The corridor narrowed, its walls carved with bas-reliefs of Cybele's ancient processions—priestesses bearing pomegranates and serpents, their stone eyes hollowed by time. Astris's boots scuffed over flagstones worn smooth by forgotten feet, the air thick with the musk of damp clay and myrrh. Suddenly, the runes flanking her flared to life, their jagged symbols glowing a venomous green. She froze, the grimoire in her satchel vibrating against her hip as if resonating with the script.
"Not good," she muttered, her breath fogging in the sudden chill.
The thundering began as a low growl, reverberating through the floor like the Spire's own heartbeat. Dust sifted from the ceiling, and the walls trembled, dislodging shards of lapis lazuli inlay. Astris sprinted forward, a glow below her sternum burning with a cold, blue-white light. It pulsed in time with the grimoire's frantic hum, searing through her uniform.
"Not now—" She clutched her chest, skidding around a corner as the corridor behind her collapsed in a roar of stone. Ahead, the passage yawned into a circular chamber, its domed ceiling painted with a mural of Cybele astride a lion, her stone gaze fixed on a crescent moon cradling a thousand tiny stars. Beneath it, the walls were alive with petroglyphs—farmers tilling fields beneath twin suns, warriors clashing with chimeric beasts, a great flood swallowing a ziggurat.
The thundering crescendoed, now accompanied by a skittering, chittering din—like mandibles scraping stone. Astris lunged into the chamber just as the corridor entrance sealed shut with a deafening crunch. Trapped.
"Dammit!" She slammed a fist against the wall, then stilled. Her stomach growled loudly, the sound absurd amidst the chaos. "Quiet," she hissed, as though her own body were a petulant child.
The chamber's air hummed with static. Astris approached the mural, her dagger's edge catching the glow from her chest. The petroglyphs seemed to shift under her gaze—the farmers' hoes becoming spears, the floodwaters morphing into serpents. She traced a glyph of Cybele holding a chalice, her fingers brushing a line of cuneiform.
The room warped.
Stone groaned, the mural rippling like water. The crescent moon detached from the ceiling, hovering midair as the chamber's floor buckled. Astris stumbled, the glow in her chest flaring brighter. "No, no, no—"
The petroglyphs bled color—ochre reds, cobalt blues—swirling into a vortex around her. Cybele's lion roared soundlessly, its stone jaws widening into a portal of searing light. Astris felt the pull, inexorable as a riptide, dragging her toward the mural.
"Let go!" She stabbed her dagger into the floor, the blade screeching against stone. But the grimoire tore free from her satchel, pages fluttering open to a sigil that mirrored the glowing runes outside. The vortex yanked harder, and with a curse, Astris released the dagger, her body catapulted into the maelstrom.
The last thing she saw was the chalice in Cybele's hands—now unmistakably her crystal ball—before light swallowed her whole.
When the world solidified, she was elsewhere.
Cool, briny air replaced the dungeon's stifling musk. Waves crashed in the distance. Before her stretched a moonlit shoreline, ruins of a marble temple half-submerged in the surf. And there, etched in the sand, another fresh footprint—this one leading toward the water.
"Clever girl," a voice echoed from the shadows, smooth as oil. "But the maze is just beginning."
Astris whirled, dagger raised, as the glow in her chest dimmed to an ember.
*****
The palace corridors unfurled like gilded veins, their marble floors polished to a mirror sheen, reflecting the flicker of mana-lit sconces shaped like rearing lions. Cassis's boots—still dusted with Lower Ward grime—clicked a furious rhythm beside Zaiden's measured strides. She opened her mouth, the wyvern bracelet on her wrist humming with unspoken accusations, but he silenced her with a glance sharp enough to cut glass.
"Not here," he muttered, his wolf pendant glinting under the chandeliers.
Cedric materialized from a shadowed alcove, his ledger clutched to his chest like a shield. "Your Highness, your schedule—"
"Clear it," Zaiden interrupted, not breaking stride. "The next three days."
"But the Frostbane banquet, the trade envoy from Naramore—"
"Clear it." Zaiden's Echohold scars flickered faintly, a silent command Cedric knew better than to defy.
