Kael drew a long breath.Forced his breathing to steady.
His muscles still protested.But he pushed himself upright.
Before him, the specters remained frozen in their eternal banquet.
Immense silhouettes.Stooped.Three meters tall.
Their translucent flesh throbbed faintly, like a flame about to gutter out.
No movement.No blink.
Only heads that, at times, tracked his motion by the slightest fraction.As if their dead eyes still tried to capture a memory of life.
The whole hall seemed suspended in that immobility.
A nave of stone.Raised like a funerary cathedral.
A long table ran through the center.Cracked goblets.Chipped platters.Petrified scraps of a feast long devoured.
Every shadow quivered under the invisible weight of those eternal guests.The silence itself carried a breath too dense.Saturated with stagnant Magia.
A place where even time seemed to have stopped flowing.
Kael let his gaze brush the western wall.That was where Thana had pointed.
A narrow path.Edged with thick shadow.Led to a monumental door.
Three meters high.As wide as two men shoulder to shoulder.
Made of dark wood.An unknown essence, veined with grayish gleams.
Reinforced with black metal.Riveted bands like the bones of a forgotten skeleton.
On each leaf, a massive ring.Forged for hands that were not human.
A glacial breath of Magia seeped from it.In waves.As if the door itself were breathing.
Kael clenched his fists.No detour.No alternative.
He dipped his head—barely.
Then, slowly, he moved.Shoulder skimming the icy stone.
Each step rang like a provocation.The silhouettes did not stir.Yet their mere presence was enough to crush him.
On his shoulder, Thana remained silent.Her halo quivered lightly.As if syncing its rhythm to his.
They must not break the fragile neutrality of this hall.
Kael edged along the wall.Slowly.Shoulder glued to the freezing stone.
The silence still vibrated.Each step was a trial.
The specters did not move.Fixed in their feast, like statues of shadow.
Halfway there, Thana shifted faintly upon his shoulder.Her halo hummed with an unspoken doubt.
— Kael…
He turned his head a fraction, without slowing.
She hesitated.As if her words ran up against something she didn't want to admit.
— I had… this doubt tucked away.I'd almost stopped thinking about it.
A beat.Then, lower:
— What if the door… doesn't open the way you think?
He frowned.— What do you mean?
— Maybe it doesn't open outward.But inward… into this hall.
Kael let out a short breath, almost wry.— Right… and then? That doesn't chan—
The flash.
His step halted.His mind linked it together before the words could form.
If the door opened inward…then to pull it, he would have to leave the wall.Advance into the hall.
And cross the perimeter.
His golden eyes lifted to the motionless specters.They hadn't moved.But he felt their silence press even harder.
Thana watched him, wordless.She didn't need to add a thing.He had understood.
Kael frowned.His first impulse had been simple: push, not pull.But another sensation would not leave him.
The door.
He had already brushed it with his gaze.Dark, unknown wood.Reinforced with black metal.
And now he felt it clearly.A breath.Heavy.Suffused.
Magia.Infused into the very material.
He tightened his fists.
Why?Why would the Tower load a simple door with such density?What need to saturate the wood with energy if not to set a trap?
A trap…Yes.But what kind?
A lock?A seal?Or a trigger, primed to fire the instant one touched it without care?
His golden eyes narrowed.He ran his hand along the wall's stone, keeping distance.He could not afford assumptions.
If the wood is alive, then the door is not an obstacle.It is a sentinel.
Thana leaned forward, her halo faintly vibrating.She didn't need to speak: she had seen the same thing.
Kael inhaled.A choice presented itself.Advance… but never forget this door was more than a passage.
Then suddenly,an idea cut through him.Unexpected.Sharp.
What if the door…was not a trap for him?
He lowered his gaze to the black metal reinforcements.To the dark wood, saturated with Magia.
No.It wasn't built to trick an intruder.It was too dense.Too heavy.
