fingers that remembered her childhood breath, her unanswered questions, her first lie. She held Zev close as they drifted downward—or perhaps outward—into the new layer of Spiralspace that unfurled before them.
It was like slipping into a dream someone else had abandoned halfway through: fragments of unfinished architecture, bridges that led to nowhere but echoed with footfalls, trees that grew upside down, shedding glowing leaves into fathomless air.
And there—looming ahead like a wound stitched across reality—stood the Spiral Scar.
It was not a place. It was an injury.
A slash in the weave of worlds, where glyphs bled light and the air tasted like fractured promises. Beneath it writhed the Wards, no longer dormant. Their shapes blurred, as if language itself couldn't decide how to name them anymore.
Zev coughed and clung to her arm. "This isn't the Observatory's lower ward."
"No," Lynchie said, unable to disguise the awe. "This is before."
He blinked at her, pain sharpening his features. "Before what?"
"Before memory. Before the Wards were contained. This is the glyph-seed that was never meant to root."
From somewhere in the shattered horizon, a voice howled—a wordless shriek that twisted the air. Lynchie flinched. Zev winced.
"It's waking," she whispered.
Zev looked toward her, dazed but grim. "Do you feel it?"
She hesitated. Then: "Yes."
The glyph on her palm shimmered. Not glowing—pulsing, like a second heart. Each beat released a whisper into her mind.
Sha-Ur-Vael… Sha-Ur-Vael…
But now it had added something else:
Dar'miel. The Unwritten Name.
She didn't know what it meant, but it pressed behind her eyes like a memory she hadn't dared open.
They reached the base of the Spiral Scar.
It was massive—taller than the Cathedral of Syllables, wider than the entire Librarium Quadrant. And in the center of it, partially embedded in time-frozen light, floated a crystal sphere.
Within it, curled in on itself, was a girl.
Her hair was silver ash. Her face—shockingly familiar.
Zev breathed in sharply. "Is that—?"
"She looks like me," Lynchie whispered.
She took a step forward. The Wards stirred in response.
One rose from the earth—an antlered shadow with eyes like sealed scrolls—and blocked her path.
Lynchie didn't recoil.
Instead, she lifted her palm.
The glyph flared. The Ward paused.
Not recognition. Not obedience.
Respect.
And then the shadow spoke—not in words, but in rhythm.
Drum beats in her blood. A cadence of invocation. A pattern of unlocking.
Zev fell to his knees. "Lynchie, your nose—"
She touched her upper lip. Blood. Black and gold.
The Spiral was bleeding through her.
But she didn't stop.
The sphere pulsed. The girl within opened her eyes.
And Lynchie felt the world fracture.
The child inside the sphere spoke, but her voice came from inside Lynchie's skull.
"You brought the wound. You are the breach. You remember what should remain unwritten."
"I didn't choose it," Lynchie whispered aloud.
"Then why do you keep walking toward it?"
Because I can't stop. Because everything is made of questions. Because I want to know who I am—
And I'm terrified I already do.
The crystal sphere cracked.
The ground split.
The Wards howled.
Zev screamed her name.
And above them, scrawled across the heavens, the Spiral Glyphs twisted into new forms.
Names Lynchie didn't recognize—but felt deep in her marrow.
One glowed brighter than the rest.
Dar'miel.
The girl from the sphere stepped out, barefoot and ancient.
And she smiled.
"I've been waiting for me."