When I look down at myself, I find my uniform charred, black scorch marks tracing patterns across the fabric where burns should have seared flesh beneath. I pull the damaged cloth aside. Nothing. No burns, no cuts. Smooth brown skin, unmarred.
I do not remember healing, nor do I remember anything after closing my eyes.
The engravings draw my attention now that exhaustion no longer clouds my vision. I push myself upright, studying the reliefs that cover every surface of this cube-shaped chamber. These are different from the ones in the previous room.
The tall figures are the same: pale skin, elongated skulls, torqs around their necks. But the scenes depicted here show something else entirely. Young figures fight in open spaces beneath a vast dome of light, something I take for sky at first, with stars visible through atmospheric haze.
But it is wrong.
I cannot explain how I know. The stars are too uniform in their distribution. The light too even. The dome itself has texture, faint lines that suggest construction rather than natural formation.
A false sky.
The certainty sits in my chest like a fish bone. This is not ignorance or assumption, but knowledge as fundamental as the Skathrith's hunger or Binah's unseen gaze.
The knowledge feels wrong. Unearned.
I study the tallest figure in the nearest relief. Its four arms spread wide, two reaching toward the false sky, two pressed against the earth. The posture suggests supplication. Or perhaps defiance. Around it stand others of its kind, their hands weaving complex Forms in the air.
Not teaching. Containing.
Movement catches my eye. Binah stands at the edge of shadows, her pale form untouched by the Skathrith's glow. She watches me with those impossible violet eyes, her head tilted in that unnervingly bird-like way.
Her hand rises slowly to her chest. She presses her fist against her heart, holding it there for three heartbeats. Then her arm extends outward, fingers unfurling like flower petals caught in morning light. The gesture is precise. Deliberate. Beautiful in its simplicity.
She repeats the motion. Slower this time.
Fist to heart. Pause. Extension. Release.
I watch her hands move through the pattern a third time, but the meaning escapes me, and my frustration builds hot and sharp in my throat. She lowers her hands and waits.
The Skathrith's song shifts, not louder, but different, as if the weapon understands what I do not.
I mirror her gesture: fist to chest, feeling the pressure of my knuckles against my sternum, holding it there through three heartbeats. The Skathrith's hum deepens as I extend my arm and open my fingers.
Nothing happens.
Binah shakes her head. A small, sharp motion. She repeats the gesture again, but this time her eyes close. Her breathing slows. The motion becomes something else. Meditation.
I try again. Fist to chest, eyes closed this time, feeling the rhythm of my pulse as the Skathrith's song weaves through it, around it, seeking harmony. I extend my arm. Release.
The tingling starts at my fingertips.
Sharp. Electric. The sensation crawls up my skin like frost forming on milk. I open my eyes and raise my hand. A faint shimmer traces the edges of my fingers, catching the Skathrith's light in impossible angles.
The shimmer spreads to my palm. My wrist. It does not hurt, but the wrongness of it makes my stomach turn.
This is not my hand anymore.
A crack echoes through the chamber.
My gaze snaps upward. A piece of stone breaks free from the ceiling, tumbling through the air toward my head.
Instinct takes over. My hand slashes through empty space.
Stolen story; please report.
The motion feels different. Precise. Deadly. My arm moves as if guided by an unseen current, following a path I never chose. The falling stone splits cleanly in two, its halves clattering to the ground on either side of me.
I stare at my hand, watching the shimmer persist as it transforms my flesh into something other. Not a weapon, but a conduit. The Skathrith's song shifts, a note of approval threading through its constant hum.
Understanding comes not as flood but as slow certainty: the weapon will not manifest, not yet, and perhaps it never will. But it offers its essence instead. I flex my fingers and feel the strange marriage of flesh and energy, the way it changes how I move through space itself.
Binah nods. The gesture is so slight I almost miss it. She extends her own hand and mimics my motion, though no power flows through her ethereal form.
This is the first step.
Something in the ceiling groans.
I look up in time to see three chunks of stone tear free simultaneously. They hang suspended for a heartbeat, then plummet.
I slash at the first. My strike goes too deep, burying my hand in the rock instead of through it. Pain jolts up my wrist. I wrench free and barely dodge the second stone as it crashes past my shoulder.
The third catches me across the ribs.
The impact drives air from my lungs. I stumble backward, gasping. The Skathrith's song falters, its approval replaced by something colder.
Disappointment.
I straighten. The shimmer on my hand flickers but holds.
