Lyra gasped, sucking in air that felt too thick, too heavy. She pushed herself to her feet and froze.
They weren't in the hall anymore.
They stood in an endless expanse of shifting color—blues melting into reds, fragments of landscapes rising and dissolving like waves. Pieces of cities floated upside down in the distance, and the sky was a swirling mirror of stars… but each star pulsed like a heartbeat.
Kaelen stirred, groaning. "Where… the hell are we?"
Lyra knelt beside him. "I don't know. I think…" She glanced around, chills crawling up her spine. "…I think we're inside what's left of the Architect."
A deep hum vibrated through the air, making her teeth ache.
The Guide
A flicker of movement caught her eye—a figure in the distance, cloaked in silver light, walking slowly across the fragmented ground.
"Do you see that?" she whispered.
Kaelen nodded weakly, gripping his weapon though his hands trembled. "We follow. But stay ready."
They approached the figure cautiously. As they drew nearer, the figure stopped and turned. Its face was… wrong. Shifting constantly, sometimes Kaelen's, sometimes Lyra's, sometimes Ceyra's.
"You seek escape," it said, voice like a chorus of whispers. "But to leave this place, you must know what you've done."
Lyra tensed. "What we've done?"
The figure raised its hand, and instantly, they were surrounded by visions:
—Kaelen cutting down enemy soldiers without mercy.
—Lyra betraying an ally to save herself.
—Ceyra… choosing to unleash a plague on an entire colony to stop a rebellion.
Kaelen staggered back, horrified. "These aren't—this isn't—"
"They are truths," the figure said calmly. "And until you face them, you will rot here, as I have."
The Seed of Doubt
Lyra's heart pounded. Was this the Architect's remnant? Or something deeper, some ancient force within the Veil?
Before she could speak, the figure's form rippled violently. Its face locked into one final shape—Ceyra's.
"You left me to die," it hissed.
Lyra's breath caught. "Ceyra?"
But the figure lunged, its body unraveling into razor-sharp threads of light.
Kaelen shoved Lyra aside as the attack sliced the ground where she'd been standing. "It's not them!" he shouted. "It's testing us!"
The world around them began to break apart, shards of reality falling away into nothingness.
And then, beneath the chaos, Lyra heard it again—Ceyra's real voice, faint but insistent, not from the figure but from somewhere deeper:
"Find me… before it's too late."