The moment the Rift blinked shut, silence fell—a silence too heavy for just absence of sound. It was a silence that pressed into lungs and coiled around nerves, as if the very laws of presence were holding their breath.
Professor Mein's hand remained outstretched.
Lynchie's fingers twitched.
She didn't take it.
Instead, she took a step back.
The glow of the Spiral Glyph dimmed—but did not disappear.
"Tell me what that was," she said, voice low, trembling more with fury than fear.
"You know the answer already," Mein replied, not unkindly. "It's in your blood."
"My blood?" Her eyes sharpened. "What exactly is in my blood?"
Something flickered across Mein's expression—just a tremor, quickly buried. But Salareth caught it.
"You've seen this before," Salareth muttered. "Haven't you?"
Mein gave no reply. He only looked to the heavens—through the sundered dome—to the constellations still spinning slightly wrong.
The Rift hadn't just torn space.
It had tilted the sky.
"Come," Mein said again, softly. "There's no time. You need to be inside the Writvault before the Tribunal's Seekers arrive."
Lynchie's lips parted. "What is the Writvault?"
Jaira spoke before Mein could. "It's… the academy's underground celestial records. Sealed archives. No one goes there unless summoned by both the Dean and the Grand Arbiters."
"It's also," Mein added, "the only place warded enough to protect you from the side effects of an unsanctioned Rift Event."
He turned.
"Follow. Now."
And Lynchie went.
She didn't look back at her friends, though she felt every pair of eyes on her. Jaira's worry. Michaella's confusion. Viminda's protective defiance. Even Siera, who rarely showed emotion, clenched her jaw tight.
The Spiral Glyph pulsed once beneath her skin—like a heartbeat not her own.
She wondered if it was calling to something.
Or if something was calling it.
They descended—through corridors lit only by celestial runes. Each step deeper sent shivers through her bones, not from cold, but from alignment. The air grew dense with ley resonance, rich with raw constellation ink carved centuries ago.
They passed a final archway, etched with twelve symbols—zodiacs not known to the modern starwatchers.
She paused.
One of them matched the Spiral.
Mein noticed.
"The Thirteenth Sign," he said. "The unspoken one."
"Why unspoken?"
"Because it speaks back."
Before Lynchie could press further, the ground beneath them shuddered.
Not a quake.
Not an explosion.
It was rhythmic—a series of resonant pulses vibrating through stone and magic alike.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
"Is that… footsteps?" she whispered.
Mein turned slowly.
"No," he said. "That's a heartbeat."
Lynchie's breath caught.
From beneath the Writvault, something answered her Spiral.
She wasn't the only thing that had awakened.