Falling lasted long enough for Kael to map his fear.
Then the dark caught him like a tide and set him down on something that felt like night given shape. Serah hit beside him and rolled fluidly to her feet, knife already out, breath sharp.
There was no ceiling. There was no sky. The chamber had opened into a space that pretended to be a cavern until your eyes noticed there were no walls, only distances that refused to end. The floor—not floor—was studded with monoliths that might have been columns once and had become gravestones for things too large to bury.
"Tell me we're not dead," Serah said.
"We're where dead names go," Kael said softly.
They arrived on a wind that did not touch their hair. Names. He could hear them if he did not try to. Each a softness, a hush, then a weight. Lysa. Tharn. Mirel. Ky—
And then one that was a cut.
—Kael.
His own name came back to him from every direction, spoken in a thousand voices he had never had. For a heartbeat every life that might have been stood around him and watched with his eyes. Blacksmith. Father. Corpse. Saint. Monster.
"Don't," Serah said, as his knees bent. She caught his shoulder and dug in hard. "I know that look. Don't kneel to your might-have-beens."
He breathed. The Mark shone cold along his veins, resentful of interruption. "They're not trying to make me kneel. They're trying to make me choose."
A figure stepped out from behind a monolith that had not been there. It wore Kael's face, older by twenty years and carved in proud cruelty. Scars like script crossed its cheek. Its shadow did not touch the ground.
"I am what happens when you open," said the man with Kael's voice. "I am a key."
Another figure, this one gaunt with gentleness, eyes ruined and mouth smiling like a prayer. "I am what happens when you close," it said. "I am a seal."
Serah swore. "Absolutely not."
"Quiet," the kind one said, and somehow Serah shut her mouth.
Kael stood between them, feeling the pull like a tide that did not care for swimmers. "This is a trick," he said.
"It is a mercy," said the cruel one. "We show you the ends so the path between can hurt you less."
"And to bind you to a story you did not write," the kind one said softly. "Even mercy can be a trap."
He closed his eyes, and in the dark behind his lids the names kept walking. His name kept dividing.
"Enough," he said. "I won't be your key. I won't be your seal. I will be a door that opens on my terms."
Something in the dark laughed, delighted. The cruel one tilted his head. The kind one's smile went sad.
"Then you must learn the names," they said together. "Not just their ends."
The monoliths hummed. Letters rose from their faces like breath on winter air—alphabets older than prayer, newer than sin. They swarmed to Kael, pricked his skin, sank.
Pain's first bite was clean. The second was personal.
He screamed, and the scream became a name he had not known was his.
Serah held him through it, cursing and coaxing in equal measure, refusing to let go. He felt her hold become a rope, the rope become a vow, the vow become a bridge.
When the names finally settled, Kael felt their weight and their grace. He could find them now. He could call them. He could carry them.
The not-floor trembled. Far above—or far below—the Prelate's light flared like a distant star.
"Company," Serah said, voice hoarse.
Kael stood. The Mark, for once, did not fight him. It waited, patient as a blade.
"We go to meet them," he said. "And we make them speak their names."
Around them, the dark smiled and learned his too.