There was no light.
No floor. No sky. No form.
Only the spiral.
It did not spin. It breathed.
Caelan fell into it, or through it, or became it—he couldn't tell. His body unraveled into thread, then flame, then silence. Not death. Not dream. Something between.
Then—
A scream.
Not his own.
Hers.
Lyssandra.
He saw her on her knees, wrapped in fire, the shattered Spiral Crown bleeding silver onto her hands. Around her, the ground cracked open—not from war, but from prophecy. Kael lay broken beside her, fangs erupting from his mouth as the starlight turned his blood cold. Raen howled on the other side, spine twisting as the Veil carved wildness into his soul.
And Lyssandra screamed again.
"I did not choose!"
Caelan tried to reach her—but he had no hands.
Tried to speak—but had no voice.
The spiral pulled tighter.
Now he saw himself.
But not as he was.
As he could be.
One moment: fanged, regal, eyes black and endless.
The next: clawed, golden-eyed, cloaked in fur and storm.
Then—both.
In a reflection of obsidian water, he saw his face split by twin crowns — one of blood, one of bone — coiled into each other like lovers or enemies.
And above them floated a third crown.
Fractured. Incomplete. Remembering.
"Choose," whispered a voice behind him.
The One Who Waits?
No.
Lyssandra.
"Choose," she said again. "Not between them. But beyond them."
The spiral unraveled.
---
Caelan's body convulsed on the floor of the Spiral Vault.
Velrath caught him before he cracked his skull.
Kael knelt beside him, eyes narrowed. Raen loomed behind, arms crossed tight.
The transformation had begun.
But it did not begin with fangs.
Or fur.
It began with hunger.
Caelan gasped—and the air twisted.
The shadows around him curled like beasts. Light bled backward. His blood pulsed like two hearts fighting in one chest.
He clutched his head.
Voices screamed.
Velrath placed a hand on his chest—and recoiled.
"He's… remembering too much."
Kael's tone sharpened. "Will he survive it?"
Raen's voice cut through. "Not unless he lets go of who he thought he was."
Caelan's eyes snapped open.
Not red.
Not gold.
But silver. Spiral-shaped.
He whispered through grit teeth, "I see it."
Kael leaned in. "See what?"
"The Crown... wants to be whole."
He lurched forward, the ground beneath him fracturing in a perfect spiral. Black veins of power bloomed from his feet, creeping toward the chamber walls.
Then came the pain.
A fire in his bones. A tearing behind his eyes. His spine arched—two sets of instincts warred within him. One called for blood. The other for the moon.
Neither were enough.
Because Caelan did not want to inherit.
He wanted to become.
In the chamber above, the fragments of the Spiral Crown shivered in midair.
For the first time in an age, one piece glowed white-hot.
And turned.
Toward Caelan.