The doors of the great hall slammed shut with a thunder that rolled down the corridors like falling mountains. Silence bled in its wake. Behind those walls, the children wept and shivered, but outside… outside, the Knight walked.
The horde followed.
The corridors were not corridors but veins. Stone walls were wet, glistening as though alive, pulsing faintly with a heartbeat too vast to belong to any creature they had ever known. Every step sank into moss-slick floors, and the air reeked of rust, brine, and sweet rot. Lanterns had long since died here, replaced by things that resembled eggs, glowing faintly from within as shadowy embryos twisted inside their translucent shells.
The Eagle Knight moved with the weight of inevitability. His iron feathers dragged sparks, his helm turning slightly with each measured step. Around him, the horde slithered and clattered and clicked. They filled the space like a tide, each malformed in ways the human mind refused to catalog for long.
They reached a wider chamber.
It was circular, a pit hollowed into the castle's gut. The ceiling soared into blackness, and from it hung cages, hundreds, swaying gently though no wind stirred. Some cages were empty. Others were not. Pale figures clung to the bars, whispering nonsense through broken teeth, their bodies gnawed by time but never dying.
At the pit's center grew a tree of bone.
Its roots clawed through the floor, its branches spread like veins against the dark, and from its limbs hung more bodies—suspended by cords of sinew, drained until their skin was parchment-thin, their eyes two empty wells. The tree dripped with something thicker than sap.
Here, the Eagle Knight stopped. His wings folded, shrieking softly against one another. The horde circled, taking places around the tree, hooks dragging against the floor, faces—or what passed for faces—tilting toward their master.
For a long while, there was only silence.
Then, the Eagle Knight spoke. His voice was quieter now, but the air quivered, the bone tree itself creaking in answer.
"One among the vessels showed not memory… but prophecy."
The words echoed. The cages swayed as if stirred by an unseen wind.
A faceless one shuffled forward, its body bent backward at the waist so its headless neck pointed at the Knight. From the ragged stump of its throat came a gurgling voice, many voices layered at once.
"We smelled it too… the flavor was wrong… not the staleness of memory but the sharpness of what-is-not-yet."
Another stepped out—one of the cage-headed things, the blue fire in its skull flickering angrily. It lowered its hook into the dirt and scraped symbols without hands, the lines glowing faintly before fading.
"It was not sanctioned," the cage-head hissed. "Such visions are not birthed by chance. They are intrusions. They are… sabotage."
The Knight tilted his helm, eyes burning like suns pressed into iron sockets. "Not sabotage. Destiny bleeds when it chooses. The question is not how it appeared… but why."
Around the circle, the horde whispered. Their voices were a cacophony, shrill and wet, low and grinding, like an orchestra tuned with knives. They spoke of omens, of curses, of vessels that rot before they are used.
The Knight raised one clawed hand and silence fell.
"I saw within it a figure," he said slowly, each syllable deliberate. "A vessel of blood, with eyes like the Shaper. Words were spoken through its mouth: 'Shaping consumes all.'"
At that, even the cages above rattled violently, the prisoners within screeching in unison, their voices breaking against one another in a storm of terror.
The horde quivered. Hooks clattered. Even the faceless shrank back.
"Shaping," the cage-head spat, the blue flame within it guttering as though choking. "The oldest hunger. The deepest heresy. Forbidden by the Core."
The Knight's eyes dimmed slightly, not with weakness but thought. His iron helm turned toward the bone tree, its twisted limbs groaning as if aware of the gaze.
"Forbidden," he repeated. "And yet, it speaks itself again. Through a vessel unchosen."
One of the elongated horrors, its body covered in stitched mouths, leaned close to the Knight. All its lips opened at once, a wet chorus speaking in unison.
"Shall we tear the vessel now? Break it open, bleed it empty, before its poison spreads?"
The Knight did not answer at once. His claws flexed, talons groaning against the air. He seemed to consider, every movement of his head echoing with metallic creaks.
Finally, he spoke: "No."
The horde froze.
"If it carries prophecy, then it carries knowledge. And knowledge cannot be wasted." His wings unfolded slightly, feathers clashing. "The vessel is unstable, yes. But rot can be useful. Decay feeds the soil. Even poison has a place."
The cage-head hissed, blue fire twisting upward. "You would let it live?"
The Knight's eyes flared hotter. "I would let it be watched."
The bone tree groaned again. One of the bodies hanging from its limbs cracked open at the chest, ribs parting like doors. From within spilled not blood but a swarm of black moths, their wings clotted with veins. They poured upward, a cloud of living ash, filling the air with the stink of mildew.
The Knight raised his claw and the moths froze mid-flight.
"Watchers," he said, his voice a command carved into the marrow of the world. "Go. Feed on shadow. Linger in silence. Find the vessel that carried prophecy. Follow it. Record its every breath."
The swarm pulsed once in acknowledgement, then streamed out through cracks in the chamber, wings brushing stone like whispers.
The horde bent low, their warped bodies bowing in ritual obedience. But beneath the obedience there was unease.
The stitched-mouth horror muttered: "If shaping rises, we are undone."
The faceless gurgled: "If shaping rises, the Core will awaken."
The cage-head rasped: "If shaping rises, even you will fall, Knight."
At that last, silence stabbed the chamber.
The Eagle Knight turned his helm toward the speaker, the pale fire of his gaze brightening until the cage-head froze. Its blue flame sputtered, guttering like a candle before storm.
"I do not fall," the Knight said. The words struck like hammers. "I am the fall. I am the storm. If shaping rises, it will be cut. If shaping consumes, it will consume itself first."
The cage-head lowered its hook, pressing it to the floor until sparks spat. The others shrank further, their whispers smothered.
Satisfied, the Eagle Knight turned his gaze upward toward the endless black ceiling. His wings rose, stretching until they scraped stone, and his voice filled the pit like a plague.
"The prophecy is not a threat. It is an invitation. Let it come. Let the vessel grow. When its fire burns, I will be the hand that smothers it."
The bone tree shuddered, its hanging corpses swaying violently. The cages overhead screeched, the prisoners inside clawing at their bars. The chamber itself seemed to groan in dread.
But the Knight did not falter. He lowered his wings, turned, and began walking again, his horde falling into step behind him, their hooks clattering, their mouths twitching.
The corridors swallowed them.
And somewhere, still trembling among the students in the hall, El Como's heart thudded on—unaware that the Knight's moths were already searching, already circling, already tasting the scent of his soul.