[POV: Ezekiel]
The wall didn't open like a door.
It peeled.
Layer by layer, like papyrus soaked in blood, curling inward until a passage revealed itself—not dark, but pale, like it refused to be hidden.
Ilhera said nothing.
Neither did he.
They walked.
---
The corridor sloped downward.
No torches.
No ambient light.
Only the sheen of memory-burn on the glyph-threaded walls.
With each step, the silence thickened—
Not heavy like the Gate Without Grammar.
This was reverent.
Like the Archive was preparing him for graves it wasn't allowed to forget.
---
The floor changed beneath them.
Stone became bone.
Etched.
Filed.
Filed into lines.
Ezekiel stopped.
So did Ilhera.
> "This… isn't sculpture," she whispered.
> "What is it?"
She crouched, ran her fingers gently along the edge of the floor.
> "This is marrow… engraved."
---
The hallway widened into a chamber.
Ten low plinths arranged in a circle.
Each held what looked like a single long white shard, set upright like a fang.
But not ivory.
Not stone.
Each one was a bone—carved with thousands of glyphs so thin they shimmered like thread caught in oil.
The room had no sound.
But his ears felt full.
Like every part of him was being read.
---
> "What is this place?" he asked quietly.
Ilhera's voice was equally soft.
> "The Ossuary of Sentence.
The Archive's tomb for incomplete Vessels."
> "These are their bones?"
> "No," she said grimly.
"These are their last statements. Written on their own ribs, as they died."
---
Ezekiel stepped forward.
The first plinth had a rib so long and thick it looked like it belonged to something barely human.
It had five glyphs at the top.
All crossed out.
Then beneath it, written in a curved sentence:
> My name was given by the Empire.
My truth was claimed by the Law.
My end was written by neither.
---
The second rib was cleaner—thinner, brighter.
Its glyphs were more aggressive—edges sharp like hooks.
Ilhera read over his shoulder.
> "This one resisted."
> "What happened?"
> "She rewrote herself out of syntax.
There's no record of her ever being born.
Only this rib remains."
---
Then they reached the third plinth.
And Ezekiel stopped.
He didn't know why.
But he knew.
That rib was different.
Dark bone.
Inked not with glyphs, but with something deeper.
Sentence carvings—complete and partial.
The top of the bone had a name burned into the surface:
> Voric.
---
Azrael stirred.
Not violently.
But like a ripple across still water that refused to freeze.
Ezekiel felt a pressure in his throat.
Ilhera watched him carefully.
> "That name again," she whispered.
"The Echo Collapse said it."
He nodded.
> "Why does it keep coming back?"
Ilhera glanced at the rib again.
> "Because the Archive doesn't store names.
It stores attempts."
---
The Voric bone glowed faintly now—
Not with power.
But with invitation.
One line of glyphs shimmered into full clarity:
> "If you carry the Law,
I already failed to be you."
---
[POV: Ilhera]
> This is dangerous.
She had seen failed fragments before.
Watched glyphs collapse into static, memories into blood.
But this—
This rib still recognized something.
It had not gone quiet.
And Ezekiel was staring at it like it was a mirror trying to remember his reflection.
---
> "We should go," she said.
Ezekiel didn't move.
He whispered:
> "He failed."
Ilhera stepped closer.
> "So you don't have to."
> "What if I do?"
> "Then we make sure you leave behind something better than a rib."
---
[POV: The Archive – Passive Glyph Layer]
:: Subject: Ezekiel
:: Echo Response: Voric Line Matched (Pattern Sync: 27%)
:: Containment Status: Stable for now
:: Warning: Memory Loop Potential Detected
:: Recording new entry:
:: The Witness speaks, but has not yet written.
---
As they turned to leave, the rib behind them wrote one final glyph.
It burned in silent black across the bone's midline:
> "Run faster than I did."