The glow shimmered at the far side of the cavern, a pale warmth unlike the sharp fossil-light. It pulsed, faint but steady, like the breath of something alive.
Cael staggered toward it, each step dragging as though the water itself resisted him. Behind, the horns pressed closer. In the mist, the shadows lingered, restless. Yet the glow ahead drew him, pulling him through the dark like a star through storm.
As he neared, the cavern opened into a hollow unlike any he had seen. Here the glowing veins of stone converged into a single pillar, rising from river to roof. At its center pulsed a crystal, vast and heart-shaped, radiating warmth.
It was not blinding. It was not violent. It was… constant.
For a moment, Cael forgot the hunters, the shadows, even his breath. He simply stared.
Myrien's voice whispered in his memory: "Rivers cut, rivers scar. They begin and they end. They demand witness."
Yet here was something else. Not circle. Not current. Not wound. A light that held itself, uncoiled, unbroken.
His knees buckled, and he knelt without meaning to.
The fossil in his hand quivered, dim in comparison to the crystal's glow. It was as if the fossil had been a shard, a splinter of this greater fire.
Cael's lips trembled. "What… are you?"
No answer came. Only the steady pulse of light, filling the chamber with quiet authority.
He bowed his head, ashamed of his own words. Of course there was no answer. He had asked stones for answers before, stars for answers before, even the Spiral itself for answers before. They had all remained silent.
But still… why did this silence feel different?
His thoughts turned inward, restless. If there is no voice, no origin, then everything is only chance. The Spiral taught that endless chance produced endless form. The river taught that blind flow carved all things. But here, in this hollow, neither chance nor flow felt enough.
His mind rebelled. Could the endless coil shape a fossil that burns in my hand? Could a blind river carve a light that pulses like a heart?
No. He knew it, though he could not prove it.
And a more terrifying thought followed: If neither chance nor blind flow is enough, then what is?
His chest tightened. His throat ached. He wanted to run from the question — but where could he run?
Behind him, the horns blared louder, echoing through stone. The hunters were near. They clung to their endless coil because it spared them this question. It freed them from looking into the abyss and asking why.
And the shadows too — the devourers of memory. They fed on those who looked away, who allowed themselves to forget the question entirely.
He pressed the fossil to his chest. "There has to be…" His voice cracked. "There has to be something more. A reason. A will. Not just… chance."
His words were fragile, whispered into silence, but they seemed to steady him.
The crystal pulsed once, brighter.
It did not speak. But the cavern did not feel empty.
Cael's eyes burned. The thought came unbidden, unwanted: If there is a reason, then it is not in the spiral. Not in the river. Not in me. It is beyond.
The horns were deafening now. Shadows stirred at the cavern's edge. He rose, weak but resolute, and turned to face both. For the first time, the fear in his chest did not crush him.
If the crystal had taught him anything, it was this: that the Spiral lied when it promised meaning without a source, and the river lied when it claimed blind flow was enough.
Both were fragments. Both were incomplete.
There must be more.
The glow of the crystal lingered on Cael's skin as he turned away, its warmth clinging like memory. But the cavern trembled now with sound: the thundering boots of hunters echoing through stone corridors, horns crying sharp commands.
And beyond them — the shadows. He could feel them moving at the edge of thought, their hunger pressing against his skull. They waited, patient as decay.
He ran.
The fossil flared in his hand, guiding him through the veins of stone, but each tunnel bent like a riddle, doubling back, splitting, narrowing. The cavern was a labyrinth that did not wish to let him go.
Shouts behind. Steel on stone. The hunters were faster than shadows, and far less patient.
Cael's breath tore through his lungs, his legs burning. Yet even as he fled, his mind gnawed at the question the crystal had left him with: If not spiral, if not river… then what?
His foot struck a loose rock, and he stumbled, catching himself on the cavern wall. Veins of light pulsed beneath his palm, warm, alive. The glow vibrated faintly, as though echoing his heartbeat.
The Spiral had promised certainty, but the priests never answered where the coil began. The river had promised inevitability, but it could not explain why it carved one way and not another.
Both had silenced the question before it was fully asked.
But this light… He forced himself forward, lungs heaving. This light does not silence me. It does not close the question. It leaves it burning.
Steel rang against stone behind him. The hunters' blades scraped the cavern, sparks flying in the dark. Voices shouted his name — but not his true name, the one his mother had given him. They called him Heretic. Uncoiled. Enemy.
The words cut sharper than the blades.
He pressed on, twisting through tunnels until the air grew thinner, colder. Water dripped from the ceiling in rhythmic drops. His shadow leapt and broke against jagged walls.
And still the thoughts haunted him: If the Spiral is comfort and the River is blind… what sustains the light?
He wanted to deny it, to bury it, but the crystal's glow had branded him. The question was alive in him now, a wound that would not close.
He reached a narrowing passage. Rocks jutted like teeth. He pressed through, scraping skin, tearing cloth, but on the other side he found himself above a chasm. The river thundered far below, hidden in mist.
Nowhere left to run.
Boots pounded behind him. The hunters burst into view, torches blazing. Their faces were hard, painted with spirals.
The lead hunter stepped forward, sword gleaming. "Yield, uncoiled. The Spiral takes back what it lent."
Cael lifted the fossil, though his arm trembled. "The Spiral lent nothing. It stole."
The hunter's eyes narrowed. "Then you are nothing. Chance clothed in dust. You admit it yourself."
The words slammed into Cael. Chance. Nothing. Was that all he was without the Spiral? Was that all the crystal meant to defy?
His heart screamed against it. No. I am not nothing.
The hunter raised his blade. Shadows stirred in the mist below, mouths yawning. Both enemies, both hungers, both waiting.
Cael looked at the fossil, its glow pulsing faintly. And he whispered to himself, not as answer, but as vow:
"There must be a reason greater than chance. There must."
The fossil flared.
Light surged from it, brighter than torchfire, brighter than steel. The hunters recoiled, shielding their eyes. The shadows writhed below, unable to climb. For one heartbeat, the path was open — not safe, but open.
Cael turned and leapt into the mist.
Wind roared in his ears. The river rose to meet him.
And in the instant before the plunge, the question burned in him like fire:
If not chance, if not blind flow… then whose reason shapes the light?