Spirehold

The summons came by tone.

A low-pitched chime rang through the dorm tier, followed by a line of fossil-glyphs pulsing across the ceiling in soft gold. Dareth had barely returned from the library when it started. Around him, other trainees stood without comment and began gathering their gear.

He followed.

The corridor outside the dorms opened into a wide descending stair, carved directly through bone and stone. The walls were lined with old spinal ridges, half-preserved vertebrae still fossilized into the architecture. As they descended, the light changed, amber at first, then darkened into a quiet gray that thinned the deeper they went.

At the bottom waited an arena.

It wasn't a pit, or a circle, or a formal dueling ground. It was a hollow, an oval chamber cut directly into the base of the Spirehold structure. The walls were curved, polished, and marked with countless glyphs. They pulsed faintly with fossil resonance, arranged in a grid pattern across the entire floor.

Above the hollow, several balconies ringed the space, lined with observers. Instructors. Sigil-readers. And others Dareth couldn't identify. Some wore full masks. Others just hoods.

The assistant from before stood at the bottom of the steps. She raised one hand.

"New initiates of Cohort Eleven," she said, voice carrying clearly. "You have been summoned to complete your first mandatory trial. This is the Hollow. It reads what you carry."

She gestured to the glyphs beneath their feet.

"This floor is not stone. It is memory. It will pull from your Sigils, not your strength. Not your thoughts. Your memory. Or the memory that rides within your mark."

Several of the others tensed.

"You will enter the Hollow one at a time. What you face is yours alone. It cannot be interrupted. It cannot be escaped. Survive it, and you will be marked for advancement. Fail, and you will not return."

No one asked what that meant.

The assistant tapped a panel on the wall. The glyphs on the floor shifted. Then dimmed.

"First initiate," she called. "Rhelas Sorn."

A girl with dual marks stepped forward. Her arms were sleeved in relic mesh, and she walked without hesitation into the center of the hollow.

The glyphs lit beneath her.

She vanished.

Dareth didn't know how long each trial lasted. Time in Spirehold was hard to track. But one by one, each student was called. Some returned, breathing hard, pale, eyes wide. One collapsed on the steps and was dragged out by a silent assistant.

And soon enough.

"Dareth."

He stepped forward.

The others looked at him, but no one said a word.

He entered the hollow.

The moment both feet touched the center, the glyphs flared.

Not gold.

Red.

The floor dropped.

And he was falling.

Dareth hit the ground hard.

He landed on stone, cold, uneven, wet. It wasn't the floor of the Hollow anymore. This place was darker, lower, with a ceiling of jagged bone and walls that curved like the inside of a ribcage. Everything smelled of ash and old metal.

He stood slowly, his mark still burning faintly against his chest. The light here was unnatural. Not from torches or glowstones, but from the walls themselves. Fossil veins pulsed dim red through the floor like blood under skin.

He wasn't alone.

Across the chamber stood a figure.

Not monstrous. Not a creature. A man.

He looked human, but wrong in small ways. Too tall. Limbs too long. His head tilted slightly, as if curious or unsure. He wore no armor. His torso was bare, his skin etched with glyphs, many of them burned black, twisted from age or misuse.

The man looked at Dareth.

Then stepped forward.

Dareth didn't move. His instincts screamed, but his body stayed still.

The man spoke.

"You don't belong here."

His voice wasn't deep or distorted. It was just a voice.

"I didn't choose this," Dareth said.

"No one does," the man replied. "But you came through a door that shouldn't have opened."

He stopped a few feet away.

"What are you?" Dareth asked.

"Not a memory," the man said.

Dareth narrowed his eyes. "You're part of the trial?"

The man smiled. "Something like that."

Without warning, he moved.

One moment standing still, the next swinging a closed fist toward Dareth's head. Dareth ducked, felt the blow pass just over him, then staggered back. The man came at him again. Not fast, but deliberate, testing his range, his reactions.

Dareth blocked one strike, then another, but the third landed, a palm against his chest. The contact ignited his Sigil. Pain surged through his ribs, not from the impact, but from the mark inside reacting. A vision flashed:

A burning city. A crowd of people chanting in a dead tongue. A single figure on a tower, reaching for the sky.

Then nothing.

He hit the floor.

The man stood over him.

"You don't know what it's showing you, do you?" he asked.

"I'm not supposed to," Dareth managed. "It's not mine."

"Exactly."

The man knelt.

"Then tell me, Dareth. If it's not your memory…"

He pressed a finger to Dareth's forehead.

"…why does it keep coming back to you?"

The world went white.

And when Dareth opened his eyes again, he was lying on the floor of the Hollow.

Sweat clung to his skin. His mark pulsed hard against his ribs.

Instructors above him murmured. He didn't understand the words.

Someone stepped into view. A trainee in full uniform, older, with a long scar down his cheek. He crouched beside Dareth.

"You didn't pass," he said.

Dareth looked up, breathing hard. "I'm still here."

The trainee stood.

"That's rarer."

Then walked away.

--------------

Dareth sat on the edge of his bunk, shirt damp with sweat, arms resting on his knees.

The dorm was mostly empty. The trial had shaken everyone. Some were still in recovery, others had been moved to new tiers or removed entirely. No one spoke about it. No one asked who passed.

The air was still, lit by a pale blue strip of fossil-light that ran above the wall.