Cassis gripped Zaiden's hand—a gesture half-pretence, half-anchor—as they veered toward the barracks wing. The air grew colder, the opulent tapestries giving way to maps of dungeon grids and mana-crystal deposits. Collan's office loomed ahead, its oak door scarred by blade marks and coffee stains.
Inside, the room buzzed with grim energy. Collan leaned over a table strewn with Celestaviel terrain maps, his Glowmarks casting jagged blue light over the parchment. Vadim slouched against a weapons rack, sharpening a dagger with a whetstone that sang of sea salt and impatience. Miles hovered near a cracked window, his fey compass spinning wildly, while Zander melted in and out of shadows like a living blade.
"Welcome back," Collan said, not looking up. "We leave at dawn."
Cassis slammed the door. "Dawn? We go now—"
"We are going now," Collan snapped, straightening. "But the Cleft's in Celestaviel territory. We need wyverns to reach it without scaling cliffs chewed up by dungeon rot."
"Wyverns?" Cassis's bracelet tightened. "Only beast-tamers can ride those. And Celestaviel's tamers answer to my uncle Drystan."
Vadim grinned, tossing his dagger into the table's center. It quivered beside a sketched wyvern saddle. "Hence the 'joint training mission.' A few of your cousin's loyalists owe me favors. We'll ride double—tamers upfront, us clinging behind. Very romantic."
Zaiden crossed to the map, tracing the Hulda Cleft's jagged outline. "And if Drystan notices?"
"Let him choke on the paperwork," Collan said, rolling up the map. "By the time he sniffs out the ruse, we'll be in the Cleft."
A roar split the night—deep, resonant, shaking the windowpanes. Vyrinth, Zaiden's Pyreclaw dragon, circled the barracks tower, her ember scales igniting the clouds. The Spire's growl faltered momentarily, as if wary of the ancient predator.
"Show-off," Vadim muttered, though relief softened his smirk.
Cassis stared at the dagger in the table, her reflection warped in its steel. "This is reckless."
"So's kidnapping a Doran," Collan said, shrugging into his Glowmarked vambraces. "We match fire with fire."
Zaiden met her gaze. "You in, Princess?"
Outside, Vyrinth landed with a ground-shaking thud, her molten eyes narrowing at the gathering storm. Cassis touched her bracelet, the wyvern skull cold against her pulse.
"Try to stop me."
The hunt, at last, had wings.
*****
Astris began to walk, her steps sinking into the shifting sand of the beach. The bioluminescent glow of the kelp cast eerie shadows that danced along the ancient ruins. Yet, despite her movement, the scenery remained unaltered—the same crumbling pillars, the same shimmering seabed, the same spectral light playing tricks on her senses. It was as if the world was frozen in time, mocking her attempts to break free.
Determined, she quickened her pace, her muscles straining against the gritty shifting sand. But it was all in vain. The landscape around her stubbornly refused to change, as if bound by an invisible force. Panic began to gnaw at her resolve. She broke into a run, her heart pounding, her breath ragged. Faster and faster she ran, but her surroundings remained unyielding, locked in stasis.
Frustration surged through her veins, burning hotter than any flame. She stopped abruptly, her chest heaving, eyes wide with desperation. Raising her gaze to the heavens, she screamed, her voice lost in the endless blue sky. "WHAT? WHAT IS IT? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"
The ground beneath her feet trembled violently, responding to her anguished plea. The ocean, which had been a silent observer, suddenly roared to life. A monstrous wave, gleaming with the fury of the depths, rose up and crashed down upon her. Astris was engulfed, dragged into the heart of the sea, the saltwater burning her eyes and clogging her lungs.
The sea swallowed her whole, pulling her deeper and deeper into its dark embrace. Light fractured into shards of silver above her, as if the sky itself was breaking apart. She thrashed against the current, muscles screaming with the effort, until exhaustion claimed her. Her thoughts grew bitter as the glow beneath her sternum flickered weakly.
