Night returned heavy and silent. The palace torches burned lower than usual, their smoke curling along the ceiling. Lena walked beside the prince through the long marble corridor toward the lower wing. Neither spoke. The air itself seemed to listen.

When they reached the locked stairway, Alden motioned for the guards to stay behind. “If this fails, I do not want witnesses,” he said. The guards hesitated, then bowed and withdrew.

The two descended alone. The deeper they went, the louder the hum became. It was no longer a sound but a pressure against the skin, steady as a heartbeat. At the bottom stood the iron door. The runes carved around its edge now glowed red instead of blue.

“The pattern is changing,” Alden said quietly. “It’s rewriting itself.”

Lena stared at the markings. Some were broken, others half-erased as if melted from within. “What happens if the pattern completes itself without us?”

“The Gate will decide alone,” he said. “And if it decides, both worlds may pay for it.”

He drew a small blade from his belt and pressed it to his palm. Blood welled and ran across the symbols. The red light shifted to gold. “Old blood seals old power,” he murmured.

The door groaned open. Warm wind poured from the darkness below, carrying the scent of rain and metal. The chamber waited—larger now than before, as though it had grown. The floor pulsed with slow waves of light. At the center, the circular platform shone with fragments of the missing pattern.

Lena stepped forward, feeling the ground vibrate beneath each footstep. She could see where the lines stopped, leaving spaces between the glowing arcs. The shapes looked incomplete, like sentences without endings.

She knelt and touched one of the broken lines. It flared brighter and connected to another. The hum deepened.

Alden watched. “You’re filling the gaps.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose,” she said. “It moves on its own when I get near.”

“Then let it move,” he said. “Maybe it wants to show you what it needs.”

More light spread under her hands until the pattern formed a spiral. Symbols rose in the air like dust caught in sunlight. They rotated slowly, aligning around her.

Lena felt something push against her thoughts—a presence familiar and vast. The same voice whispered again, clear and close. Two halves cannot exist apart. Complete the circle or let it fall.

Her vision blurred. She saw flashes of her world again—her apartment window, her desk, the faint hum of the refrigerator. And behind that, the reflection of the other her staring through glass. Their eyes met across the distance.

“Stop,” Alden said sharply. “You’re crossing the threshold.”

Lena tried to pull back but couldn’t. The light bound her wrist like invisible chains. Her other self reached from the vision, mirroring the movement. The circle began to close.

Alden stepped onto the platform, gripping her shoulder. “Lena, listen to me. You must not let it merge completely. Tell it no.”

The voice in her mind grew louder. Balance must be made.

She whispered, “If I break the circle, will it end?”

If you break it, one world fades.

Alden tightened his hold. “It’s lying,” he said. “The Gate feeds on fear. Choose nothing. Hold steady.”

Lena’s heartbeat thundered in her chest. The spiral blazed brighter, then dimmed again, waiting.

Slowly she lifted her hand from the floor. The glow faded where her skin had touched. The hum weakened. The voice retreated like a wave pulling back into the sea.

The chamber grew still. The symbols froze mid-air, incomplete once more.

Alden exhaled. “You stopped it.”

Lena’s hands shook. “For how long?”

He looked at the unfinished pattern. “Until it learns patience or finds another way.”

They left the chamber before the light could change again. Upstairs, the air felt colder, thinner, as if the palace itself had held its breath while they were below.

When they reached the courtyard, dawn was breaking. The first light touched the wet stones, turning them silver.

Alden said, “The Gate now knows resistance. That may give us time.”

Lena nodded, though her mind was still full of the other her staring from across the divide. “It also knows I refused it,” she said.

“That makes you dangerous,” he answered. “But also necessary.”

She looked toward the horizon where the city shimmered under the morning mist. “The pattern isn’t finished,” she said. “If it stays broken, both sides will keep pulling until one wins.”

“Then we will finish it on our own terms,” Alden said.

They stood there as the sun rose, silent against the wind, both knowing that the pause they had earned was not peace but the brief breath before the next strike.