Each step fell uneven, Erith's legs trembling as the group descended the ancient spiral. Lantern flames licked the walls, their light spilling across the stone.

Rhymera's face lingered in his mind—tired, bound in the carriage. The image clung as stubborn as the chill in the air.

For a time, only the echo of boots filled the stairwell, a steady rhythm that remained undisturbed, until a faint glint ahead caught Erith's eye.

Cerus slowed, then stepped toward the glow. The inner wall had collapsed—or by the look of it, had been blown apart. Where the stone had given way, jagged shards jutted from the stairs and the outer wall, smooth and milky white, as if lightning had been caught mid-strike and frozen in place.

Erith glanced back, searching Maeric's face. Maeric stood in quiet awe of the shards before his attention flicked to Erith—who turned away before their eyes could meet, before the weight of it could settle.

Cerus' voice followed, calm and measured, yet it carried easily across the silence, echoing along the cold stone.

"Heed my warning from before. Do not let your skin touch what is not stone. You will not get a chance to undo the death it brings."

He stepped first, weaving carefully between the great shards.

Erith's eyes didn't leave the shards, the way light from the lanterns slid across their surface like water. For a moment, he forgot to move—until Cerus' voice drifted back through the dark.

"Come, now. It is still a ways to descend."

A weight dropped in the pit of Erith's stomach—an unease he couldn't name. A lump rose in his throat, but he pressed forward.

A short stretch of stair lay free of the pale shards, and he cautiously inched between them.

He was about to put another foot forward when he froze.

It was gone almost before it existed—a sound, a breath of chatter, as if someone had whispered beside his ear and vanished before the words could take shape. The echo clung to him like static, raising the hairs along his neck.

Erith turned sharply, searching for the source, and his footing slipped. Instinct drove his leg down hard, boot striking the stair to keep his balance. When he lifted his head, Maeric stood a few steps behind him, confusion etched across his face.

Maeric lifted his hands slightly, mouthing "Careful", alarmed by Erith's sudden movement.

Erith's breath hitched. He steadied himself upright, exhaled slowly before carrying forward.

The group moved in silence, snaking through the shards until the last of the inner wall had fallen away, revealing a circular chamber veiled in ghost-white crystal.

The original stairs had vanished beneath the growth, overtaken by the jutting shards. In their place, a narrow flight of wooden steps descended from the breach.

Erith's eyes swept the chamber—up the walls that disappeared into blackness, across the floor where the stone met pale crystal. They protruded from every surface, catching the firelight and scattering across the walls.

At the center, they amassed in a vast cluster, as if the chamber's heart had ruptured and poured outward, swallowing everything it touched.

Near that core, a slab of stone had been pried away, leaving a pit and a mound of earth beside it.

For all its brilliance, Erith thought, the chamber felt hollow. The Illuminary must have stripped away everything not already claimed by the crystal.

The edge of the elderly man's ornate robes brushed lightly against Erith's arm as brisked past, joining Cerus near the core.

Erith's attention shifted onto the elderly man, and then to Cerus—his attention not on the crystal or the ruin around him, but on Erith. The scrutiny was calculated, unblinking, waiting to see Erith take it all in.

A grin crept across his face when their eyes met. "Mesmorizing. Isn't it?"

Erith returned a small nod, pacing a few steps toward the cluster of shards at the chamber's center.

With the ghostly mass just out of arm's reach, he set the lantern beside him and raised a hand. All eyes of the Illuminary were on him, yet curiosity pressed harder than caution.

Closing his eyes, he let his Kaida extend outward, rippling through the room. But where it should have met resistance, there was only absence—a vast emptiness where the white fractures stood.

He opened one eye, and in spite of himself, he leaned closer. Again, he sent his Kaida forward, calling into the void…

…until the void answered.

Elurias—

Velora's signal should—

You'll find me again... you always do.

The voices tangled through the air, faint and overlapping. His fingers twitched, drawn toward the shard.

Erith startled back, hand snapping away. His eyes opened wide.

