The tunnels grew narrower as Serin led Cael deeper into the underworld, the crystal light fading until only darkness pressed in on every side. Their footsteps echoed faintly, mingling with the distant groan of the earth itself. Cael's arm throbbed where the arrow had cut him, and his body begged for rest, but his mind was alive with fire.
The Spiral had been his anchor since childhood. Tonight, Serin had torn that anchor loose and cast it into the abyss.
After what felt like hours, they came to a door. It was iron, ancient, half-swallowed by the stone around it. Strange marks were etched into its surface, symbols Cael did not recognize. Serin pressed his palm against the cold metal.
"Most think the undercity is only stone and water," Serin murmured. "But there are places even the priests fear to tread. This is one of them."
The door groaned as it opened, revealing a vast chamber beyond. Torches flared to life along the walls, ignited not by Serin's hand but by some hidden mechanism. Cael stepped inside and felt his breath catch.
The chamber was circular, its walls carved with reliefs — endless spirals, twisting upwards, filled with figures of beasts and men merging into one another. But here, unlike in the temples above, the spirals ended in fragments. Cracked. Broken. Some of the carved figures dissolved into shapeless forms, neither beast nor man, twisted and unfinished.
The sight chilled him.
Serin watched him closely. "Do you see? This is what the priests do not show. The Spiral is not only a tale of rising. It is also a tale of failure. They speak only of ascent, but silence the countless fractures."
Cael moved closer, tracing one of the carvings with his fingers. It showed something that might have been a wolf, but its jaw was malformed, its body curled in upon itself, as though unfinished. A thing that could not live.
His throat tightened. "If these are real… then the Spiral was never endless creation. It was… chaos. Chance without purpose."
"Chance cannot sustain," Serin said sharply. His voice echoed through the chamber, bouncing from stone to stone. "Look at the world. Do you see chaos? Do you see broken forms scattered through the forests, half-wings that cannot fly, half-eyes that cannot see? No. You see order. Wholeness. Purpose. The broken remain only here, carved as warnings, or buried in the silence of the earth. Chance does not write perfection. It only writes ruin."
Cael shivered, stepping back from the wall. His mind reeled with the weight of it. For the first time, he wondered if the Spiral priests knew the full truth of what they taught — or if they were hiding the cracks deliberately, feeding the people only half a story.
Before he could ask, a voice came from the shadows.
"You brought him here?"
Cael spun, his hand going instinctively to the satchel where the fossil lay. From a side passage, a figure stepped into the torchlight. A woman, cloaked in black, her hair bound tightly, her eyes sharp as blades. She moved with the silence of a predator, her gaze fixed on Cael with something between suspicion and disdain.
Serin lowered his blade slightly, though he did not relax. "This is the one I told you about, Liora. He saw it for himself. He carries proof."
The woman's eyes flicked to the satchel. "A fossil?" She gave a sharp laugh, but it held no humor. "That is your proof? A single relic against an empire of doctrine?"
Cael felt his face flush. He wanted to argue, to defend what he had seen, but the words caught in his throat. The woman's presence was overwhelming, like standing too close to a fire.
Serin stepped between them. "It's enough. Enough to wake questions. And questions are all we need."
Liora's expression softened only slightly. She approached Cael, her steps soundless on the stone. When she was close enough to touch him, she leaned in, her voice a whisper. "You don't look like someone ready to burn the Spiral to the ground. You look like someone still clinging to its ashes."
Cael met her gaze, trembling but unwilling to look away. "I don't know what I believe anymore. But I know this—truth should not fear questions."
For a heartbeat, silence hung between them. Then Liora's lips curved into the faintest of smiles, though her eyes remained hard. "Perhaps you are worth keeping alive after all."
She turned sharply, gesturing toward the far end of the chamber. "Come. There is something you should see."
They followed her across the circular hall to a low archway. Beyond it lay a narrow corridor that descended steeply, the air growing colder with every step. At last, it opened into a cavern so vast that Cael could not see the ceiling. Crystals jutted from the walls like teeth, glowing faintly, bathing the chamber in ghostly light.
And at the center…
Cael froze. His breath left him in a rush.
At the chamber's heart, encased in a column of translucent stone, was a creature unlike anything he had ever seen. Its body was massive, coiled like a serpent, but with wings folded tight against its sides. Its skull was elongated, lined with ridges that hinted at power, its jaws filled with teeth sharper than blades. The thing was not fossilized. Not stone. Its flesh, pale and smooth, gleamed beneath the crystal.
It looked as though it were sleeping.
"What… what is it?" Cael whispered, his voice trembling.
Serin's face was grim. "Proof that the Spiral is not only false. It is dangerous. They tell us creatures rise from simplicity to perfection. But what of perfection that should not exist? What of forms that never change, yet appear in every age? This one…" He gestured to the crystal prison. "This one should not be here at all. Its kind is written in myths older than the city itself. And yet here it sleeps, as if time has not touched it."
Cael staggered closer, unable to tear his eyes from the creature. His hand pressed against the crystal. Cold bit his skin. The thing inside seemed almost to stir, as though some faint pulse lingered within.
Liora's voice was quiet, but it carried like steel. "The Spiral priests know of this. They keep it hidden, as they keep so much. Because if the people saw this—if they knew that such things exist, unchanged and defiant of the Spiral's song—their empire would shatter."
Cael's pulse thundered in his ears. The fossil had shaken him. The carvings had unsettled him. But this… this was a hammer blow.
"What are you saying?" he asked, though part of him feared the answer.
Serin met his gaze, his eyes hard with truth. "I am saying the Spiral is not merely a lie of chance. It is a shield. A shield to hide something far greater. And if we do not uncover it, if we do not tear the silence apart… the world itself may be living under a story designed to blind it."
Cael's hand trembled against the crystal. He could not tell if the trembling came from himself… or from the creature within.
And in that moment, anticipation burned in him like fire. Whatever the Spiral was hiding, it was more than doctrine. More than fossils. More than lies.
It was alive.