Chapter 24: The Path Of Broken Oaths
"I don’t like the way the Rift feels tonight," Lyra muttered, fingers wrapped tightly around her pulseblade as the group hurried through the corridor below the Guild Tower. Her eyes darted to Mireya, who struggled to keep up, her breath shallow, flickering in and out like a candle fighting against wind.
"She’s fading," Viera said, slowing her pace to steady Mireya with one arm. "The tether’s degrading faster than projected."
"The Gate’s pulling harder," Mireya rasped. "I feel it—it’s in my blood, in my teeth—like it’s calling me."
Ning Que moved in silence ahead of them, jaw set, steps relentless. "We’re eleven clicks from Gate Three. Once we cross the southern docks, we hit Rift terrain. No turning back."
Aeris tapped her comm. "Diversion teams in place?"
"Copy," came the reply. "False Rift breach triggered in Lab Sectors. Guards are peeling off."
"Good," Ning murmured without looking back. "Then we still have a window."
The docks rose out of the dark like ribs from a corpse. Above, the moon hung split and dim, its fractured reflection bending across water streaked with Riftlight. As the shuttle skimmed across the ocean, none of them spoke. Only Mireya, shivering against the railing, broke the silence: "What happens... when we reach it?"
Ning’s voice was low. "We end what we began."
---
They arrived at dawn, the cliffs jagged and sickly pale, grass leached of color. Where the ocean should’ve been, there was only absence—a yawning void—and rising from that nothing, a black spire hovered, its edges blurred, its presence ancient.