Binah raises both hands. Her fingers dance through the air, plucking invisible strings. More stones break free from the walls. Five. Seven. Ten. They orbit around her like deadly moons.
She launches the first volley.
I slash wildly. One stone splits. Another passes through empty air where my hand was a moment before. The third catches my shoulder, tearing fabric and skin.
Blood wells from the cut, hot and immediate.
The Skathrith's song pulses with something I cannot name, not quite pleasure, not quite hunger. Something between.
The assault continues. Relentless. My movements are rough, uncoordinated. Each strike either cleaves too forcefully through stone or passes harmlessly through air. Sweat stings my eyes.
A jagged piece of obsidian hurtles toward my face. I duck. Too slow. The edge opens a line across my cheek.
More blood.
The Skathrith's hum deepens. Savoring.
Binah pauses, and the remaining stones halt mid-orbit, suspended by her invisible threads.
She moves forward, her form flowing like water across ice as she raises one hand and sweeps it through the air in a slow, elegant arc. The motion reminds me of something: Mother's courtyard, dawn light, Wave of Stillness becoming Blade of the Wind.
The memory surfaces unbidden. Unwelcome.
Binah repeats the gesture. Slower still. Her eyes meet mine. Expectant.
I close my eyes and let the Skathrith's hum fill my awareness as its song shifts, seeking alignment with my breath, my pulse, and something deeper I cannot name. The power flowing through my arms no longer feels entirely foreign.
The whisper of moving stone reaches my ears.
I open my eyes. Another barrage races toward me. Faster than before.
This time I do not fight the construct's influence. My body flows into familiar forms. Wave of Stillness. The first stone splits cleanly. Blade of the Wind. The second shatters.
Each strike is measured. Precise. No deeper than needed.
The stones fall harmlessly around me.
Binah's assault intensifies. The orbiting projectiles multiply, their paths crossing and weaving in patterns designed to confuse. To overwhelm.
I move through them. The Skathrith's power responds to my intentions now rather than my force. Where before I struggled, now I dance between the deadly trajectories.
My eyes drift to the engravings on the walls. The four-armed figure pressed against the earth. The others containing it with their Forms.
A stone clips my shoulder.
I stumble. The shimmer on my hand flickers.
Binah's gesture cuts through the air. Sharp. Emphatic.
The remaining stones halt in their orbital dance before dropping to the floor with dull thuds, lifeless now that her attention has shifted.
Her pale form glides closer, movements no longer fluid but carrying an edge of displeasure I have not seen before. She stops an arm's length away and taps her temple with two fingers. Hard. Deliberate.
Then she presses her hand against her chest. Over her heart.
The gesture repeats. More emphatic. More insistent.
Mind and heart.
I steady my breathing and try to recenter myself. The cut on my shoulder stings. A reminder of my failure. The Skathrith's song continues its deep, resonant hum.
The weapon is not disappointed in my failure.
It is savoring the blood.
I push the thought away and focus on Binah's instruction. Mind and heart as one. The same lesson Mother tried to teach me. The same lesson I have failed to learn for years.
Three new stones break free from the ceiling. They spiral toward me in a deadly arc, their paths calculated to leave no escape.
I channel the Skathrith's power along both arms. The first two stones split cleanly under precise strikes.
The third curves unexpectedly.
I push off the ground, intending a quick sidestep.
My body launches upward instead.
The sensation is immediate and disorienting. I float through the air, suspended for a heartbeat longer than gravity should allow. The stone whistles past beneath me. My movements mirror the Skathrith's ethereal nature, as if its power has seeped into my very muscles.
The landing comes too fast.
My feet touch down at an awkward angle. I stumble forward, barely catching my balance against the wall. My heart pounds against my ribs.
That leap was more than the ability to cut. The construct's influence extends to movement itself. To the space between steps. To the impossible made tangible.
I look to Binah.
She stands motionless. Her head tilts slightly. A faint nod. Barely more than a whisper of movement. Her violet eyes gleam with something that might be satisfaction.
The Skathrith's song shifts, harmonizing with my quickened pulse.
I force my attention back to the chamber. The dark stain on the wall draws my eye. The liquid still seeps from the crack, but faster now. The pool has spread, its surface twisting in ways that defy natural movement. Each ripple catches the Skathrith's light and creates patterns that seem to writhe with purpose.
The crack itself pulses. As if breathing.
The rhythm matches my heartbeat.
Then it accelerates.
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