The observatory dome hadn't stopped humming since nightfall. Not with sound, but with a presence—as if the Spiral Wards etched into its vaulted surface were vibrating in resonance with something unseen. Lynchie stood at the heart of the starlit chamber, her shadow stretching across concentric glyphs that hadn't glowed in centuries. Above her, the sky remained sealed, yet it felt like stars were watching.
Zev remained against the wall, arms crossed, gaze unreadable. The trial had ended hours ago, but the consequences were still unwinding.
"It reacted to you, Lynchie," he said at last, voice low. "Even the Spiral Glyph bled light. That hasn't happened since the Archivist Trials a hundred years ago."
Lynchie didn't respond immediately. Her fingers hovered just above the central emblem, still faintly warm with memory. Her heart had yet to slow, every beat echoing with the ghost-whispers of forgotten syllables. She could still hear them. The way the page wrote itself. The way the mirror fractured.
"I don't know what it's trying to say," she whispered. "But it knows my name. And not the one people use."
Zev stepped forward, slower this time, and glanced toward the upper glyph ring—where the old language had begun to etch itself again.
"It wants to speak," he said. "The Spiral Wards are waking, and they chose you as their tongue."
She turned to him, startled. "That sounds like a curse."
Zev gave a lopsided smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "It usually is."
Before she could reply, the dome flared white. Every Spiral line erupted with quiet fire, cascading arcs of geometry sweeping across the walls like mirrored constellations. Lynchie staggered back, breath caught in awe.
In the center of the observatory, a figure began to emerge—not from light, but from absence. A silhouette carved of negation. A ripple in perception. The figure held no face, only a luminous spiral where the head should be.
"The Dreamglyph..." Vyen's voice rang from the shadows of the archivist's stair. He had returned quietly, eyes wide and gloved hands trembling. "It's writing again."
The Spiral Glyph pulsed, and with it, Lynchie felt her thoughts bend—not break, not scatter, but align in impossible ways. Visions flashed: oceans of ink collapsing into a single drop, a syllable that hummed with the shape of thunder, the silhouette of her Big Brother split into ten thousand radiant shards.
And then, silence. The dome darkened. The vision retreated.
She fell to one knee, chest heaving.
Zev was at her side instantly. "What did you see?"
Lynchie looked up, her pupils still dilated, her voice barely audible.
"I saw a name that doesn't want to be remembered. And it remembers me."
The Spiral Wards fell still. But their silence had become expectation.
And something in the vault of stars had begun to open.