The Whisper Beyond the Rift

"Lynchie."

Her name did not echo in the cliffs—it pressed directly against her mind, the sound threading through her spine like a whisper of thunder. The voice wasn't male or female. It was old, heavy with a sorrow that stretched back before time was counted, and yet it spoke her name like a promise… or a warning.

She staggered back from the Spiral scroll, but it did not fall. It hung in the air, luminous, the ancient ink shimmering between visibility and void. Runes bent unnaturally around its edge, unraveling and respooling themselves into shapes that made her breath catch—shapes she had seen only once, in the sealed chamber beneath the Hall of Refraction.

Her fingertips trembled. Her mouth was dry. "Did anyone else hear that?"

Vyen and Eryndor looked at her sharply, but their eyes answered before their words did.

"No," Vyen said quietly, his usual reverence shaken. "But something moved through the Spiral."

"It addressed her," Eryndor murmured, and for the first time, Lynchie saw something new in his expression: unease.

The scroll suddenly twisted in the air—no wind, no physical force. It moved like a creature, then spun rapidly before slamming shut, the impact releasing a shuddering pulse across the stone plateau. Cracks spidered under Lynchie's feet, glowing with faint Spiral residue.

And then… silence.

Not the ordinary kind. Not stillness.

This was the kind of silence that had weight, like the Spiral itself was holding its breath.

The cliffs around them, once alive with the murmurs of flowing Spiral energy, now felt stagnant. Lynchie could feel every cell in her body screaming for motion, but her limbs stayed still. Her vision swam. Somewhere, deep in her sternum, the spiral tattoo pulsed once—hard.

"What did it say?" Zev's voice broke through, calm but tight. He stood behind her now, closer than before. His presence had a strange gravity, and for a moment she realized how much of her Spiral field had entangled with his.

She didn't turn to face him. "My name. Just my name. But not like someone calling out—it was like... I was being claimed."

His breath hitched. "Claimed by what?"

"I don't know," she said. But that was a lie, wasn't it?

Because somewhere deep inside, in the hollow space the Spiral had carved out for itself within her soul, something else had stirred.

A memory that didn't belong to her. A sensation that hadn't originated in her body.

Pain—lightyears deep and centuries old. A battlefield torn in layers of reality. A crown made of fractured Spiral glass. And eyes. Eyes like hers, but not hers. Eyes that belonged to someone who had once stood where she stood now, staring into the spiral's heart—and lost.

"She's connected now," Vyen muttered. "The Spiral no longer sees her as separate."

Eryndor's hand went to the blade at his side. "That makes her a beacon. If the Mirror-Spoken were waiting for a signal..."

Lynchie turned toward him sharply. "You think this will bring them?"

He didn't answer.

Zev did.

"They were already coming. This just told them exactly when to strike."

The air thickened. Thunder rolled in the distance, unnatural and without clouds.

Lynchie turned her gaze toward the southern sky, where the horizon now shimmered with movement. Not clouds. Not birds.

Forms. Shapes that slid unnaturally against the light, bending the sky as they came.

"We don't have time," she whispered.

"We never did," Zev replied. "We only had you."

And as the first shadow from beyond the Rift crossed into the Spiral's edge, Lynchie stepped forward—heart pounding, Spiral blazing beneath her skin, the words from the ancient voice still burning behind her eyes.

"Then they'll find me waiting."