The Domini saga

The service throat opens onto a vast chamber of iron ribs and humming stone. Below, the architects' core pulses like a crystalline heart, wrapped in wax-sealed conduits that feed the void-lattice.

The gantry shivers under the thrumming floor. Red lamp-glow crawls across the core as the sealed conduits flex, then begin to split at one seam.

A black-violet fissure flashes through the crystal heart, and the chamber answers with a deep, hungry groan. The way forward is clear now, the core exposed, the seal weakening by the breath.

Bren braces at Kynes's side, eyes fixed on the breach, while the architects' heart keeps beating faster, one strike away from ruin.

Kynes lets the Soul-Cutter dip, then pulls the core toward him with a cold, measured tug. The blade falls in a slow, deliberate line, guided as if by an unseen hand.

The black-violet fissure opens wider to meet it. Red lamp-glow gutters across the crystal heart, then thins under his spell.

The words strike like a lock turning. The core shudders, its seams whitening, then snapping into spiderweb cracks that race through the lattice.

A harsh pulse bursts outward, but it does not spread. It folds inward instead, severed and spent, and the chamber takes a single stumbling breath.

Bren flinches as the gantry bucks. She sees the floor-stones below the heart stop writhing, the foundation's strain bleeding off in a visible wave.

Inside the cracked crystal, a hidden seam of pale script flashes once, revealing a routed passage marked with a second seal before the light dies.