The fourth spiral spat them out onto a narrow ledge of black glass, jutting like a broken tooth from the Tower's inner wall.
The air was hot.
Dry.
Tasting faintly of scorched copper.
Far below, the lower spirals coiled like the guts of some titanic beast;
far above, the summit still drowned in star-swirl.
Between them stretched the next ascent—
the Fifth Spiral: The Venom Galleries.
The staircase was alive.
Segments of chitin, glossy and black, jointed like an insect's leg.
Each step flexed beneath their weight, exhaling a faint hiss with every move.
Veins of green poison pulsed beneath the surface,
lighting the path in a sickly, rhythmic glow.
The walls around them were honeycombed with alcoves—
and in each, a drop of venom suspended in amber.
Each drop a memory.
A secret.
A death.
Shade's sword—night-forged, constellation-edged—hummed low in warning.
Lira's lantern turned the venom-light gold,
turning sickness into something almost beautiful.
They hadn't spoken since the kiss.
Words felt too small now.
Instead, they walked in rhythm—
their footsteps and breathing entwined,
Lira's small hand warm in his.
Halfway across the first segment, the chitin path stilled.
Silence rippled through the Galleries.
An alcove ahead—larger than the rest—
its amber drop cracked.
Inside floated a memory not yet claimed.
Shade knew it before it unfolded.
The scent of pine smoke and wet iron.
A familiar wind.
A familiar ache.
The amber shattered.
The memory spilled out like smoke.
He was seven again.
Barefoot.
Dust rising around his ankles.
Captain Torren—his father—stood over him, practice sword raised.
"Again."
Shade's arms trembled.
The wooden blade slipped, clattered.
Laughter from the older boys.
Torren's face—always stone—cracked just enough to show disappointment.
"Pick it up."
The scene skipped.
Twelve.
Shade, hidden in the armory rafters, watching his cousins spar.
His mother below, folding laundry, humming the clan's battle hymn.
She looked up, saw him—
and her smile faltered.
"Come down, love. You'll find your strength."
But her eyes whispered—
please don't make me watch you fail again.
Another skip.
Fifteen.
The frost wyrm's anniversary.
The clan gathered by the fire, retelling Grandfather's legend.
Shade sat at the edge—
invisible.
His youngest cousin, six years old and already better with a dagger,
crawled into Torren's lap.
"When I grow up, I'll be like Grandfather."
Torren smiled—warm, proud.
"You already are."
Shade slipped away.
Behind the stables, he punched the wall until his knuckles split.
No one came.
The final shard—
two nights ago.
The storm.
Torren standing in the training yard, rain blurring his face.
"I should have seen it," he said to the dark.
"Should have protected him… from us."
The memory dissolved, collapsing into a single drop of venom that hovered at eye level—
pulsing, waiting.
Shade's throat closed.
All those years of useless, pathetic—
they weren't just his own voice.
They were love twisted into fear.
His family hadn't hated him.
They had forged him the only way warriors knew—
by burning him in the same fire that had made them.
And when he refused to burn…
they thought they had failed.
Lira's fingers brushed his.
"Take it," she said softly.
"Not to keep—
to understand."
Shade reached out.
The venom sank into his palm, cold fire spiraling up his arm.
For one heartbeat, he felt it all—
his father's pride,
his mother's terror,
his cousins' fierce, wordless care.
Then it settled beside the map on his chest—
a second brand.
*(SFX: CRACK—RUMBLE—KRRRRHH!)
The chitin path trembled.
Ahead, the floor split open like a mouth.
They had their moment.
Now came the guardian.
*(SFX: SHHHHRK-KRAAAHH!)
A scorpion erupted from the breach—
the size of a wagon, armored in obsidian chitin veined with glowing poison.
Its tail arched high,
stinger dripping acid that hissed where it struck the path.
Eight bladed legs clawed at the ledge,
compound eyes reflecting Shade and Lira a hundredfold.
It moved fast.
Shade shoved Lira behind him.
The sword came up—constellations flaring.
"Stay close!"
*(SFX: CLANG!)
The scorpion lunged.
Shade parried the tail—
the impact numbed both arms.
Poison splattered, sizzling through the floor.
He danced back, boots slipping on the slick green.
Lira's lantern swept wide, gold light burning the toxin away.
The scorpion reeled, hissing, blinded.
"Left!"
Shade dove.
A pincer slammed down where his head had been—
*(SFX: SHRKK!)
—shattering chitin into shards.
He rolled beneath its body, came up inside its guard,
and drove the night-forged blade deep into the joint beneath its thorax.
Black ichor sprayed—acidic, smoking.
The scorpion screamed,
a sound like metal being torn in half,
and whipped its tail down—
*(SFX: STAB—!)
Shade twisted, but the stinger grazed his shoulder.
Fire erupted through his veins.
He stumbled, vision tunneling.
Lira caught him before he fell.
"Shade—look at me!"
Her eyes—bright, fierce, alive—anchored him.
"You're not failing.
Not here.
Not now."
The venom burned.
But her voice was louder.
He forced himself upright.
The scorpion reared, tail poised to strike.
Lira raised the lantern high—
the firefly inside now a small star.
"Together," she said.
Shade nodded.
Pain became purpose.
They ran.
Side by side.
At the final heartbeat, Lira hurled the lantern.
*(SFX: FWOOOSH!)
It struck the scorpion's face and burst—
gold fire washing over its eyes, burning them blind.
The creature thrashed, screeching.
Tail flailing wild.
Shade leapt—
the night-forged blade a streak of midnight and stars.
*(SFX: SHHRAAAAK!)
The sword came down in a two-handed arc—
and severed the tail at its base.
Venom fountained.
He landed on the scorpion's back, boots sliding on molten chitin,
and drove the blade between its plates into the pulsing core.
The monster convulsed—
legs clawing, body cracking the path beneath it—
then went still.
*(SFX: THUD...)
Silence.
Shade dropped to his knees, breath ragged.
The venom in his shoulder had begun to clot into silver threads,
the map stitching him together from within.
Lira knelt beside him, pressing her forehead to his.
"You're bleeding again."
"Worth it," he rasped.
"We're still climbing."
She laughed—a soft, incredulous sound.
"You're impossible."
The chitin path mended itself—seams sealing, glow stabilizing.
At the far end, a new archway awaited:
the entrance to the Sixth Spiral.
Beyond it shimmered heat…
and the distant, rhythmic sound of wings.
Shade stood, offering his hand.
Lira took it.
The night-forged sword rested across his back,
and the lantern, somehow whole again, burned between them.
Five spirals down.
Two to go.
And somewhere deep in its gears and veins—
the Tower began to fear them.