The stairs leading away from the Hall of Silence should have felt like safety.
They didn't.
Each step Kael took echoed strangely, the sound warping mid-air—as though the tower itself was shifting its bones. The Keeper walked ahead without speaking, but Kael could see the tension in the way his gauntleted fingers flexed and tightened on his weapon.
The Flame inside Kael was quiet. Too quiet. It had never been still for so long before.
"You going to tell me what just happened back there?" Kael asked.
The Keeper didn't turn his head. "Something that should not be spoken of until we reach higher ground."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you'll get if you want to survive the next hour."
The First Sign
They came to a landing where the stone was veined with long, hairline fractures. Kael ran his fingertips along one. Frost clung to the edges.
He frowned. "Ice? This high up?"
The Keeper muttered something under his breath.
Kael leaned closer to hear. "What?"
The armored figure stopped walking and turned, visor inches from Kael's face. "Do not touch it again."
Before Kael could reply, the frost spread. It didn't grow like normal ice—it spilled, racing across the stone in delicate spiderwebs, sinking into every crack it could find.
Kael stepped back instinctively.
The Flame stirred inside him, a shiver of heat. She is reaching. Even here.
The Whisper in the Walls
It started faint at first, a murmur beneath the constant hum of the tower. But the more Kael listened, the more he realized it was a voice.
No, not one voice. Dozens. Hundreds. Each speaking in the same tone, but all at once—overlapping, weaving together into something like a hymn.
And in the heart of it, he heard her.
"…little fire…"
The sound slid into his mind like a blade between ribs.
Do not answer, the Flame snapped. But its voice wasn't steady—it wavered, a tremor running through it.
The Keeper moved faster now, boots striking the stone in sharp beats. "We are leaving this section. The longer we stay, the more she will pull."
"She's still in the glass," Kael said. "Isn't she?"
"For now," the Keeper said.
The Things in Between
They turned a corner—and stopped.
The hallway ahead was darker than it should have been. The torchlight from behind them didn't spill into it; instead, it bent, as though the shadows were pushing it back.
Something moved within that darkness.
Not footsteps, not breath—just the faint scrape of something too soft to be stone, too solid to be air.
The Keeper lowered his weapon. "Stay behind me."
Kael didn't need to be told twice.
Then the first shape emerged.
It was not human. It was not beast. Its outline shifted as it stepped forward—sometimes tall and thin, sometimes hunched and crawling. Its surface was neither shadow nor flesh, but something in between, like the space between a blink.
Its face, if it could be called that, was flat and smooth—until it tilted its head toward Kael. Then the glassy surface rippled, and for an instant, he saw her face there.
Release me, the vision mouthed silently.
The Keeper struck before Kael could blink, the blade slicing through the thing's center. It didn't bleed. It didn't even fall. It simply… unraveled, like a thread being pulled from reality.
But more of them were forming in the dark.
Running
The Keeper grabbed Kael by the collar and shoved him forward. "Move!"
They sprinted through the twisting corridors. The things followed—not quickly, but steadily, always matching their turns, always close enough for Kael to hear the faint shiver of glass inside their shapes.
The Flame flared hotter now, pushing heat into his limbs, urging him to burn them away. But Kael hesitated. If these things were part of her… what would destroying them do?
The Keeper seemed to know what he was thinking. "Don't pity them. They are not alive. They are the shadow of her breath."
The Chamber of Falling Stars
At last, they burst into a wide circular room. The ceiling was a dome of black glass, and through it, Kael saw stars—thousands, maybe millions, swirling in impossible patterns.
But as he stepped inside, one of the stars fell.
It didn't burn up. It didn't vanish. It hit the floor with a sound like ice shattering.
Where it landed, frost spread fast—faster than in the corridor before.
The Keeper cursed. "She's bleeding through the cracks already."
Another star fell. And another. Each one left a spiderweb of ice across the stone.
Kael took a step back toward the doorway—then froze. The things from the corridor were standing in it, blocking the exit.
The Stand
The Keeper planted his blade in the floor. "We hold here."
Kael felt the Flame flare within him again, but this time, its voice was lower. If you fight them, she will see through you. She will know what you are. And she will want you more.
"Not fighting isn't an option," Kael muttered.
The first creature stepped into the room. Its shape flickered—man, beast, shadow—before settling into a form Kael recognized instantly.
It was him.
Not just a copy—an exact mirror. Even the flicker of the Flame's light in the eyes was the same.
The false Kael smiled, and the smile was hers.
Breaking Point
The Keeper moved to strike, but Kael was faster. He slammed into his double, both of them hitting the ice-hard floor. Heat surged from Kael's hands, the Flame burning brighter than it had in hours.
The copy melted—not into ash or blood, but into drifting shards of glass that vanished before they hit the ground.
The others hesitated.
Kael rose slowly, breathing hard. "Tell her," he said into the dark, "that I'm not hers to take."
From nowhere, the voice came again. "…you will be."
The Flame trembled in his chest, not with fear this time, but with fury. She has marked you. The cracks are widening. We must climb.
The Keeper was already heading toward the far side of the chamber, where a narrow stair wound upward. "Come. Before she sends more."
The Last Look
Kael followed, but as he stepped onto the first stair, he glanced back at the dome above.
Through the black glass, the stars were gone. In their place was a single massive eye, watching him.
It was silver, unblinking, and full of patience.
Kael turned away and climbed, not daring to look again.