The newly opened corridor breathed with old heat. Kael stepped into it first, his fingers gliding across the wall as they moved. The stone felt warm—not with life, but with memory. Something ancient stirred behind it. Something watching.
Brenn and Mira remained behind to keep watch near the Vault's entrance. Kael pressed deeper, flanked only by Renn, who traced Null Sigils into the corridor's curve every ten paces.
"You sure this is a good idea?" Renn muttered. "Vault just tried to eat you, and now you want to walk into its basement?"
Kael didn't answer right away. The silence was answer enough.
The corridor narrowed into an arch of polished black stone, so smooth it reflected torchlight in fragments. In its center pulsed a glyph Kael had never seen before.
⟁⇋⫷♢
He reached for it. The moment his palm brushed its glow, the stone whispered open with a low groan, like breath held too long being released.
Inside lay a circular chamber carved from pure obsidian. No dust. No rubble. Just stillness.
And in that stillness, a pedestal.
Upon it, glowing in steady white light, were six simple words:
"Speak your truth and remain unchanged.Speak your lie and be remade."
Kael took a slow breath. His heart was already racing.
Before he could step forward, Renn caught his sleeve. "Kael… don't answer anything you don't mean."
Kael nodded once. Then walked into the circle of light.
The walls around him lit with glyphs—dozens of them, spiraling out from the chamber's core like eyes opening one by one. The air grew heavy. Words pressed into him—not from a voice, but from within himself.
"Did you believe she would survive?"
Kael's pulse jumped. He knew who they meant. Ashra.
He forced himself to speak. "Yes."
A glyph on the left dimmed, fading without incident.
Accepted.
"Would you sacrifice her if it meant ending the chains?"
His throat dried.
His thoughts wavered.
"I… I don't know."
Wrong answer.
A glyph ignited red behind him, and pain lashed across his spine—searing, sharp, like a wire pulled through bone.
He dropped to one knee, gasping. Renn tried to rush in, but a ring of glyph light bloomed between them, forcing him back.
"Kael!"
Kael gritted his teeth. "It punishes hesitation."
The pain faded slowly, but its echo stayed.
The glyphs pulsed again.
"Did you know whose memory you erased?"
Kael closed his eyes. That one was easier.
"No."
The glyph dimmed. No pain this time.
"Would you trade your freedom for power?"
He answered without flinching. "Yes."
A mark ignited on his palm—spiraling, faint, glowing gold. It burned into his skin without breaking it. A sign. A seal.
From the wall ahead, a hidden glyph flared to life:
✦⟡⧬⟁
Kael stared.
Not active. Not yet.
But close.
Then came the final question.
"Are you becoming what they fear?"
His breath caught.
And then, truthfully—quietly—he answered:
"Yes."
The chamber shook. Not violently. Not in threat. But in approval.
The far wall cracked open, revealing a dark hallway carved from obsidian glass.
Beyond it, a forgotten armory.
Unlike the rest of the Vault, this place was filled with relics—glyphs etched into stone slabs, iron fragments, old bone, and brittle scrolls locked in silver. None of it was organized. This wasn't a library. It was a sealed ruin.
"This isn't for study," Renn muttered. "It's… it's a battlefield."
Kael nodded slowly. "Or a prison. A place they hid the knowledge they were too afraid to destroy."
At the far end stood a pedestal wrapped in rune-bound chains.
And on it, a black book, bound in what looked like scaled leather.
It pulsed faintly with breathless power.
Kael stepped forward. The moment his fingers touched its surface, his mind split open.
Visions flooded in—glyphs carved into sky, cities ruled by thought alone, mindflensers kneeling in the dark before beings shaped from memory. Wars not fought with blades, but with forgotten truths.
He staggered back. Renn caught him.
"What did you see?"
Kael stared at his own hands like they belonged to someone else.
"This is where the Mindflensers began," he whispered. "Before they twisted the glyphs. Before they silenced everyone else."
They returned to the sanctum with the book sealed in cloth.
Kael said nothing for nearly an hour.
Mira and Brenn joined them soon after, breathless from their patrol. Mira dropped to her knees and checked his face.
"You're bleeding again," she whispered, wiping his brow. "What did you find?"
Kael didn't look at her.
"They asked if I was becoming what they feared," he said.
"And what did you say?"
"I said yes."
That night, the glyph on Kael's hand continued to glow. The others slept restlessly.
But Kael sat before the cloth-wrapped Codex, its pulse faint, steady, and hungry.
He hadn't opened it yet.
But he knew…
When he did, nothing in his mind would be safe again.
And for the others—Renn, Mira, Brenn?
They would gain more than knowledge in the chapters ahead.
They would gain power.
And pay for it in kind.