The river carried them far from the echoes of battle, into a silence so complete it pressed on Cael's ears like a weight. The raft drifted slowly now, the current less fierce, the waters calm and glasslike.
Crystals still lined the walls, but here they were pale, almost colorless, casting a soft silver glow. Their light did not burn like fire—it lingered, like the memory of a moon. Cael's reflection stared back at him in the water, distorted by ripples, fractured by every pulse of the fossil in his hands.
The silence allowed thoughts to creep in, unbidden, unbearable.
He saw Serin's last stand again and again, the blaze of the Ashen Blade cleaving through armor, the roar of his command, the dust swallowing him whole. Serin's words had not been for himself. They had been for Cael.
"Marked." The word clung to Cael's mind like tar. What did it mean to be marked? Chosen by whom? For what? The Spiral priests taught that no hand guided life—that all was accident, all was chance. Yet the fossil burned in his hands like a heartbeat, the blade had chosen Serin, and the river whispered memories that no chance could hold.
Chance had no memory. Chance did not choose.
The raft bumped gently against a rocky shelf, breaking Cael from his spiral of thought. Liora pushed them off with her dagger's hilt, her movements sharp even in exhaustion.
"You're quiet," she said without looking at him.
Cael managed a bitter laugh. "What should I say? That I've spent my life memorizing lies? That the priests who raised me were wardens, not teachers? That Serin's dead because of me?"
Her eyes flicked to him, hard but not cruel. "He died because of the Spiral, not you. Don't give them more than they've already stolen."
The words cut deep, though they steadied him more than comfort could.
For a time, they drifted in silence again. Then, Cael's eyes caught something carved into the cavern wall. Strange symbols, weathered but still visible, etched deep into the stone.
"Wait," he said. "There—look."
The raft bumped close enough for him to reach out. His fingers brushed the grooves of the carvings. They were spirals, yes, but broken—spirals interrupted by straight lines, fractured into shards. Around them were figures: men and women standing in defiance, holding what looked like fire in their hands.
"What is this?" Cael whispered.
Liora's face darkened. "The Old Marks."
"The Old Marks?"
She nodded slowly. "Before the Spiral priests carved their endless coil into every wall and every heart, there were others who left their mark. They believed the world was not blind, not endless chance, but woven. Every stone laid with purpose, every creature bound to meaning. The priests call them heretics. Rebels. But they were the first to stand against the lie."
Cael traced the broken spirals with trembling fingers. The figures in the carving seemed to look back at him, their eyes sharp even through erosion, as if daring him to see.
"The priests erased this," he murmured.
"They tried," Liora said. "But stone remembers, just as rivers do. You asked where the Spiral came from? It was not found. It was built. Forged in fear, hammered into people until they could no longer imagine anything else. A perfect prison, painted as freedom."
Her words sank deep, and for the first time Cael felt the full weight of the world he had inherited. The Spiral had not revealed truth. It had stolen it.
The raft drifted further, and soon the cavern opened into a vast chamber. The ceiling arched high above, filled with clusters of crystals so dense they formed constellations, glowing like stars in the night sky. The river widened into a still pool, and the air carried a faint hum, like the vibration of strings.
Cael stared upward in awe. "It looks like the sky."
Liora's eyes softened, just for a moment. "This is why we call it the Sky Below. When the priests built their towers to scrape the heavens, they never knew that beneath their feet, the earth already held a sky of its own."
Cael let his gaze wander across the false stars, wondering how many secrets the earth itself carried.
But the fossil in his hands pulsed harder, as if demanding his attention. He held it up, and in the reflection of its glow on the water, he saw something strange: the ripples did not distort randomly. They formed patterns—spirals again, but not closed coils. These spirals branched outward, blooming like flowers, reaching like trees.
Cael's chest tightened. The Spiral priests had always shown the symbol as closed, devouring its own tail. But this spiral was open, expanding, alive.
"What does it mean?" he whispered.
Liora followed his gaze. She didn't answer right away. Instead, she dipped her fingers into the water. Ripples spread, shimmering with light.
"Serin's blade," she said at last, "and this river—they are the same lesson."
Cael frowned. "The same? How?"
"The Ashen Blade cuts lies apart. The River remembers what was meant to be forgotten. Both remind us of the same truth: chance does not hold memory, and accident does not forge meaning. If something endures, if it remembers, if it binds—it was not born of chance. The priests call the sword cursed and the river dangerous because both reveal what they try hardest to bury."
Cael looked down at the fossil in his hands, its light throbbing in time with the river's hum. His throat tightened, his heart a storm.
He wanted to ask—what wove these things, what meaning lay behind them—but fear kept the words trapped. For if the Spiral was false, then everything he had ever known was shattered. And if something greater waited behind it… what if he could not bear it?
The raft drifted slowly across the Sky Below, the stars above and their reflections below blending into one endless tapestry. For a moment, Cael felt as though he was floating not on water but on the edge of something vast, something infinite.
And the fossil, warm in his hands, whispered without words: Ask. Seek. Break the Spiral.