The scorpion's corpse dissolved into black glass, which sank through the chitin path and left behind a single stinger the length of Shade's forearm. He pried it free. The venom had hardened into a crystalline edge, faintly glowing green—half weapon, half memory. A trophy, or a tool. He tied it to his belt with a strip of shadow-silk torn from the hem of Lira's robe.
They pressed onward. The Galleries narrowed, forcing them to walk single file. Lira led with her lantern raised, its golden flame dancing across the walls. Shade followed close behind, sword drawn, eyes sharp.
The venom-light in the walls pulsed faster now—like the quickened heartbeat of something ancient and watching.
Then, between one step and the next, the air spoke.
Not in words. In history.
The chitin rippled beneath their boots, and images shimmered up like heat from the desert floor:
A sky without stars.
A lone spire of bone and starlight, piercing the void.
Hands—thousands of them, human and not—ripping strips of night from the dark and pressing them into the spire's frame.
A woman in crow-feathered armor—Lady Maria, young and unbroken—drove her greatsword into the earth. From the wound her blade made, the first chain grew, wrapping the spire's base like roots.
A voice—vast, older than language—whispered:
"To hold the breach.
To guard the dreamers.
To pay the price in blood and name."
The vision splintered and vanished. The path steadied beneath their feet.
Lira's voice trembled. "The tower wasn't built… it was grown. From the first nightmare that ever feared waking."
Shade's hand brushed the map seared into his chest—it pulsed in answer. "And Maria was the seed."
The venom-light flared again, coalescing into lines of glowing text that crawled across the wall like a swarm of green insects:
THE ASTRAL TOWER
Born of the First Fracture, when the Veil tore.
Fed by the blood of ten thousand guardians.
Rooted in the Outskirts—a ring of shattered worlds where dreamers who fall become the soil.
Crowned by the Door of Waking, sealed by the Last Guardian's heart.
The letters dissolved into mist. Through that fading green haze, Shade saw the Outskirts beyond the tower's walls—fragments of ruined realms floating in the void.
A city frozen mid-scream.
A battlefield where soldiers fought with mirrors for shields.
And drifting between them, translucent husks of failed climbers—mouths open, eyes sewn shut with starlight thread.
Lira's hand tightened around his. "That's where the ones who break end up. Gardeners for the next crop."
A laugh echoed behind them—low, amused, wrong.
They turned.
A figure leaned lazily against the wall where no wall had been before. Tall. Lean. Cloaked in dusk itself. The fabric shimmered with stolen faces—every climber who had ever fallen—and each face mouthed silent screams.
The figure's face was hidden behind a mask of polished mirror. Shade saw his own reflection staring back—scarred, determined, barely human.
The stranger raised one hand. Their fingers ended in needles of frozen starlight.
"Fifth Spiral," they said, their voice layered—man, woman, child, and elder all at once. "You've made it farther than most. Farther than me, last time."
Shade stepped forward, sword half-drawn. "Who are you?"
"Call me Vesper." The mirror-mask tilted, catching the venom-light. "I've climbed this tower seven times. Died six. On the seventh, I reached the summit—touched the Door. It showed me my price." The starlight needles flexed. "I refused. So now I hunt those who might pay it for me."
Lira's lantern flared gold, her expression cold. "You're the reason the lower spirals are full of husks."
Vesper chuckled. "Guilty. The tower needs a final sacrifice. A heart willing to stay. Maria's echo fades, and someone must take her place."
They pointed one needle at Shade. "And you, branded one—your flame burns brightest. The tower wants you."
Shade's hand brushed the scorpion stinger. "Then it'll have to take me."
Vesper's laugh was soft, pitying. "It will. But first—"
They moved.
Needles shot forward—pure starlight. Shade met them with the night-forged sword; constellation sparks scattered like fireflies. Lira swung her lantern, gold flame clashing with Vesper's dusk cloak. The air screamed.
Vesper blurred between them. A needle grazed Shade's cheek, drawing a line of silver blood. He slashed back with the stinger, catching Vesper's cloak. The fabric tore—and from it, a shadow-serpent burst forth, fangs wide.
Lira burned it to ash with a flare of lantern light.
Vesper staggered back. A crack split their mirror-mask, revealing one trembling eye—human, old, afraid.
"You feel it, don't you?" Vesper whispered. "The Outskirts calling. Every drop of blood you spill feeds them. Keep climbing, and you'll join the garden."
Shade's voice was iron. "Then we'll burn the garden down."
For a heartbeat, silence. Then Vesper straightened. The crack sealed.
"See you at the summit… branded one."
They vanished—cloak folding into itself, leaving behind the scent of frost and dying stars.
Ahead, the path opened into a vast final gallery. At its end, an archway of living bone framed a staircase spiraling upward through a storm of comet tails. Beyond it, the Outskirts loomed closer—Shade could see faces now in the drifting fragments of world, their lips moving in eternal apology.
Lira knelt, picking up the broken shard of Vesper's mirror. It showed her reflection—older, hollow-eyed, her lantern gone dark. She crushed it underfoot.
"The tower's afraid," she said quietly. "It sent a hunter."
Shade sheathed his sword and took her hand. The scorpion stinger glinted at his belt like a promise.
"Then let's give it something to fear."
They stepped through the archway together.
The sixth spiral began—comets streaking past like falling souls, each one carrying the last breath of a climber who never reached the Door.
Behind them, the venom-light dimmed.
The tower held its breath.