The spiral corridor dissolved behind them as they ran. Not collapsed—dissolved—walls unraveling into streams of light that bent and reformed into impossible angles ahead.
Lyra risked a glance back. The serpent didn't slither—it flowed, as if space itself parted for it. Every coil that struck the floor left spirals glowing in its wake, and from those spirals, whispers poured like smoke.
"Kaelen," she gasped, "this isn't just chasing us. It's changing the Tower."
Kaelen didn't answer—he couldn't waste breath. His fire burned brighter, but even it bent in strange arcs, pulled by forces he couldn't name.
The candle-bearer darted ahead, small and swift, their flame somehow still alive. "Left!" they shouted.
A passage opened where there had been none, and they veered into it just as the serpent lunged. Its massive head slammed into the space they'd just left—except instead of striking stone, it struck nothing. Reality there simply blinked out, consumed by the force of its presence.
They kept running, but the Tower wasn't on their side. Hallways shifted mid-step. Doors opened into voids. Stairs inverted into ceilings. The maze was alive and hunting.
"Stop!" the candle-bearer cried suddenly, throwing out an arm.
Kaelen skidded to a halt inches from what looked like another corridor—but when he reached out, his hand met a smooth, invisible wall. Beyond it, dozens of other versions of themselves ran in every direction—ghostly reflections in parallel halls, all fleeing from the same serpent.
Lyra's voice was tight with panic. "Are those… us?"
"No," the candle-bearer whispered. "They're what the Tower thinks we'll do. Wrong paths. Dead ends."
The serpent's hum rolled closer, shaking the maze. The reflections began to vanish, one by one, snuffed out.
Kaelen clenched his fists. "Then we make a path it doesn't expect."
He slammed his fire into the invisible wall. Instead of burning, it fractured—like glass under pressure.
The candle-bearer's eyes widened. "Do it again!"
Together, Kaelen's fire and Lyra's molten blade struck the same point. The wall shattered—revealing a stair that plunged downward instead of up.
The serpent roared—not a command this time, but pure fury—as they leapt through the opening and fell into darkness, the maze collapsing above them.