The "Bones of the Spire" was not a metaphor.
Deep beneath the training halls and the library lay the foundations of the tower—a series of ancient, pre-Empire catacombs carved into the very roots of the mountain. Here, the air didn't just feel cold; it felt old, smelling of wet limestone and things that had never seen the sun.
Master Thorne stood before a massive iron grate set into the floor. He held a torch that burned with a strange, chemical green flame.
"Listen well," Thorne rasped, his voice echoing down into the dark. "Up there, you play with sabers. Down here, the mountain plays with you. The Bones are infested with Skitter-wights—scavengers born from the Leak. They aren't smart, but they are hungry."
He looked at the group of twenty trainees. Their numbers were thinning. Jax was in the infirmary, and Rafe was nursing a bruised ego and a broken pride.
"You go in pairs," Thorne continued. "Each pair must return with one Skitter-wight heart. If you come back empty-handed, you don't get back in. The gate stays locked until sunrise."
Kael immediately moved toward Nola, his face a mask of terror. "Nola, please. Don't leave me with Rafe's lot."
Nola nodded, his hand instinctively going to the cracked iron ring on his finger. Since the fight with Rafe, the ring had felt cold—dead. The Void was muffled, but he could still feel it pacing like a caged animal behind his ribs.
Into the Deep
The grate creaked open, and the pairs descended a long, spiral staircase that felt slick with slime. As they reached the bottom, the green light of Thorne's torch faded, leaving them in near-total darkness.
"Can you see anything?" Kael whispered, his hand white-knuckled on the hilt of his saber.
"A little," Nola replied.
His violet eyes had adapted. The world appeared to him in shades of deep indigo and grey. He could see the moisture dripping from the ceiling and the small, jagged bones of rodents littering the floor.
Suddenly, a high-pitched chittering sound echoed from a side tunnel. It sounded like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard.
"They're close," Nola hissed.
A shadow moved. It wasn't a human shadow. It was lean, with too many joints and eyes that reflected Nola's violet glow like shards of broken glass. The Skitter-wight was a twisted creature, its skin the color of a bruised plum, its fingers ending in long, serrated hooks.
It leaped.
The Hunger of the Void
Kael screamed, swinging his saber wildly. He missed, the blade clanging harmlessly against the stone wall. The wight slammed into him, its hooks tearing through Kael's tunic.
"Kael!"
Nola lunged, his saber leading the way. He buried the steel into the creature's flank, but the wight didn't even flinch. It turned, its jaw unhinging to reveal rows of needle-like teeth.
Nola felt a surge of panic. He needed the Void. He reached for the power, but the cracked ring pulsed, sending a jolt of agonizing pain through his arm.
No, Nola thought, his teeth gritting. I don't need the ring's permission.
He didn't try to phase. He didn't try to pulse. He simply let go of the "Nola" that wanted to be safe. He let the coldness of the catacombs flow into his blade.
The saber didn't glow. Instead, it seemed to vanish.
The steel became a silhouette of nothingness. When Nola swung, there was no sound of cutting air. The blade passed through the Skitter-wight's neck as if the creature were made of water.
The wight's head didn't fall. It simply disappeared, erased from existence. The rest of the body slumped to the floor, smoking with a faint purple mist before dissolving into grey ash.
Kael scrambled back, gasping for air. He looked at the spot where the creature had been. "Nola... what did you do?"
Nola looked at his saber. The steel was back to normal, but it felt heavier. Cold.
"I don't know," Nola whispered.
But deep down, he did. He hadn't just killed the creature; he had fed it to the Void. And for the first time since the night his village burned, the hunger inside him felt quiet.
A Voice in the Walls
As they prepared to harvest the heart from a second wight that had crawled out of the dark, a different sound reached Nola's ears.
It wasn't a chitter. It was a rhythmic thumping, coming from deeper within the Bones—beyond where Thorne had told them to go.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It sounded like a giant heart.
Nola walked toward the source, drawn by a pull he couldn't explain. He turned a corner and stopped. Behind a wall of thick, translucent crystals, something was glowing.
It was a sword.
But it wasn't like the Empire sabers. It was massive, made of a material that looked like frozen starlight, and it was embedded in a pile of ancient, giant-sized bones.
"You took your time," a voice vibrated through the air. It wasn't in his head, and it wasn't Kael's. It was coming from the sword.
Nola reached out a hand, but before he could touch the crystal wall, a hand grabbed his shoulder.
"That's enough, Spark."
It was Master Thorne. He had followed them down, his green torch casting long, dancing shadows. His face was unreadable, but his hand was trembling.
"Some things in the Spire aren't for training," Thorne said, his voice unusually soft. "Collect your hearts. We're leaving. Now."
As Nola was led away, he looked back. The sword in the bones flared once, a brilliant, blinding violet.