Bharat's hand closed on the vault door.
Pulled.
Nothing.
The chamber beyond wasn't empty. Worse—it was waiting. Gold light pulsed from seven pedestals arranged in a circle, each one holding nothing but air and the smell of old incense. The grimoire sat in the center, pages turning by themselves like something was reading them.
But the shelves where the Ritual Codex should've been?
Bare stone.
Polished smooth.
Like they'd never held anything at all.
Mira limped forward, her breath still ragged from the shared-pain contract. Bharat felt her ribs ache in his own chest—a dull, grinding thing that made every step cost double.
"It's not here," she said.
Not angry. Just tired.
"It was never here."
Bharat scanned the walls. No doors. No seams. Just carved script running floor to ceiling in loops that made his eyes water if he tried to focus. The temple's architecture loved its fucking riddles.
Then he saw the altar.
Small. Obsidian. Sitting directly beneath the grimoire like a hungry mouth waiting to be fed.
And carved into the surface:
"The Codex sleeps where the Groom's heart rests.
Offer the heart.
Reclaim the book."
"Offer the heart."
Mira read it aloud, voice flat. Like she'd expected this.
Bharat's chest tightened.
Not metaphor.
Not symbolism.
The altar had grooves. Channels. Designed to catch something wet.
"They want you to die," Mira said quietly.
She wasn't looking at him. Just staring at the altar like it was an old friend she'd hoped never to see again.
"They always wanted you to die. That's what the Mark does—it names you. Marks you as fuel."
Her wrist throbbed where the hole had burned through. Light still bled from the edges, faint but steady, like her skin was trying to become glass.
Bharat stepped closer to the altar.
Ran his fingers over the carved words. The stone was warm. Almost body-temperature. Almost alive.
"What if it's not literal?" he said.
"It's always literal with them."
Mira's voice cracked. Just once. Like something inside her was bending too far.
"The temple doesn't deal in symbols. It deals in currency. Blood. Breath. Heartbeats."
She turned to face him. Eyes too bright. Skin too pale.
"You sign the contract, you pay the cost. That's the rule."
Bharat looked at her.
Really looked.
At the way she held herself like every bone hurt. At the faint tremor in her hands. At the way her left leg dragged just slightly when she thought he wasn't watching.
She'd walked the Oath Corridor before.
She'd died in the Oath Corridor before.
And she'd come back to walk it again.
"How many times?" he asked.
Mira blinked. Didn't pretend not to understand.
"Five."
"Five timelines?"
"Five failures."
She said it like she was reading a grocery list. Like it didn't matter. Like watching him die five different ways hadn't carved something permanent into her chest.
"And in every one," Bharat said slowly, "I offered my heart."
"Yes."
"And you took the Codex."
"Yes."
"And?"
Mira's jaw tightened.
"And you died. The Mark transferred. I became the new Groom. The cycle reset."
The grimoire's pages rustled. Not wind—there was no wind in here. Just the temple, listening.
Bharat exhaled.
Felt the shared-pain contract still humming between them. Her ribs. His ribs. One system, two bodies.
"What if we don't play?"
"Then we both die here. Fifty-one days for me. Sixty-seven for you. Temple collapses when the Mark completes. Takes the city with it."
"Cheerful."
"Accurate."
Bharat turned back to the altar. The grooves gleamed faintly in the gold light, like they were anticipating.
Then he smiled.
Not a nice smile.
The kind that meant he'd found the loophole.
"The temple wants a heart," he said. "It didn't say whose."
Mira went very still.
"Bharat—"
"It didn't say mine."
He crouched beside the altar. Traced the channels with one finger. They converged at the center—a small circular depression, just big enough for something fist-sized.
"The Mark of Recall," he said. "It's alive, right? Feeds on divine energy. Grows. Thinks."
"Yes."
"Then it has a heart."
Mira's breath hitched.
"You want to—"
"Cut it out of you and offer that."
The words landed like stones in deep water.
Silence.
Then:
The temple screamed.
Not sound. Pressure. Like the air itself was trying to crush them flat. The grimoire slammed shut. The pedestals cracked—hairline fractures spreading up from the base like frozen lightning.
Bharat staggered.
Grabbed Mira's arm to keep upright. Her wrist-hole blazed white-hot, light pouring out like she'd swallowed the sun.
"It knows," she gasped.
"Good."
Bharat pulled the small blade from his belt—temple-forged, ironically. Designed to cut divine flesh without shattering.
"Hold still."
"Bharat, if you cut the Mark out—"
"We stop being bound to the cycle."
"We also stop having any protection from divine corruption. The second it's gone, the temple will try to rewrite us."
"Then we'll be fast."
He pressed the blade to her wrist. Right above the hole where light bled through.
Mira caught his hand.
Her grip was iron.
"If you do this," she said quietly, "there's no going back. The Mark is the only thing keeping us differentiated from the temple's will. Without it, we're just… ink on a page it can erase."
Bharat met her eyes.
Saw fear there. Real fear. Not the kind you perform.
"Then we write in blood," he said.
"Bharat—"
"I'm not letting you die again."
The words came out harder than he meant. Almost angry.
"Five times, Mira. Five times you watched me bleed out on this altar and took the Codex alone. Five times you carried the Mark by yourself."
Her jaw clenched.
"That was the plan—"
"Fuck the plan."
He adjusted his grip on the blade.
"This time, we both walk out. Or neither of us does."
"That's not—"
"Together," he said.
The word hung between them.
Mira stared at him. For a long moment, she didn't move. Didn't breathe.
Then, slowly, she let go of his hand.
"Do it fast," she said.
"I will."
"And if I scream—"
"I won't stop."
She almost smiled. Almost.
"Good."
Bharat pressed the blade to her wrist.
The Mark pulsed once.
Bright.
Defiant.
Like it knew what was coming.
Then he cut.