A seal.That's what it was.
A lock planted in the Tower's flesh.Not to stop him.But to contain what lay behind.
His golden eyes slid to the motionless specters, seated at their eternal banquet.
What if this door was made for them?To isolate them.To pen them in here.To keep them from spilling deeper into the floor.
A chill traced his spine.Because if he was right…then opening it would break the only barrier between this cursed feast and everything else.
Kael stood unmoving for a moment.The door's icy breath still grazed his skin.
Another question crossed him.Simple.Implacable.
— And even if we wanted to… can we pass?
Thana tilted her head slightly.He went on, eyes fixed on the massive rings:
— If it is a seal… how does the door tell them apart?What makes it recognize specters versus others?Their organic nature?Their Magia?Their… soul?
A heavy silence stretched.He set his jaw.Because the second thought was worse still.
— And if… by opening it, we freed them?
His eyes slid to the hall.The unmoving guests.Their nonexistent breath.Their dead gazes.
A confinement.Perhaps this door wasn't there to protect them.But to protect the rest of the floor from them.
A brutal shiver ran his back.
And if he was wrong?What if a single opened leaf was enough to shatter the balance?
Kael still stared at the door.His mind spun.
What if it recognized them as specters?What if it would not open for them?What if, by forcing… he broke the seal?What if—
A sharp tap to his skull.He jolted.
— Ow!
Thana, tiny on his shoulder, had just rapped him smartly.Her eyes flashed.
— Stop, Kael.You're spiraling.
He ground his teeth but didn't answer.His breath was quick, too quick.
She went on, firmer:— Drowning in "what ifs" won't get you through this door.
A beat.Then, lower, almost gentle:— Look at it. Observe. Analyze.No more. No less.
Kael closed his eyes for a moment.Exhaled slowly.The whirling thoughts stilled.
He reopened his golden eyes.Fixed on the door.On its rings.On the pulse of Magia still humming.
Clearer.Steadier.
He narrowed his eyes.The door still vibrated under his golden gaze.
And suddenly, he saw it.
A mark.Fine, discreet, almost erased by time.Etched into the black metal of the rings.
A rune.Unknown.But its shape…
He blinked.Tilted his head slightly.
Yes.The same.
On the collars of the specters, clasped around their translucent throats.An identical rune.The same curve.The same engraving.
The link was plain.Rings and collars, forged from the same metal.Charged with the same Magia.
The door was not merely a barrier.It was a lock.Tied directly to their chains.
Cold prickled along Kael's nape.Each leaf, each brace of the door vibrated in unison with them.
If the rune gave way here…then the specters might cease to sit at this eternal table.And rise.
Kael stood rigid.His golden gaze slid from the door's rings to the specters' collars and back again.The same metal.The same rune.
Everything screamed trap.Everything howled confinement.
He knew it.So did Thana.
But turn back?Impossible.
He clenched his fists.His teeth clicked.
— Enough.
A glacial breath slipped from him.He set his hand to the black metal ring.
Cold bit his skin at once.A vibration rang through his arm.Magia boiled under his veins.
Thana watched him, halo flickering.— Kael…
He didn't look away.— If it's a trap, I'll take it.And if it's a seal… I'll see what it unleashes.
He inhaled.Pushed with all his strength.
The door rumbled.A deep, thick growl rolled through the entire hall.The dark wood yielded slowly, centimeter by centimeter.
And beyond the leaf, the shadow of the stair opened.
The door gave at last.On a breath of damp air.Cold.Saturated.
A rumble rose at once from the depths.Heavy.Subterranean.As if the Tower itself felt its seal begin to crack.
Kael clenched his fists.His breath ran short.Every fiber of his body screamed warning.
Before him, the stair plunged.Hewn from the very stone.Wet.Slippery.
On the first step, a symbol burned faintly.The same as on the rings.The same as on the collars.
A link.A warning.
Kael drew breath.And took a step.