The Domini saga

The annex breach flares white-red, no longer a wound in stone but a working door. Crimson script pours toward it across the floor like spilled ink finding a drain.

Kynes keeps driving at the ward line, staff raised, while the doorway crackles under the pressure. The whole chamber shudders as the seal tries to hold.

The wards split open in a spray of light. Beyond the threshold, shadow and fractured crystal frame the fleeing shapes of the architects.

Bren steps in beside Kynes, blade ready, as the red script reaches the doorway and vanishes through it. If they let this slip, the truth leaves with the architects.

Kynes thrusts his void scar toward the split and the chamber answers. A tide of shadow spills low across the floor, slipping through the gate ahead of the fleeing script.

The red runes peel from the wall and pour into him instead of escaping. His scar drinks the crimson flow, and the pulse in the stone stutters under the strain.

Inside the doorway, the shadows find shape and scent. They rush after the architects, clawing at whatever movement hides beyond the fractured crystal.

Bren shifts to Kynes's side, blade still up, but her eyes flick once toward the opening, then back to him. The doorway keeps shedding dust and light.

The chamber lurches as more script drains inward, and the dark corridor beyond the shattered shell sharpens for one breath. Something on the other side still moves, and the gate has not closed.

The shadows return with a frantic, jagged pulse, dragging the scent of ozone and stale parchment back through the gate. They have found purchase on something solid, and the frantic scraping from the dark corridor confirms that the architects are trapped within the vault's final reach.