In that moment of surrender, she inhaled—not water, but cold, metallic air that stung like winter wine. The sea around her stilled, suspended in time. Below, the seabed shimmered with ruins—crumbling pillars carved with Cybele's lions, their manes tangled with bioluminescent kelp. But the vision unfolding before her was no memory of Lismore.
A dying world materialized: a barren plain under a sickly green sky, its horizon jagged with skeletal spires. Figures robed in tattered starlight gathered around a crystal monolith, their chants echoing like a dirge. Plague had gnawed the land to bone—rivers ran black, forests were petrified claws, and the few surviving inhabitants bore lesions that pulsed with unnatural light.
"One last rite," a voice intoned—a woman with antlers fused to her skull, her hands raised to the monolith. "The Spire will carry us… elsewhere."
The crystal erupted in a beam of searing gold, splitting the sky. A portal yawned, swallowing cities, forests, and the gasping remnants of life. When the light faded, the survivors stood on a new world—a mirror of their own, but lush, untouched. Rivers ran clear, mountains scraped clouds, and everywhere, temples. Cybele's face gazed from every fresco, her stone hands cradling crescent moons.
The merged cultures clashed. The refugees, gaunt and scarred, built altars to their lost Spire, while the native worshippers of Cybele offered fruit and song to the goddess they believed had delivered these "blessed strangers." But the plague had followed—not in flesh, but in the earth itself. The ground split, vomiting forth dungeons: labyrinthine pits where walls breathed, and mutated creatures—shadows of the refugees' former kin—crawled forth, their bodies warped by the unresolved sickness.
"The Spire's sin," whispered the antlered woman in the vision, now a ghostly figure beside Astris. "We brought the rot with us. Cybele's grace holds it at bay… for now."
Astris reached out, her fingers passing through the specter. "Why show me this?"
The vision shifted: Cybele's temples crumbling as dungeons multiplied, their tendrils strangling the land. The goddess's voice boomed, not from the heavens, but from the depths—"Balance demands sacrifice."
Astris gasped as the vision spat her back into the present. She floated in a cavern beneath the sea, the ruins around her now alive with glowing runes. Cybele's mural dominated the far wall, the goddess's eyes weeping stone tears. At her feet lay an altar, its surface etched with the same sigil that had dragged Astris here—a crescent moon cradling a dying star.
"Sacrifice," Astris murmured, her chest aching where the glow mark had burned. She pressed a hand to the altar, and the runes flared—not green, but gold. The dungeon walls shuddered, and somewhere above, the Spire's growl answered.
*****
The storm growled over Celestaviel's jagged peaks, its fury mirrored in the molten gaze of Vyrinth, Zaiden's dragon. Her emerald scales shimmered with veins of magma, each breath hissing like a forge as she descended. Zaiden leaned into the wind, his shaggy black hair whipping against the silver wolf pendant at his throat—Celestaviel's betrothal token, cold as duty. Beside him, Cassis gripped Valor's reins, her wyvern's silver wings slicing through the tempest. The wyvern skull bracelet on her wrist pulsed faintly, its bone chilling her pulse. A reminder: loyalty bites deeper than fangs.
Vadim's laughter cut through the gale as his own wyvern, Nyx, banked sharply. "Try not to vomit this time, cousin!" he called to Cassis, his chestnut braid unraveling in the wind. She shot him a glare, but the ghost of a smirk betrayed her. Valor screeched, talons skimming the moss-slick battlements of Celestaviel's western gate—a crumbling relic from an era when wyverns, not diplomats, ruled these skies.
Below, the portal flared.
Collan Doran stepped through first, his Glowmark tattoos flickering like drowned stars under the ashen light. The air reeked of smoldering thyme—hallmarks of Lismore's unstable ley-line crossings. Miles followed, muttering a mangled proverb about "dancing with disgruntled badgers," while Zander's cranberry-stained fingers were already tracing the hilt of a blade. Cora Green scowled at the storm, her clairvoyant gaze darting to the guards' tower. Four men. Two crossbows. One with a limp.
"Papers," barked a guard, his cerulean tabard soaked through. Collan's grin widened—a lion's smile, all teeth and trouble.
