The gate of the Crimson Spire opened for him like a wound that had waited centuries to bleed.
Sunny carried Ash in his one remaining arm. She weighed almost nothing now—charred bone wrapped in flakes of ash, flame reduced to a faint ember flickering beneath cracked ribs. Silver hair burned away entirely; what remained was black and brittle. The spear had melted into slag, clinging to her fingers like a child's toy.
He stepped over the threshold.
The gate sealed behind him with the soft finality of a mouth closing.
Darkness swallowed them, then gave way to red light—thick, viscous, the color of old blood left too long in the sun.
The interior of the Spire was wrong.
He remembered a brutal vertical gauntlet—endless stairs, crushing gravity, corridors full of carapace horrors.
This was something else.
A throat.
The walls pulsed. The floor breathed. The air tasted of rust and womb. Gravity shifted without warning—down, sideways, upward. Sunny walked on walls, ceilings, on nothing at all. Shadow coiled beneath his feet, anchoring him.
Ash's ember flickered against his chest, barely alive.
He climbed.
The first memory hit without ceremony.
A ruined cathedral on the Forgotten Shore. Rain poured through the broken roof.
Nephis, white armor gleaming, sword raised—eighteen years old, still believing the world could be saved.
Younger Sunny—thin, terrified, lying through his teeth—stood behind her. Shadow writhing at his back.
The scene looped. Nephis turned to him, trusting, asking if he would stand with her against the coming night. Younger Sunny smiled, lied, said yes. Then, when her back was turned… he drove the shadow blade into her spine.
The betrayal that never happened in truth—but had lived in his mind for centuries—shattered her into a thousand burning shards. They flew like hornets.
Sunny twisted. Shadow arms unfolded to shield Ash. Impacts tore through him. White fire seared his flesh—Nephis's fire, pure and merciless.
He kept walking.
Shards reformed. Nephis smiled, trusted, waited for the knife. The corridor reappeared.
He climbed.
Second memory.
A flooded street in the Dark City.
Effie—twenty-two, massive, laughing—holding a crumbling wall with her bare hands while Nightmare Creatures poured through.
"Run, little brother! I've got this!"
The wall collapsed. The creatures tore her apart, piece by piece, while she laughed until nothing remained.
The frozen Effie turned, thirty meters tall, iron and hunger. She charged.
Sunny met her with shadow. They fought across memory—arm punching through iron, fists shattering ribs, laughter echoing inside his skull.
He tore her apart eventually. Piece by screaming piece.
When the last fragment fell, her voice lingered:
"You were supposed to be the weak one."
He kept climbing.
Third memory.
Kai, above the Labyrinth, wings of starlight burning. Voice gentle.
"I forgive you," he said, just before younger Sunny drove the dagger into his heart to steal his Aspect.
Frozen Kai fell. Wings folding, eyes forgiving. Shattered into a storm of glass feathers. They carved Sunny to ribbons—face, chest, legs—more wound than man.
He walked through anyway. Shadow trailing like a tattered cloak. Ash's ember flickered, weaker now.
Fourth memory.
Cassie, night before the final march, blind eyes turned to him.
"You will betray them all," she whispered. "And they will forgive you. And you will never forgive yourself."
Her fingers—ice—touched his cheek.
Now she stood ahead, older, throat cut by his hand in another life. Blood poured in endless streams. She opened her arms.
Sunny walked into them. Blood filled lungs, mouth, eyes. He let it.
When he walked out, he was clean. But heavier.
The memories kept coming.
Jet teaching survival, dying alone in snow.
Mordret wearing his face, offering mirrors showing every Sunny who had chosen the easier path. Each tried to kill him. Each succeeded, for a moment. Each time he rose.
Ash's breathing—shallow, wet—slowed further.
They reached a landing that should not exist. A circular chamber, walls made of frozen moments—hundreds of them, looping silently. The entire journey compressed into a single room: every death, every lie, every failure.
In the center, a staircase spiraled upward. Red light pulsed from above like a heartbeat.
Sunny stopped.
Ash stirred against his chest. Eyes opened—gold, dim, almost gone. She looked at the walls, at the frozen betrayals, then at him.
"I was sent," she whispered, barely audible, "to bring the Traitor Saint to the top. Alive."
Sunny already knew. She smiled—small, sad, proud.
"She said you'd come if we hurt you enough."
Her charred hand touched the white flame over his heart.
"Tell her…" she breathed. "…her granddaughter kept the fire warm."
The ember went out. Her body crumbled. Ashes slipped through his fingers, settling on Nephis's smiling face, on Effie's laughing mouth, on Kai's forgiving eyes.
Sunny knelt, gathered the ashes, pressed them against the flame over his heart. The white fire accepted them, burning brighter.
He stood.
The staircase waited.
He began to climb.
Behind him, the frozen memories began to burn—one by one, silently, cleanly.
The Spire was clearing the way.
For him.
For what came next.