The corridor curved like the inside of a seashell, each step echoing with a soft, bell-like tone. Blue veins pulsed faintly along the walls, lighting the path just enough to see their own shadows moving. The air smelled dry and mineral, but every few paces a draft carried a hint of salt and ozone—as though the sea itself was bleeding into this place.
Lyra's fingers brushed the glass. "It's warm," she murmured. "Like skin."
Aric kept his eyes on the distant archway where the blue veins converged. The cage on his shoulder vibrated in a slow rhythm, chiming once for every three heartbeats. The Mirror at his ribs whispered chords he didn't know he'd memorised.
They weren't alone.
He felt it first—a slight disturbance in the chord-pattern of the corridor. The Mirror hummed warning. A breath later Lyra's threads twitched, and she looked back sharply.
"They're following," she whispered. "Three signatures."
"Mask-bearers," Aric said.
"They shouldn't have been able to jump with us."
"Maybe the Relay let them through. Maybe they had their own key." His lips thinned. "Doesn't matter. We're boxed in."
The corridor widened into a round chamber, its walls studded with black glass columns like organ pipes. In the centre rose a dais engraved with spirals. The blue veins overhead gathered into a faintly glowing knot, casting shadows that shifted like moving water.
Aric set the cage down gently. "We'll make our stand here."
Lyra's eyes flicked around the chamber. "This isn't a battlefield, Vale."
"No," he said. "It's a bargaining table."
A hiss of displaced air announced the arrivals. Three mask-bearers stepped from the corridor's mouth, black coats trailing. Their ceramic faces reflected the chamber's glow. Two held prism staves; the third's hands were empty.
He stepped forward, tilting his head. "Vale Aric," the filtered voice said. "Hand over the living fragment and the Mirror, and you'll leave breathing."
Aric raised his palms. "You came a long way for a conversation. Let's have it."
The empty-handed bearer tilted his mask. "You've cost us a great deal."
"You'll live."
"For now."
Lyra shifted, threads glimmering faintly. "What do you actually want with it?" she asked. "Fragments like this were outlawed after the Ascension War."
The bearer's head turned toward her. "Outlawed doesn't mean extinct."
Aric's smile was a thin line. "So you're smugglers, relic-hunters, assassins—what's today's mask?"
"Survivors," the bearer said simply. "And traders. The creature you're carrying is dying. In our hands it will live, and you will live with it gone."
Aric crouched by the cage, studying the pale mass of filaments curled inside. Its shimmer had dimmed, but as his fingers brushed the bars, it pulsed weakly. Images flickered at the edge of his mind—routes, gates, symbols he couldn't name.
It wasn't just alive. It was trying to show him something.
He looked back at the mask-bearer. "What if instead of handing it over, we strike a bargain?"
A pause. "You have nothing we need."
"I have a path." He tapped the Mirror under his coat. "This Relay isn't just a warehouse. It's a network. You got in because you've got a piece of the key. I've got the rest. Together we could open gates even your bosses have forgotten exist."
Lyra hissed under her breath. "Vale…"
Aric ignored her. "You're traders. Trade with me."
The bearer's mask tilted, considering. Behind him, one of the others shifted his staff, whispering something through the filter. The leader raised a gloved hand, silencing him.
"What do you want in return?" he asked.
"A map," Aric said. "Your routes. Your caches. Names of the Sanctum's agents. Everything you've gathered about living fragments. And in exchange you get access to the gates I open."
The bearer's head tilted the other way. "You overestimate your leverage."
"Do I?" Aric glanced at the cage. "This thing isn't going to last long without help. You know it. I know it. But if it dies in my hands, your bosses get nothing. At least with me, you've got a chance."
Silence. Only the soft chiming of the fragment.
Lyra's threads trembled at her side, ready to lash. She whispered, "We can't trust them."
Aric's eyes stayed on the mask-bearer. "Of course we can't. But we can use them."
Finally the bearer lowered his hand. "You'll keep the fragment. We'll follow you through the gates. If you betray us, you die before you reach the next station."
"Fair enough," Aric said.
One of the other mask-bearers hissed. "We can't—"
The leader cut him off. "You will obey." Then to Aric: "Show us the way."
Aric stood, slinging the cage over his shoulder again. "Then stay close. The Relay doesn't like hesitation."
He crossed to the dais. The Mirror pulsed in his hand, aligning with the spiral engravings. Threads of light snapped downward from the knot overhead, connecting to the cage, the Mirror, and the mask-bearers' hidden keys. The chamber darkened, the blue veins dimming until only the spiral glowed beneath their feet.
The leader's voice was a whisper. "Where does this path lead?"
Aric smiled faintly. "Somewhere none of us have been."
The world tilted. Light bent inward, forming a tunnel of shimmering chords. The floor fell away.
Lyra grabbed his arm as they fell into the glow. "Vale—if this kills us—"
"Then at least we'll die moving forward," he said.
The chamber dissolved into light.