"Papers?" He clapped a hand to his chest, armor clanging. "We're your gods-damned training contingent! Didn't the notice arrive? Feathers and fire, this alliance is off to a stellar start." His voice boomed, theatrical as a bard's ballad. Behind him, Sloan Taner snorted, tossing a caramel into the air and catching it in her teeth. "Tell me," Collan pressed, jabbing a finger at the guard's crest, "does that unicorn symbolize incompetence, or is that just you?"
The guards exchanged glances. One fumbled for a scroll.
Vadim chose that moment to stride forward, boots crunching gravel. "There you are!" he snapped, every inch the exasperated noble. Nyx's shadow loomed behind him, wings blotting out the storm. "You were due at the roost an hour ago. Are Lismoreans allergic to schedules?"
Collan threw up his hands. "Blame your bureaucrats! Our permits vanished faster than a goblin in a gold vault."
Vadim cursed, dragging a hand down his face. "Unbelievable. Four riders are waiting, half our wyverns under-saddled—" He turned to the guards, voice sharpening. "Escort them. Now. Unless you want Queen Isolde hearing her precious 'unity initiative' died at your post?"
The guards stiffened. Queen Isolde's temper was legendary—rumor claimed she'd once frozen a diplomat mid-lie, his tongue snapping off like an icicle.
"Th-this way, my lord," stammered the youngest guard, bowing too deeply.
The group moved swiftly through Celestaviel's lower wards, where cobblestones glittered with wyvern dung and the sour tang of seaweed stew wafted from taverns. Vadim led, humming a sea shanty under his breath—a nervous habit, Cassis knew, from their pirate-hunting days. Zander drifted behind, scanning rooftops.
"Four more riders, eh?" Miles drawled, sidling up to Vadim. "You pluck that number from the air, or's there actually a plan?"
Vadim's wolfish grin returned. "There's always a plan, Doran. Even if it's held together by spit and spite."
Ahead, the wyvern roost loomed—a colossal aerie carved into the cliffs, its arches threaded with bioluminescent vines. The beasts inside shrieked, their cries echoing like fractured glass. Cora's pendant flared—danger, close—but she shoved the thought down. Focus. Breathe. Salt in your pouch, not hexes.
Rainer Vain lingered at the rear, scrubbing a speck of mud from his sleeve. "Disgusting," he muttered, though his eyes lingered on a stray hound limping into an alley. Sloan tossed it a caramel.
"You're wasting sweets," Rainer said.
"Nah." He winked. "Just recruiting."
Zaiden waited at the roost's entrance, Vyrinth's tail flicking impatiently. Cassis dismounted, her boots sinking into the damp peat. For a heartbeat, their eyes met—Zaiden's blue as a glacier's heart, hers the storm-gray of a winter sea.
"Took you long enough," he said.
"You try herding riders," she shot back, though her fingers brushed Valor's muzzle—steady, steady.
Vadim clapped his hands. "Saddle up, drama queens. We've got a schedule to ruin."
As the others scrambled for wyverns, Zaiden leaned close to Cassis, his voice a blade wrapped in velvet. "Stay sharp, Princess. This storm's got teeth."
She arched a brow. "Says the man who wrestles goblins."
He smirked, but his hand lingered on Vyrinth's scales—a tell. The dragon's molten eyes narrowed, her growl harmonizing with the thunder.
Somewhere, deep in the roost, a shackle snapped.
The guards never noticed the falcon circling above—Miles' fey-drenched compass tucked in its talons, spinning wildly toward the Hulda Cleft.
*****
The cavern breathed.
Astris felt it in the shudder of salt-crusted stone beneath her palms, in the sigh of seawater seeping through cracks in the ancient walls. Bioluminescent kelp clung to the ruins like cobwebs, their ghostly blue light rippling over glyphs carved by hands long turned to dust. Cybele's mural loomed above, the goddess's stone eyes following her every move. Judging. Always judging.
"Why show me all that?" Astris muttered, her voice swallowed by the cavern's hollow throat. The vision clung to her like a second skin—the dying world, the Spire's golden betrayal, the refugees' plague seeping into the earth. Her fingers brushed the altar's sigil, the crescent moon cool beneath her touch. The runes along the walls pulsed in response, their gold light bleeding into the cracks of a forgotten language. Follow, they seemed to whisper. Remember.
