There was no time to run.
But even if there had been, there was nowhere to run to. The dome had sealed behind them—not with a door or wall, but with the sheer impossibility of escape. The marble had grown smooth where the tunnel used to be, like a mouth closing behind its last bite.
Ezekiel staggered backward, nearly slipping in the blood that slicked the floor. His half-brother Velric lay on the ground to his right, clutching at his throat, eyes bulging with unvoiced screams. The others… bits of them were strewn across the silent floor like discarded dolls.
The statues moved slowly now, but deliberately.
Not all at once. Not even in sequence.
Each one moved on its own logic. Some tilted their heads incrementally, like they were listening to something far away. Others extended limbs made of stone feathers or crooked fingers that ended in chisels. One had begun to walk sideways along the curved wall, its many legs folding in and out of its robe like hands pressed in prayer.
There were more than before. Ezekiel was certain of it.
They hadn't just moved.
They'd multiplied.
Something cracked overhead. Not loudly—but visibly.
A hairline fracture split the ceiling of the dome, then spiderwebbed outward, too symmetrical to be natural. The marble didn't fall. It pulsed. With every second, the room became whiter, brighter, as though light itself had become a liquid and now bled from the stone.
Then came the mirror.
Or rather, its reflection.
Because at last—it began to show something.
Not Ezekiel. Not the dead. Not the statues.
Him.
It showed only him. Standing. Broken. Alone.
But not just as he was now—frail, blood-spattered, trembling. The mirror rippled with a thousand versions of him, each slightly different. Taller. Older. Wearing armor made of fire. Wearing robes that had no fabric. With wings. Without a face. Eyes black as coal. Eyes like stars.
All of them stared at him.
Ezekiel dropped to his knees, his body weak, his soul... off balance, like his insides were no longer attached correctly.
Then came the worst of it.
The statues stopped moving.
They turned.
Every head. Every sculpted face. Every faceless surface.
Toward him.
Ezekiel could feel something shift beneath the room. Not a tremor. Something deeper.
A knowing.
One of the statues stepped forward.
It had no face. No limbs. Just a round base, a vaguely humanoid torso, and a large hollow in its chest where a heart should be. Inside that hollow, something swirled—like ink dropped into clear water.
It raised a stone hand and pointed at Ezekiel.
And then it opened its mouth.
No sound.
Not silence.
Law.
Ezekiel's body spasmed. His limbs jerked back—not by force, but by some invisible command. He fell flat on the floor, chest pressed to the blood-washed marble, face twisted against the cold.
He could not lift his head.
He could not speak.
The statue's silent decree spread like a ripple through the room. Every remaining statue mimicked the gesture—raising arms, opening mouths. Each spoke no word, but Ezekiel felt them inscribe something directly into the marrow of the world.
He could not read it. But he knew it meant one thing.
You are not allowed.
Blood ran from his ears. Something in his lungs caught fire. The marble under him grew hotter by the second.
And then came the final one.
It hadn't moved until now.
The obsidian statue at the back of the chamber, twice as tall as the others, shaped like a dragon coiled around a twisted scale, slowly turned its massive, alien head.
Its face was a jagged knot of ridges. Its mouth wasn't a mouth—it was an absence, a void carved in the suggestion of a scream.
Its eyes opened.
They weren't stone.
They were real.
Two glowing slits like molten ink. They locked onto Ezekiel.
And then—it moved.
No blur. No warning.
One moment it stood at the back.
The next, it loomed over him.
It raised an arm. Not a hand. Not a claw. Something else.
A blade of obsidian shaped like a quill, jagged at the end, etched with moving symbols that reformed as they were read.
Ezekiel's body twitched. His mind shattered into heat and numbness.
He could not breathe.
The blade fell toward his skull.