The spiral glyph glowed with an unnatural heat—white and gold, but deeper somehow, like it was burning behind the spectrum of human sight.
Kael stood at its center, jaw tight, breath steady. Around him, the Vault's walls began to twist—not physically, but conceptually. Like reality itself was being asked to bend inward to accommodate something older.
Oran paced near the entry, blade in hand. "I'm gonna say it: this feels worse than Layer Zero."
Aila stepped beside him, voice calm but low. "That's because it is."
Kael turned. "Foldroot isn't part of Spiral's system. It's what came before. What Spiral was built to contain."
The glyph flashed once.
And then the floor opened beneath them.
---
There was no fall.
Only transition.
One moment they were standing in the Vault. The next, they were suspended in something that felt like both water and thought—weightless, unanchored. Symbols drifted past them, massive glyphs written in recursive syntax none of them could read.
