Kaelion's dreams bled.
They didn't start that way.
At first, there was peace. Sky—soft blue streaked with gold, the kind of sky that only existed in childhood. He stood barefoot on a hill, laughing at something Wren had said. She smiled, hand brushing his shoulder. Nyro danced in lazy circles nearby, tails bright against the grass.
For a moment, Kaelion forgot.
Forgot the exile. The bond. The spiral mark pulsing beneath his skin.
But then the hill cracked.
Split down the middle like a broken plate.
And the sky inverted.
Gold turned to bone. The air soured.
The ground beneath Kaelion's feet withered into jagged ribcage arches, spiraling outward like a grotesque staircase. They rose from a sea of pulsing marrow. Roots jutted from the earth, slick with ichor. The trees had no leaves—just antlers, hung with shattered mirrors.
Above him, the sky churned with gray stormclouds shaped like blinking eyes. One enormous eye glowed overhead—shut tight but twitching, as if dreaming.
He heard the pulse before he saw it.
Thoom-thoom… thoom-thoom…
A massive door stood ahead, suspended over the marrow pit.
Carved entirely from bone—chained, cracked, and faintly alive.
Each segment writhed as if remembering motion. Chains wrapped it like veins. In the center of the door was a carved Spiral seal, glowing dimly. It pulsed, beat for beat, with his chest.
The Gate of Bone.
Kaelion moved toward it, though his feet felt heavy, half-sunken in blood-soaked moss.
Then—
"You are not ready."
He turned.
Behind him stood himself.
But older. Weathered. Wearing a twisted crown of thorns and shadow.
Not a hallucination.
Not a reflection.
A warning.
"You're breaking the seals too fast," the older Kaelion said. His voice sounded distant, echoing, like it had traveled across centuries. "You don't know what's waiting."
Kaelion's pulse quickened. "I'm trying to stop it—whatever's behind that Gate."
"No," the older version said. "You're trying to survive it. That's not the same."
The Gate pulsed again.
Thoom-thoom…
A crack appeared down the Spiral seal.
Kaelion took a step back. "Why is it waking up now?"
"Because you're near," the other Kaelion said. "Because you've already begun to open it. With every seal you break, it remembers a little more of you. And the things inside... they remember everything."
Kaelion looked back at the Gate.
It was humming now. Not loudly, but with pressure. Like sound from underwater.
A voice spoke from within it. Faint. Twisted.
"Spirallll… Prrriince…"
Kaelion screamed.
He woke gasping, covered in cold sweat.
Night hadn't lifted yet, but it was close. The horizon burned violet between the trees. The fire had gone to ash, but the air still radiated heat. He shivered.
Wren sat nearby, her blade in her lap. She was sharpening it with practiced calm, but the moment she heard him stir, her eyes snapped to his.
"Another dream?"
He nodded. "Worse."
She came over quickly. "The Gate again?"
"I saw it," Kaelion whispered. "But it saw me first."
Wren knelt beside him. "Tell me."
Kaelion opened his palm.
The Spiral mark pulsed faintly beneath the skin—more vibrant than ever before. Three coils, one beginning to unravel and spin. Each one throbbed like it had depth now, as if the spiral reached into him.
"The Gate stirred," Umbrix said. "And something inside it recognized you."
"Was it you?"
"…Not only."
Kaelion swallowed hard. "You told me you were sealed alone."
"I was. But the Gate goes deeper than my cell."
"What else is in there?"
"Spirits older than I can name. Creatures erased from all records. They were not sealed for crimes… but for what they were. And now they stir because of you."
Wren caught the tension in Kaelion's posture. "You think they're reaching out?"
Kaelion looked at her with haunted eyes. "I don't think they are. I know they are. One of them spoke to me. In the dream. I felt it in my ribs. It called me—"
He clenched his jaw. "—Spiral Prince."
Wren's hand touched his shoulder, grounding him.
"You're not what they think you are."
"Then what if I become it anyway?"
By first light, they were already moving.
The Spiritwild no longer looked alive—it looked aware. The leaves didn't stir in wind. They tilted as Kaelion passed. Branches curled away like they remembered his name. The forest wasn't hiding him anymore.
It was watching.
"Half a day to the archivist," Wren said, leading him across a gnarled root-bridge.
"And you trust her?"
"I don't," Wren said. "But I trust she knows more than anyone else."
Kaelion slowed.
The ground beneath his boots vibrated.
A hum. A breath. A presence.
He knelt, placing his palm flat to the moss.
Thoom-thoom…
It echoed through his bones.
"The Gate is singing," he whispered.
Wren turned back. "Here?"
Kaelion looked ahead. "Something's close."
Then the moss peeled back.
Not torn.
Withdrawn.
Something slithered from beneath the forest floor—smoke-colored bone, ridged with pulsing runes. No eyes. No mouth. Just plates of slick bone and a curved head etched with the Spiral mark.
Kaelion stepped back.
Wren's blade was already drawn. "Bonewoken."
The creature didn't hiss. Didn't roar.
It simply moved.
Kaelion dodged the first lunge. Wren went left, Nyro flanking right. The Bonewoken struck the dirt like a whip. When Kaelion cast a pulse of shadowfire, it barely slowed.
Then it spoke.
Not aloud.
Inside his skull.
"We sssssee you... Herald... Invitation... Openerrrrr..."
Kaelion screamed, dropping to his knees as blood trickled from his nose. His mark burned like it was branding him from the inside.
Umbrix roared from within, a pulse of energy rushing to Kaelion's arms.
He didn't think.
He unleashed.
Shadowfire exploded from his palms in a spiraled burst, slamming the Bonewoken into a dead tree. The bark cracked. So did the creature.
It didn't scream.
It smiled with no mouth.
Until Kaelion stepped forward, rage rising behind his eyes.
"Leave. Me. Alone!"
A second wave of spiraled darkness exploded outward. This one was shaped.
Directed.
The Bonewoken disintegrated into ash.
Silence.
Wren helped Kaelion stand.
His nose was still bleeding.
Nyro sniffed the air and growled, tails arching.
"That wasn't a scout," Wren said.
"No," Kaelion murmured. "That was a message."
"It wasn't from the Gate," Umbrix whispered.
"Then from where?"
"From something buried deeper. Something not bound by seals anymore."
Kaelion turned to the trees.
And for just a moment…
…they turned away.