She stepped back, boots crunching over barnacle-shells and brittle coral. The grimoire lay where it had fallen, its pages splayed open like a wounded bird. The sigil on its cover—a twin to the altar's—glowed faintly, threads of light snaking toward the runes on the walls. As she lifted it, the book trembled, its spine creaking with a sound like distant thunder.
Two weeks, she thought. The Convergence—when the Veil between worlds would thin, when the Spire's hunger might finally break its chains. Her free hand drifted to her sternum, where the mark beneath her skin flickered like a caged star. Two weeks to unravel what Cybele's disciples couldn't in centuries.
The runes led her deeper, their light pooling in the grooves of petroglyphs that told stories in fragments: a lioness devouring the moon, a flood swallowing a crown, a priestess plunging a dagger into her own heart. Astris trailed her fingers over the carvings, the stone unnervingly warm. Alive.
"You're late, Astris."
Her mother's voice.
She froze. The unfamiliar vision unfolded without permission—a sunlit library in Lismore's university, dust motes swirling like lazy fireflies. Twelve-year-old Astris, dwarfed by grimoires, had stumbled upon a mural of Cybele holding a chalice. Her mother, Professor Iliana Doran, had appeared beside her, smelling of lemon polish and burnt sage. "The chalice isn't a cup," she'd said, tapping the fresco. "It's a prison. For the things even gods fear."
Astris blinked, the cavern snapping back into focus. Before her, the runes flared, etching a new path. This way, they urged.
"I'm trying," she hissed, though whether to the ghost of her mother or the dungeon itself, she couldn't say.
The corridor opened into a vaulted chamber, its ceiling strung with stalactites that dripped metallic water into shallow pools below. At its center stood a pedestal of black basalt, and upon it—a mirror. Not glass, but liquid mercury, its surface rippling as though stirred by unseen currents. Astris approached, her reflection warping into a stranger: older, fiercer, a crown of starlight tangled in her hair.
"Balance demands sacrifice." Cybele's voice, echoing from the mirror.
Astris recoiled, but the grimoire tugged her forward, its pages flipping wildly. A sketch surfaced—a mercury mirror, identical to this one, labeled "The Veil's Eye." Beneath it, a footnote in cramped script: "To see beyond the Spire, one must first shatter the self."
"Cryptic nonsense," Astris snapped, but her hand hovered over the mercury. The mark beneath her sternum burned, insistent.
She pressed her palm to the liquid.
Cold.
Then—
Fire.
The chamber dissolved. She stood in Lismore's streets, but warped: buildings melted like candle wax, the Spire a gnarled black claw tearing through the sky. Creatures slithered from its base—shadows with too many eyes, their bodies stitched from dungeon moss and human screams. Among the chaos, familiar faces: Zaiden, his dragon Vyrinth screaming as tendrils dragged her underground; Cassis, Valor's wings shredded; Cora Green's clairvoyant gaze hollowed to bloodied sockets.
"No—" Astris choked.
"A possible future," the mirror whispered. "Or inevitable, should the Spire's sin repeat."
She wrenched her hand back, mercury clinging to her skin like liquid guilt. The vision splintered, leaving her gasping in the cavern's chill. The grimoire fell silent.
The runes dimmed as Astris retraced her steps, the grimoire heavy with secrets. She paused at the altar, where the sigil's gold had faded to ashen gray. In the vision's aftermath, the pieces aligned: the Spire was no mere dungeon—it was a bridge, a relic of the refugees' desperation. And Cybele's "sacrifice" wasn't a blessing, but a bargain—one the Convergence might shatter.
Her mother's voice haunted her, sharp as a blade. "The chalice is a prison."
Astris stared at the mark beneath her uniform, its light now steady, resolved.
"Fine," she whispered to the dark. "But I'm choosing what gets sacrificed."
Above, the Spire growled. Somewhere in the night, rescue winged closer—unaware the maze had teeth, and the dungeon's heart beat in time with Astris's own.