The door to Kael's cell didn't open.
It simply… stopped being there.
One moment he was pacing, running a relic between his fingers to test its memory, and the next, the runes in the wall dimmed to black. The space where the door had been folded inward like a paper crease in reality, revealing a corridor of smoke and starlight.
A figure stood within it.
She wore a hood of woven shadow and veils of chain, her entire form wrapped in symbols older than speech. No footsteps. No breathing. Just silence—a silence so thick it pressed against Kael's eardrums like water.
He didn't speak.
He wasn't sure he could.
The figure moved forward without touching the floor, without disturbing air or space. Wherever she went, the warded stones of the cell flickered with confusion, like they weren't sure if they were allowed to exist in her presence.
Kael raised one hand instinctively.
The glyphs on his arm flared in response—softly, like a low growl in a sleeping animal.
The figure halted a few paces from him.
Beneath her hood, he caught the faintest glimpse of a face—serene, ageless, and terribly tired. Her eyes were sealed with silver threads. Her lips moved.
But no sound came.
Kael stepped forward.
"What are you?"
She tilted her head.
No answer.
Instead, she held out her hand, palm upward. Resting atop it was an object—an irregular, glassy shard with a core of flickering, imprisoned flame. The moment Kael looked at it, his ears rang.
It didn't speak.
It refused to.
Not in silence.
Not in memory.
Just presence.
Kael reached out slowly and took the shard.
The woman's hand closed in response—not quickly, but with finality. A gesture of release. Of transaction.
Then she vanished.
Not walked. Not teleported.
She ceased to be.
Kael stood there alone, holding the flame-shard. His palm trembled.
And then, as the door returned behind him with a whisper, the object in his hand twitched—just slightly.
Like something inside it had just woken up and wasn't pleased to be held.