He shifted.

Someone had scratched a glyph into the metal frame of his bunk.

He hadn't noticed it before. It was shallow, precise. Three angular strokes wrapped in a half-ring. Dareth's eyes narrowed. It wasn't one of the basic ward marks or utility glyphs he'd seen etched into walls or equipment. It looked familiar.

He leaned closer.

It matched the glyph from his cot in containment.

And the one from the book.

He ran a finger over it. It felt old. Clean, but deliberate.

Behind him, something shifted.

Dareth turned.

The pale boy stood near the foot of the bunk. Same expression. Same posture. Arms loose at his sides, head tilted.

"You're late," Dareth said quietly.

The boy didn't answer right away.

"You were never supposed to come here," he said. "Not with the others."

"I didn't have a choice."

"There was a path," the boy replied. "But it's gone now. They pulled you too early."

Dareth stood up, careful not to raise his voice. "You haven't shown up since the Checkpoint."

"I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because this place eats memory. Not just yours. Everyone's. It thins the line."

Dareth rubbed his eyes. "You always do this, you talk like I already understand what any of that means."

The boy stepped forward.

"I watched your trial," he said. "That wasn't your memory. And it wasn't just the Hollow showing you things."

"Then what was it?"

"Something following you."

Dareth felt his chest tighten. He didn't ask what kind of thing. He didn't want to.

The boy looked at the scratched glyph again.

"More of them will come," he said. "Not watchers. Not students. The ones looking through the watchers."

Then, for once, he looked unsure.

"You need to stop thinking you're being tested."

Dareth stared at him. "Then what am I doing here?"

The boy met his eyes.

"They're trying to see how long it takes before you forget who you are."

The light above them flickered.

When Dareth looked back, the boy was gone.

And the glyph on the bunk had begun to glow.

The sparring tier was carved straight through vertebrae.

Not metaphorically. The chamber was built inside the massive arc of a fossilized spine that had been polished smooth and reinforced with metallic ribs. The ringed platforms were suspended at various heights, some close to the ground, others balanced over sheer drops with nothing but fossil nets to break a fall.

Dareth stood barefoot on the lowest ring. His boots and uniform coat sat folded at the edge. Around him, trainees watched from staggered benches cut into the far wall. A few instructors lingered above in the overlook alcoves. No one spoke.

Brann stepped into the ring opposite him.

The older trainee moved like he'd done this dozens of times. Lean, fast, solid in the way someone gets after surviving more fights than they win. His scar was visible now, a pale groove down his cheek that caught the light.

"You know the rules?" Brann asked.

"Don't kill each other," Dareth said.

Brann smirked. "Technically it's 'don't make it obvious if you try.'"

An instructor above tapped a relic key. The ring lit. Glyphs along the edge flared a soft amber.

"Begin."

Brann moved first.

He didn't hesitate. He crossed the space between them in a blur, aiming a low sweep at Dareth's ankle. Dareth jumped, cleared it, then ducked a follow-up strike aimed at his ribs. Brann spun low, trying to catch him off guard, but Dareth shifted his weight, let the momentum pass by.

Dareth countered with a jab to Brann's side. It landed, barely, but Brann's elbow came around a second later and cracked against Dareth's shoulder. Pain flared. He stumbled back.

He wasn't bad, but it was obvious who was better.

Brann closed the distance again, landing a clean hook to Dareth's ribs, then a sharp strike to his collarbone. Dareth felt the air leave his lungs. He dropped low, grabbed for Brann's knee, and shoved forward.

They grappled. For a moment it was just muscle and instinct, no technique, just grit. Dareth managed to twist free, but Brann's forearm slammed across his face before he could regain footing. Blood welled from his lip.

The mark stirred.

Not a flare. Not a flash. A slow burn under the skin, like pressure building behind a sealed door.

Brann paused for half a second.

"Come on," he said. "You've got it in there. Let's see it."

"I'm not using it," Dareth said through gritted teeth.

"Then you're already half-dead."

Brann feinted left, then drove his shoulder into Dareth's gut. Dareth doubled over. Another strike followed, upward, an uppercut that missed by inches. Dareth lunged to the side, rolled, and came up on one knee. His fist shot out and connected with Brann's thigh, but Brann absorbed it, pivoted, and brought his heel down.

Dareth rolled again, narrowly dodging.

Then he stood.

This time, his stance had changed. He didn't think about it, his body shifted on its own. 

Brann noticed.

He came at him again, quick jabs, aimed for pressure points. Dareth blocked two, deflected the third, then launched a counterstrike. It landed. Brann grunted.

Dareth followed with a flurry, two hits to the ribs, one to the shoulder, then a fake-out and a knee to the side.

Brann stepped back, grinning.

"Now that's better."

Dareth blinked.

His mark was pulsing harder now. The glyphs on the edge of the ring were reacting. He hadn't willed it. It had come on its own.

He took a breath. Held it.

And pushed the mark back down.

Brann watched carefully.

"You can control it," he said. "Good. Doesn't mean you should."

The instructor above tapped the relic key again.

"Match complete. Dareth: conditional pass. Brann: status unchanged."

Dareth stepped off the ring.

Brann followed.

"Word of advice," Brann said. "You don't get noticed around here unless you're useful or dangerous. Pick one. Fast."

Then he walked away.