The Moon Towers pierced the night sky, varicolored in hue and crystalline of surface to reflect the chaotic dance of the seven moons above them; every step up their spiral stairways rose through time-the architecture here was more ancient than the Inverse Spires, more ancient perhaps than the giant-kings themselves.
Behind me, the city was burning. Most of the screams had stopped now, which was somehow worse. In their place, a strange harmony rose from the streets-the converted singing in voices that cracked reality itself. The sound followed me up the towers, echoing off the crystal walls in ways that made my teeth ache.
The Celestial Chamber occupied the highest point of the tallest tower, where all seven moons' light could touch it at once. The door bore markings I recognized from my studies-the same scripts that decorated Malakai's transformed skin. They pulsed faintly as I approached, responding to. something. The starweaver energy within me, perhaps, or something older.
"You shouldn't be here."
I spun, starfire flaring in my hands. Verin stood at the top of the stairs, his elegant robes torn and stained with something that shifted color in the moonlight. The middle brother's usual perfect composure was gone, replaced by a wild-eyed intensity that made me take a step back.
"Malakai sent me," I said, not lowering my hands. "He said there's a box-
"Of course he did." Verin laughed-a bitter sound. "Always trying to save everyone, our little brother. Even now, when salvation itself might be the greatest danger." He took a step closer, and for the first time I saw that he moved wrong-too fluid, as if the joints of his body didn't quite align correctly.
"You're changing," I whispered.
He nodded, a jerky motion that reminded me of a puppet's. "The knowledge spreads, Sera. Like a virus, like a song, like a truth too beautiful to ignore. I tried to fight it, but." His eyes met mine, and for a moment I saw past the madness to the pain beneath. "I understand now. What Elara was trying to tell us. Reality isn't breaking-it's becoming what it always should have been."
"That's not you talking," I said, gathering more power into my hands. "That's them. The Old Ones."
"Perhaps." He smiled, and his teeth seemed too many, too sharp. "Or perhaps we have been wrong about everything. The giant-kings, the Seal, all of it. Perhaps we are the ones who have been twisting reality all along, forcing it into shapes it was never meant to take."
From below came a sound like the universe screaming. The tower trembled, crystal walls singing in resonance. Through the windows, I could see something vast moving through the city streets-a shape that hurt to look at, that seemed to exist in too many dimensions at once.
"They're coming," Verin said, his voice taking on harmonics that made my head spin. "The Old Ones remember this place. The Moon Towers were their first anchors in our reality, before the giant-kings drove them back. And now." He spread his arms, and I saw that the skin of his palms had split, revealing geometries that shouldn't exist. "Now they're coming home."
I had seconds to decide, and the box Malakai had referred to was somewhere in the Celestial Chamber behind me. In order for me to get to it, though, I had to get past Verin, and from what happened in the market, one touch from him in this state would convert me.
The tower shook again. I could see, through the windows, the other Moon Towers starting to crack, lines of darkness spreading through their crystalline structures. The harmony from below grew louder and I felt it trying to hook its talons into my mind, trying to reshape my thoughts into patterns which would welcome the change.
Verin stepped closer, his shape beginning to blur at the edges. "Join us, Sera. There's no point in fighting what's coming. The Old Ones remember everything-even the futures that haven't happened yet. Even the ones where you stand with us."
I gathered the last of my courage and my power, preparing to make a choice that would reshape everything-if there was anything left to reshape after tonight.
Above us, all seven moons aligned in a pattern I'd never seen before, their combined light casting shadows that moved independently of anything in our reality. And in those shadows, something began to wake.