Chapter 032 Sixteen Failures
The tunnels stank of wet earth and old rot. Roots twisted overhead like knuckles, dripping cold water onto my neck every few steps. I led, blade drawn, the bond a steady ache in my chest pulling me deeper. Aria was up there, hurting. I could taste her pain on the back of my tongue-sharp, metallic, constant.
Behind me the others moved quiet. Vorn's armor clanked softly no matter how he tried to muffle it. Zephyran's wings whispered against the walls. Vahr breathed through his mouth, steady. Sylith's staff tapped the ground once every seven steps, counting. Glimm floated, silent as always, a faint gold shimmer in the dark.
We came to the first trap fast. Thin silver wires crossed the passage, glowing faint blue. Detection lines. Touch one and every guard in the Spire would know exactly where we were.
I sliced them clean. They parted with a sigh, like they were relieved to be done.
Next came the binding circle. Runes carved into the floor, blooming white when I stepped close. Designed for Root-touched. Designed for me.
I stopped at the edge.
Glimm drifted forward. "I've disabled this stupid circle sixteen other times," they said, voice flat. "You'd think someone would change the pattern."
Sixteen.
The word hung.
I looked at them. "Say that again."
Glimm's light flared. For a heartbeat they weren't a beetle-shaped glow. They were her. Aria. First iteration. Same eyes, same tired half-smile, but older, carved hollow by centuries of watching everything fail.
My throat closed.
"I was the first," she said-no, they said, voice shifting back to Glimm's dry buzz. "The original. I became this to remember. To guide. Sixteen times you've walked these tunnels, Thalren. Sixteen times you've died trying to save sixteen versions of her. Sixteen times you split your strength and lost everything."
Zephyran swore under his breath. Vahr's hand tightened on his axe. Vorn just stared.
I couldn't speak. The bond throbbed. Aria-my Aria-was screaming somewhere above us, and here was proof we'd already lost this war sixteen times before it even began.
Glimm shrank back to their small glow. "This time, you need to choose different."
I stepped into the circle anyway.
The runes flared, hungry. Corruption surged up my arms, black veins racing under the skin. Pain lanced through my ribs. I gritted my teeth and stayed standing.
Glimm darted in. Light poured out of them, gold and fierce. The runes cracked, shattered, fell dark.
I stepped out breathing hard. The corruption settled, sullen but quiet.
We moved on.
Hours bled together. The tunnels narrowed until we had to turn sideways. Roots scraped armor. The air grew warmer, thick with mineral steam.
Then voices ahead. Bloomguard. Four of them, lanterns low, spears relaxed.
We killed them before they finished their joke about rebel scum.
Vahr's axe took the first throat. Zephyran's wind blade opened the second from ear to belt. Vorn crushed the third's chest plate with one hammer blow. I slid my dagger between the fourth's ribs and twisted until he stopped twitching.
No alarms. No sound but dripping water.
We dragged the bodies into a side root and kept going.
Later-six hours in, maybe eight-we stopped in a small hollow to breathe. I sat against the wall and closed my eyes, reaching for the bond.
Aria's pain hit me like a blade between the eyes.
She was burning. Something carving into her skin, slow and deliberate. I felt every line.
Corruption roared up my arms, black spreading fast. The roots overhead blackened, curling away from me like they'd been scorched.
Glimm landed on my wrist. Warm. Steady. "Breathe through it. You feed it when you fight it blind."
I forced air into my lungs. The black receded, slow.
Zephyran watched me, silver eyes narrowed. "You're getting worse, Kael."
"Don't call me that," I said automatically.
He shrugged. "Old habit."
We moved again.
The illusion wall came without warning. One moment solid root, the next a shimmer like heat over summer stone. Sylith traced runes in the air and it peeled open, revealing a narrow passage lit faint green.
Only three of us went in. Me. Sylith. Glimm.
The others stayed to guard the junction.
The passage sloped down, then up. The air tasted green-thick, alive, like breathing inside a leaf.
At the end was the chamber.
Small. Round. Roots cradling a single pod the size of a heart. It pulsed slow, gold and green braided together, perfect and terrible. The original seed.
I stared at it. Every instinct screamed to stay. Guard it. Plant myself here and dare the world to take it.
Sylith knelt, already drawing sealing wards in the dirt. "I can hold it until Convergence. Not longer, but until then-yes."
Glimm hovered close. "In every other loop you stayed. You sent the others ahead to save her and guarded this alone. Every time Luminae took her anyway. Every time the seed was forced early. Every time everything rotted faster."
I looked at the pod. It breathed.
I looked at Glimm-at the ghost of the first woman I'd failed.
"I won't stay," I said. The words tasted like ash. "Seal it. We go get her."
Sylith's hands didn't pause. Light wove between his fingers, sinking into the roots, locking the chamber tight.
I turned away before I could change my mind.
When we came back to the junction the others were waiting, tense.
Zephyran raised an eyebrow. "That was fast."
"Change of plan," I said.
Vorn grunted approval. Vahr just nodded.
We pushed on.
Second day.
The tunnels opened into a cavern wide enough to stand straight. Hot springs steamed in pools, sulfur sharp in the air. The water glowed faint blue.
We stripped armor, washed blood and slime off skin. Wounds stung in the heat. I sank to my shoulders and let the water burn the ache out of my muscles.
For a moment it was almost peaceful.
Then the water exploded.
The worm came up under Vorn, mouth wide as a wagon wheel, rings of teeth spinning. No eyes. Just pale flesh and hunger.
Vorn roared, hammer swinging, but the hide was thick as old bark. The blow glanced off.
It lunged again. Zephyran darted in, wind blades slicing, carving shallow grooves that bled clear acid.
The worm screamed-a wet, grinding sound-and slammed sideways. Pools sloshed. Steam blinded us.
Vahr hacked at the tail. No good.
Sylith threw binding light. The worm shrugged it off like cobwebs.
It coiled, mouth opening, and took Zephyran in one gulp.
He had time for half a scream before he was gone, sliding down that pale throat.
Rage took me.
Corruption flooded out, black and hungry. I ran forward, blade first, and drove it into the worm's side. Held on.
The beast thrashed. Acid sprayed. My armor smoked.
I poured everything into the wound. Rot. Unmaking. The corruption I'd leashed for days.
Inside the worm something popped wetly.
The thrashing slowed.
The belly swelled, blackened, split.
Zephyran burst out in a gush of rotting sludge and acid, coughing, covered head to toe in dissolving flesh and bile.
He hit the water gasping. "That was disgusting."
The worm collapsed, segments bursting one by one until only stinking chunks floated in the pools.
We dragged Zephyran out. Acid had eaten through his light armor, burned skin beneath, but he was breathing.
He spat slime. "Next time someone else gets eaten."
I couldn't answer. The corruption still hummed under my skin, pleased with itself.
Above us, faint through stone and root, came a distant roaring buzz. Millions of wings. The swarm. Xyl and Barnaby doing their part.
Luminae would know we were close now.
I reached for the bond again.
Aria was there. Hurting. Furious.
Her voice slid into my mind, clear and sharp.
Come kill this bastard.
I closed my eyes.
We gathered weapons. Armor half-fastened, burns still smoking.
I looked at the team. Tired. Hurt. Determined.
"Move," I said.
We went deeper.