...Elian?

The thought burned through him, he was unsure if the words were said aloud or were in his head. Whatever it was, it felt unfamiliar, like a thought that didn't belong to him—but unmistakably spoken in Elian's voice.

His pulse quickened. He turned his head toward Cerus and the elder, both of whom were watching him in silence.

Erith swallowed hard, forcing his voice steady. "The shards... they pull Mura?" He kept tone even, a deflection to bury the unease still crawling beneath his skin.

"They are exceptional at drawing in Mura, sealing it within itself," Cerus replied. "They unmake the Balance inside a wielder—strip the Mura clean away, leaving only raw Kaida. You can imagine what that does to the body."

It doesn't seem like anyone else heard...

Cerus paused, his gaze drifting to the pale cluster. "My understudy and I discovered that truth here, by accident. It took time to understand why she suffered as she did. Time, and a certain cruelty of observation."

Lantern light slid over the smooth ghostly surfaces as Cerus stepped closer. "Eventually, we brought a lesser Murasi here. When it touched these shards, it simply ceased—vanished as if swallowed by the air itself. The pull was so swift, you might miss it as it happened."

He stopped before the cluster, voice low but certain. "Even a fragment could unravel a lesser Murasi. And more than that? Perhaps the creature you faced in the Narrows—a Murasi of pure chaos, capable of defying even the full force of the Illuminary."

There was a reverence in his eyes as he studied the pale growths. "This... might be what turns the tides."

The memory of the Narrows flashed through Erith's mind—the deep black claw sloughing stone effortlessly. He watched Cerus carefully, the man's soft fascination unsettling in its certainty.

"Yet you can't, can you?"

A faint glimmer of satisfaction crossed Cerus' face as he turned toward Erith—almost a smile, almost a threat.

"Your intuition strikes again, Erith. Despite our efforts to move them, the shards remain impossibly dense. Nothing we've tried can separate them. But we have a thread... a theory."

The elder's voice followed, low and measured. "Kaida gems can be altered—refined—through a precise grating with Mura. It demands control beyond the reach of most wielders. Precision only mastered through a lifetime of discipline."

Cerus began pacing toward the elder. His tone shifted to something almost conversational.

"Not long ago, I heard of a young man who stormed the Morvathi diplomatic estate. His Mura control was remarkable—left the place in ruin, tore a balcony clean from its moorings."

He turned, taking a slow step closer to Erith. Around them, the apprentices stood along the curved walls. Among them was Maeric, eyes fixed between Erith and Cerus.

"What caught my attention was not the destruction, but the detail. The locks of the balcony door had been severed clean."

Cerus' eyes locked with Erith, weighing his silence.

"I had those locks sent to me. My companion here is an old friend—one of the most accomplished Mura wielders in the Three Kingdoms. Not for his strength on the battlefield...but for his precision in gemcraft."

Erith looked to the elder, meeting a gaze that fixed on him without so much as a blink.

"If I were blessed with another lifetime," the elder murmured, "I could convince myself that I could produce a cut like this—it would take me weeks to achieve what you did in mere seconds."

"These shards are of nothing like our world, and our thread has led us to believe that a truly remarkable level of precision with Kaida might be what severs them." Cerus said, gesturing toward the cluster.

The tremor returned to Erith's legs. He shook his head. "There's no telling what this is—what it was, let alone what it could be used for. Even if I could cut through it... why would I do this for you?"

The calm in Cerus' smile skewed with a quiet menace. Dread slid through Erith like cold water. The answer he feared was understood.

"Your intuition is sharp, Erith." Cerus inclined his head to the darkness above. "Tell me—did you see someone you didn't expect to be in our camp?"

Rhymera...

The thought settled like ice in his chest. The apprentices stood in a silent ring along the chamber walls by the wooden steps, their lanterns and torches flickering low. The cold from the crystal mass breathed at his back, seeping into the air behind him.

"You will do this for us, Erith. If not by will, then by necessity. Some bindings are easier to cut than others."

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