The chamber hung in silence. Not a breath stirred. The broken pillar hissed steam and dust, and the being that emerged from it stood still, as though the destruction was merely a byproduct of its arrival—not an act of aggression, but inevitability.
Lynchie couldn't move. Her knees threatened to buckle beneath the weight of the being's presence. Its form pulsed like a living rune, composed not of flesh but symbols constantly rewriting themselves. No face, no eyes—and yet she knew it saw her. It saw all of her.
Zev moved first.
He stepped in front of her, arm raised, spiral wards flickering to life along his bracer. "Stay behind me."
The being tilted its head. Or maybe it was just rearranging the glyphs where its head should have been. "Protector," it spoke—though the word wasn't heard with ears. It fell into their minds like truth dropped into water.
Zev didn't flinch. "You've crossed the last of the Archive's sovereign rings. That's a declaration of war."
"We do not war," said the Sigilborne. Its voice was layered—like a choir in a tomb, each tone echoing from a different decade. "We retrieve. What was born of our glyph returns."
It pointed directly at Lynchie.
She stepped back.
"No," she breathed. "You can't just decide I belong to you."
"You were made by what we are," it replied. "Your blood has remembered. The wards you awakened are ours. The convergence approaches, and the Spiral must be whole."
"She's not a tool," Zev snarled. "She has choice."
The Sigilborne's body flexed. Spiral threads unraveled and rewove themselves, forming a shield of glowing runes in the air around it.
Vyen whispered from behind, "If it crosses further, the inner wards will react. You saw what they did to the last incursion."
"I'm not letting it take her," Zev growled.
Lynchie felt heat rise in her hands again. The glyphs under her skin shimmered, glowing brighter with every breath. The Archive responded to her fear, to her defiance.
She looked the Sigilborne straight on.
"I don't remember anything you say I was. But I know I'm not yours."
The Sigilborne's head tilted once more. "You deny your anchor. Then we test the glyph."
Suddenly, the space between them twisted.
The air tore open in a spiral vortex, and Lynchie was yanked forward—not physically, but through the mind, her spirit pulled like thread through the eye of a needle.
She stood on a battlefield—not real, but remembered. A memory etched in Spiral runes.
A thousand warriors stood in silence, their faces carved with shifting symbols, all turned toward a blazing tower of spiral flame. At the center: a woman. Eyes wild, arms covered in burning glyphs. Screaming a name.
Her name.
Lynchie.
Lynchie screamed.
The memory spat her out.
She collapsed onto the floor of the dome, coughing, shaking, her palms bleeding where the glyphs had burned through her skin.
Zev caught her before she fell.
"What did it do?" he asked, voice trembling with fury.
"She… she was me," Lynchie whispered. "Or I was her."
Vyen paled. "A rebirth line. There hasn't been a Spiral-borne echo in over two thousand years."
The Sigilborne lowered its arms. "You begin to remember. When the Spiral breaks, only she who bore the glyph of all will survive. The test has begun."
With a final shimmer, the Sigilborne dissolved into a stream of shifting letters and vanished into the cracks of the broken floor.
For a long time, no one moved.
Zev pressed a cloth into Lynchie's hands, stopping the blood. "You passed."
"No," she whispered. "I didn't."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to go with it. Just for a second." Her voice broke. "I wanted to remember."
Outside, horns began to sound—long and deep.
Vyen's eyes widened. "The outposts. They're signaling retreat."
Zev helped Lynchie stand. "What now?"
Vyen turned toward the exit, his eyes grim. "Now? We prepare for war."
And from the cracks in the dome, the Spiral trembled once more.