Between the Teeth (Coren & Sylva)
Sylva woke first.
Her wrists ached. Not from rope or seal cuffs, but from bands of vibrating pressure. Resonance cages, crude but effective. Her Ki pooled uselessly under her skin, trapped like water behind a dam.
Coren sat nearby. Upright, silent. A cut along his temple bled sluggishly, but his eyes were sharp. Fixed on the humming figure in the corner.
The chamber was narrow, its jagged stone walls etched with Spiral glyphs that pulsed faintly. Not alive. Not dead. Breathing.
The hooded man stopped pacing. "You're awake." His voice was soft, almost amused.
Sylva strained against the bindings. Nothing.
"Who are you?" she hissed.
"No one important." He stepped aside, revealing the wall behind him.
A new glyph was carved there.
Not Spiral. Not human.
An eye. Fractured.
Watching them.
The man tapped a spiral groove in the stone.
The resonance shifted.
Coren jolted, his breath catching—not in pain, but violation. A memory surged unbidden: A burning tent. A broken sword. A name he'd buried.
The glyph dimmed.
The man smiled. "The Spiral loves echoes. Yours are… loud."
"But yours," he added, turning toward Sylva, "are sharper. Cleaner. Like blades that never rusted."
Sylva didn't answer. But her glare said enough.
"You both leave impressions. That's what matters now."
Then he melted back into shadow.
Sylva exhaled. "Coren?"
He didn't answer.
He was still fighting to shove the name back down.
Kaelen's March
Kaelen walked with his head down, one hand pressed to his ribs. The wound burned, a persistent knife-twist with every step, but he let it anchor him. Kept his breathing even, his posture loose.
The figure beside him, cloaked, patient, spoke little. The beasts had scattered once he'd agreed to follow.
Good. Fewer eyes.
They descended deeper, not toward the Rift, but under it. Kaelen counted steps. Noted every spiral carve, every potential choke point.
The guide finally broke the silence.
"You're quieter than I expected."
Kaelen grunted. "Talkative captors are worse than silent ones."
The guide chuckled. "We're not captors. We're curators."
Curators.
Kaelen's thumb brushed the groove of a glyph as they passed.
Thirty-seven steps since the last turn.
Two minutes of stalling left.
The Offer Room
The chamber stank of charred ink and wet stone. Spiral murals lined the walls. Eyes, roots, crowns, spirals with too many arms.
Kaelen stood still. The guide circled him like a vulture.
"You know why they really cast you out?" The guide traced a mural's jagged edge. "Not because you killed. Because you remembered."
Kaelen said nothing.
"You fought beside men who'd kill you for breathing wrong," the guide mused. "They tolerated you. Until they didn't."
A pause. The air hummed.
"The Academy calls us corrupt. But they're the ones who carve out tongues for asking questions."
Kaelen's ribs throbbed. He ignored it.
"I know who you were," the guide continued. "The ranks you burned. The bodies they pinned on you. You think they'll forgive that if you bleed enough?"
Kaelen's ribs throbbed. The glyphs on the walls were too precise. Machine-cut edges, not Spiral claws. Human work.
Kaelen's voice was flat. "They won't. I'm not asking them to."
The guide grinned. "Then why serve a memory that hates you?"
A beat.
"Come. Let me show you what remembers you kindly."
The guide paused at the threshold of the descending stair.
"You keep saying anchors. What do they anchor?"
The guide's smile didn't reach his eyes. "The things that won't stay dead. Memories. Regrets. The Spiral drinks them. Gives them shape again." He tilted his head. "You'll see. Yours are already stirring."
Kaelen's ribs throbbed. A trick. Has to be. But the air smelled like burning parchment. Like his old barracks aflame.
They passed three thresholds, each narrower than the last.
A second figure joined them. Silent, armed, robed in blackened linen.
"The lower chamber," the guide ordered. "Show him the anchors."
Kaelen followed, counting.
The deeper levels weren't cold. They were warm. Like the breath of something that had been alive too long.
The guide rambled as they walked, fingers trailing the walls.
"These halls weren't carved. They were remembered." He smirked. "Like a mind dreaming itself into shape."
Kaelen eyed a blood-wax-sealed door. Weak latch.
"You ever think," the guide pressed, "the Spiral isn't corruption? Just correction? The world's too rigid. We soften it."
Kaelen's wound flared. He gritted his teeth. "It makes monsters."
"So does grief." The guide laughed. "So do you."
"You talk about freedom. But your 'anchors' are chained to the past."
The guide laughed. "Chains? No. They're roots. The deeper they dig, the stronger they grow." He gestured ahead. "You've been rootless too long, Kaelen. That's why the world forgets you."
The dust swirled toward Kaelen's boots, as if testing him.
They entered a larger chamber. Four disciples stood around a column of floating ash. Its dust forming faces. Some masked, some featureless.
"Anchors," the guide whispered. "They hold what the world tries to forget. Unlike you."
Kaelen kept walking.
The air thickened. The dust shifted, drawn to warmth. To breath.
To him.
The guide's voice dropped. "They tell you Spiral monsters scream. But they don't scream when they remember."
Kaelen glanced at him. "That supposed to scare me?"
"No." The guide's smile widened. "It's supposed to welcome you."
A stone door loomed ahead, carved with interlocking glyphs. The escort pressed his palms to it. The door pulsed open.
The escort stepped aside. "You first."
Kaelen didn't move. "Why keep them alive?"
The guide's voice dripped mock pity. "You think we're the ones keeping them here? Ask them what they're holding onto."
A whisper of laughter echoed from the basement. Not human, not quite Spiral.
Kaelen stepped in.
The room reeked of sweat and iron. The walls weren't carved. They were grown, veined like fossilized roots.
Coren sat against the far wall. Wrists bound in thrum-cords that pulsed with stolen heartbeats. Sylva crouched opposite. Her left eye swollen shut. The other tracking Kaelen.
Neither spoke.
Kaelen's gaze flicked over them. "They're not dead. Surprising."
The escort chuckled. "The Spiral prefers its lessons living."
Kaelen turned. Slowly. "Sure."
Then,
"You two look like shit."
Sylva's good eye narrowed. "You're one to talk." She nodded at his ribs. "Still standing?"
"Barely." His wound burned, but he didn't let it show.
He turned to the escort. "Leave us."
The man stiffened. "Not yet."
Kaelen moved.
Fast.
His dagger flashed, not at the escort's throat, but his wrist, severing the tendon before the man could draw steel. A knee to his gut dropped him.
A pulse of force from Kaelen's palm knocked him unconscious.
One breath.
He sliced Sylva's bonds.
Coren's snapped a second later. His Ki flaring unnaturally bright. Suppressed, not broken.
"Three minutes," Kaelen growled.
Then the alarms howled.
They sprinted. Kaelen leading, Coren sealing the stair behind.
Sylva stumbled, her blurred vision betraying her. Coren caught her arm.
"Left," she hissed. "Door's weaker."
At the third turn, they froze.
Seven robed figures stood motionless. Their masks smooth, blank.
One stepped forward.
"You really thought we'd believe that act?"
Kaelen's smile returned. This time colder. "Didn't need you to believe it. Just long enough to bleed from it."
Coren muttered, "They knew."
Sylva bared her teeth. "Then let's remind them why they should've killed us."