The vault shimmered with pressure as if reality itself buckled beneath layered truths too ancient to speak aloud. Starlight from the ceiling constellations cracked like mirrors, fragments of light refracting wildly across Lynchie's skin as she stepped backward, eyes darting between the cocoon's glow and the tribunal officers descending like divine executioners.
The lead Seeker's blade crackled—not with flame or lightning, but with script. Each stroke etched into its surface pulsed, forming moving glyphs in languages lost to the mortal world.
"Stand down, Professor Mein. By authority of the Heavenly Synod and the Root-Voice Council, this subject is classified under Anomaly Protocol Nine," the lead Seeker announced, his voice resonating as if spoken from within a bell tower.
Lynchie didn't know what that meant. But she knew why they were here.
Not because she had disobeyed.
Not because she had stumbled into some divine mistake.
But because the thing inside that cocoon had seen her.
Had answered.
And that was never supposed to happen.
Mein's arm snapped forward, conjuring a defensive lattice of layered halos, one by one spinning into place like celestial rings. They weren't offensive—Mein wasn't foolish. His goal wasn't to fight.
It was to buy time.
"You're making a mistake," Mein growled.
The Seeker leader's helm tilted. "Are you admitting your part in the unlawful exposure to the Womb?"
"No one exposed her," Mein snapped. "The Spiral mark summoned the response. We all know what that means."
Lynchie stepped in front of him before he could speak again. "I didn't know any of this. I was brought here—dragged into your riddles. But you came with blades, not questions."
The Seeker didn't flinch. "And you were marked by a glyph that hasn't surfaced since the Hollow Codex was first sealed."
Mein's voice turned to steel. "Which proves the signs are awakening again."
The cocoon behind them pulsed with a sudden wave of heat and light. A low sound emerged—not a voice, not language. A hum that reverberated in the bones, like a celestial engine revving beneath the world.
And then—
The cocoon cracked.
A thin fissure laced down the center, bleeding silver light.
Every Seeker stopped.
Then one muttered, almost too low to hear:
"By the Thirteenth Sign..."
Suddenly, it wasn't just about Lynchie.
It was about what responded to her.
A being sealed away beneath the observatory dome. A myth. A threat. A fragment of prophecy.
The kind that reshapes factions.
Shatters accords.
And awakens wars.
The Seeker raised his blade again. "We cannot allow a convergence."
Mein moved fast—his glyph-circles flared, and with a wave, he forced a barrier between the vault's heart and the advancing tribunal. "I said stand down!"
It held for three seconds.
Then shattered.
Glyphlight exploded.
The first clash sounded not like steel, but like thunder tearing open sky.
Lynchie was thrown back by the shockwave. She crashed against a shelf, scrolls toppling around her as her ears rang. A voice—no, thought—threaded through the chaos.
"Do not fear. Your soul has been seen."
She turned her head toward the cocoon.
The light within it had taken form.
Wings. Horns. A face. Shifting like dream-smoke. Ancient and newborn all at once.
It reached out—not physically, but through presence.
And the Spiral on her palm burned again.
Brighter.
Then—
The vault exploded in silent light.
A dome of dreamforce surged outward, halting the Seekers mid-motion, suspending them like statues frozen mid-swing.
Only Lynchie moved.
Only she remained in motion within the field.
Her hand trembled.
The Spiral mark now bled lines of radiant script up her arm, across her collarbone, forming a living map of constellations.
And all around her, time had stopped.
Except—
The being in the cocoon opened its eyes.
One word filled her thoughts.
A name.
But it was not hers.
It was its own.
The chapter ends as Lynchie breathes in, afraid to speak it aloud.
Because names had power.
And this one had waited an eternity to be spoken.