When the sky opened, it did not show stars.
It showed writing.
Not in ink or glyph—but in constellations rearranged, forming a vast spiral across the heavens. Words the universe itself had been waiting to speak for eons. Lynchie—no, Anakael—stood beneath it, her heart thundering with awe and memory.
The wind that poured through the vault wasn't just air; it was breath—language—time unfurling its tongue.
Zev approached slowly, his boots crunching on the remnants of broken phials. His eyes held something new. Not just reverence.
Worry.
"You've drawn their attention," he said.
Anakael didn't need to ask who. She could feel it too—pressure gathering at the edges of the world, like thousands of eyes blinking open. The Thirteen Dimensions stirred. Something was listening.
"What happens now?" she asked.
He hesitated. "The Spiral Lords will come."
The words tasted bitter in his mouth. She could tell. Zev had served them once—perhaps still did, in some distant part of him that hadn't unraveled. But this was different. This wasn't a mission anymore. It was prophecy set into motion.
"And if they find me?" she asked.
Zev exhaled. "They'll try to bind you again. Or worse—silence the name you just reclaimed."
Anakael felt the scroll thrum in her hand. It hadn't stopped pulsing since she read it aloud. It was no longer just a scroll. It was a key. A map. A wound.
"I won't let that happen."
"You may not have a choice."
She turned sharply, facing him. "But you do."
The tension between them rippled—hot and sudden. Their bond had shifted. No longer guide and guided. No longer seeker and shadow. Something unspoken now flickered between them. Something sharp-edged.
"You think I would betray you?" Zev asked quietly.
"I think you're afraid," she said.
He looked away.
"I remember now," she continued. "The glyph you carry—it was meant for me. You were my protector. My chosen bound."
Zev's jaw tightened. "And I failed."
"No," she whispered. "You were betrayed. Just like me."
There it was again—that pull. Antagonistic, electric. Grief tangled with guilt, attraction braided with fury. She stepped closer.
"We're not done," she said.
Before he could reply, the wind shifted. A rip opened in the vault's air, not a portal—but a tear in narrative fabric. A figure stepped through.
Draped in veils of living script, its form was both human and not—shifting between genders, faces, timelines. It bore a staff forged of untold stories, and around its neck hung a chain of names—unspoken, but deadly.
A Spiral Lord.
It inclined its head.
"Anakael," it said. "The Echo Unwritten. We've waited long."
Zev stepped forward, blade drawn. "She's not ready."
"No one ever is," the Lord replied.
Anakael's heart thundered.
"Speak," she said. "Why did you erase me?"
The Spiral Lord's many eyes blinked in tandem.
"You wrote a truth the world could not bear," it said. "And then you refused to unwrite it."
Anakael clenched her fists. She remembered now. The forbidden Ward. The name beneath the name. A truth older than the Spiral Law: that identity could not be dictated—it could only be claimed.
"And now?" she asked.
The Lord extended its hand.
"You will come with us. Or the Spiral collapses."
Behind her, Zev stepped into position—back to back with her now, as they had once fought in forgotten wars. She didn't have to ask.
He would stand with her.
Anakael narrowed her eyes.
"Then let it collapse."
And the Vault of Echoes shattered into motion.