The stone bit back.
Kairito's palm fused to the tower wall. Not stuck, fused. He felt his skin flatten, cells rearranging, the boundary between him and the rock going soft. The mana in his chest screamed. Pushed. The tower drank it.
Colors bled sideways.
He tried to pull. His arm didn't move. His arm wasn't his anymore, it was conduit, pipe, something the hole was using to siphon. Infinite mana. That's what the gods gave him. But a straw doesn't care how deep the well goes. It just sucks.
The princess's scream cut off. He heard boots in mud. Fast. She was running toward him.
Stupid.
The word didn't make it out. His jaw was locked. His teeth felt loose. The thing in the road, the gray thing with no eyes, was moving now. He could hear it. Dragging. Fast.
"Get back." Her voice. Close.
He couldn't turn. Couldn't speak. But the mana, his mana, was still his. He shoved it outward. Not at the tower. At her.
The force hit her chest like a door. She flew backward, hit the mud, slid. The gray thing stopped. Turned toward her.
Good.
He stopped fighting the stone.
Let it take.
The world inverted. Not blackness, something worse. A color that had no name, a pressure behind his eyes that felt like birth. The tower interior unfolded around him, but it wasn't interior anymore. It was a throat. He was standing in a throat, and the walls were slick with something that wasn't wet.
His sandal slipped.
He caught himself on a rib.
Not his rib. The tower's. Or the thing the tower was becoming. He could feel the geometry wrong, angles that closed on themselves, distances that changed when he breathed. The infinite mana in his chest was a candle now. Small. The dark around it was bigger than any dark should be.
"You came."
The voice came from everywhere. From the walls. From the floor. From the space between his heartbeat and the next.
He didn't answer. He was looking at the floor.
Bones.
Not human. Not animal. Something that had tried to walk on two legs and then decided against it halfway through. The skull was split down the middle, and inside, something had nested. Something that moved when the light from his chest touched it.
"The seal was never shut," he said. His voice sounded small. He hated that.
"No."
The walls breathed. He could see it now, a slow peristalsis, the stone rippling like a gut. The colors from outside were here too, but deeper. More solid. They tasted like copper and old milk.
"What are you?"
A pause. The peristalsis stopped.
"Hungry."
The word hit him in the chest. Not sound. Pressure. His knees buckled. He caught himself on the rib again, and it cracked under his hand. Fluid leaked out. Clear. Hot.
He looked at his fingers.
The gray thing from the road was standing behind him. He hadn't heard it come in. It had its hand, three fingers, dragging nails, on the princess's shoulder. She was limp. Her face was turned away, but he could see her breathing. Fast. Too fast.
"Let her go."
The thing's mouth opened. The wet darkness inside smiled.
"You first."
Kairito straightened up. His legs were shaking. The mana in his chest was down to embers. He'd never felt it low before. Never felt it anything before. It was just there. Always. Like his heartbeat.
Now it was flickering.
"I'm ten years old," he said. "Permanently. You know what that means?"
The thing tilted its head. Waiting.
"It means I've had a lot of time to get bored."
He snapped.
Nothing happened.
The thing's smile widened. "Your magic is,"
"Not magic."
He reached into his chest.
His hand went through skin like smoke. The ribs parted. The mana, what was left of it, was a coal, red and dying, cupped in his palm. He pulled it out.
The tower screamed.
The walls convulsed. The rib he'd cracked split open, and something came out, too many legs, too many joints, scrabbling for purchase. The gray thing let go of the princess. Its face was different now. Not smiling.
"Put it back."
"No."
He held the coal up. The light from it was red now, not blue. It lit the tower from the inside, showed him what the walls were made of. Teeth. The tower was made of teeth, and they were grinding, and he was standing on a tongue.
"You want infinite," he said. "You can't have it."
He crushed the coal.
The light didn't go out. It went in. Folded into itself. Became a point the size of a pinprick, then smaller, then smaller, until it wasn't a point at all. It was a tear. A hole inside the hole.
The thing opened its mouth to scream.
The tower swallowed it.
Kairito watched. His chest was empty. The place where the mana used to sit was cold. Hollow. He could feel the shape of it, the absence, like a missing tooth you can't stop licking.
The walls were collapsing. Not inward. Outward. Unraveling. The teeth fell out, clattering on the tongue, and the tongue dissolved, and suddenly he was standing in mud. Moonlight. Cold. The tower was a crater behind him, filling with black water.
The princess was on her knees three feet away. Alive. Her face was wet. Tears or mud, didn't matter.
She was looking at his chest.
He looked down.
There was a hole there. Perfect circle. The size of a fist. He could see through it. See the crater behind him, the water rising, the stars reflected.
No blood.
He touched the edge. It was warm.
"What did you do?" Her voice cracked.
Kairito looked at his fingers. They were ten years old. Small. Dirty. The nails were bitten.
"I don't know."
He meant it.
The stars above them were the wrong color now. Too blue. Too bright. And somewhere in the dark beyond the crater, something else was dragging itself through mud.
He could hear it breathing.