Kain woke to motion.
Not the gentle kind. Not the slow return of breath and ache.
He woke because something was trying to kill him.
Stone exploded where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. He rolled on instinct, body moving before thought, the scream of shattered rock passing so close it shaved heat off his cheek. Dust filled his mouth. His hands scraped bone fragments, slick with pale sap, as he slid across the floor.
The chamber was no longer still.
It was collapsing.
Roots that had once hung like ribs now tore themselves free, whipping through the air with enough force to crack stone pillars in half. The ceiling groaned, layers of rock grinding against each other as if the mountain itself was trying to dislodge a parasite.
Kain pushed himself up, lungs burning.
The weight was still there.
Inside him.
Not screaming now—moving. The dead shifted like a tide behind his sternum, restless, confused, alert. Every step he took felt like running with a thousand hands braced against his ribs from the inside.
"No time," he muttered, scanning the chamber.
The bone throne was gone—collapsed inward, sucked down into the shrinking shaft like a corpse dragged into a grave. The abyss itself was retreating, folding away in jagged layers, but it fought the process. Each contraction sent shockwaves through the chamber, knocking debris loose.
A root slammed into the floor where Kain stood a second ago.
He sprinted.
The corridor he'd entered from was half-buried now, its archway split by a fallen column. Pale light flickered beyond it—daylight, real daylight—and the sight hit him harder than relief.
Exit.
He vaulted over a slab of stone, boots slipping on dust, and ducked as a branch-like root scythed overhead, shaving stone into sparks. His shoulder clipped the wall, pain flaring sharp and bright, but he didn't slow.
The dead reacted.
Not screaming—warning.
A pressure surged inside him, tugging left.
Kain trusted it without questioning why.
He dove just as the ceiling behind him collapsed entirely, the corridor sealing itself off with a roar that swallowed all sound. The impact threw him forward, skidding across the stone on his side, skin tearing through fabric.
He rolled to his feet, coughing, heart hammering.
The tunnel ahead shook violently.
This wasn't just collapse.
Something was chasing the change.
A sound echoed from behind—not the roar of falling stone, but a wet, tearing noise, like flesh being pulled apart slowly.
Kain glanced back.
The roots were moving against the collapse.
Not falling.
Crawling.
They dragged themselves forward, snapping and re-forming, pale sap boiling where they touched the ground. Faces pressed briefly into their surfaces—half-formed, screaming silently—before being reabsorbed.
The presence hadn't been freed.
But it hadn't been finished either.
"Of course," Kain breathed, and ran.
The tunnel sloped upward now, twisting sharply, the architecture changing as he went. Smooth carved stone gave way to rough-hewn walls, then to reinforced supports of dark metal etched with old sigils. This was higher. Closer to the city.
Closer to people.
That thought hit like ice.
"No," he muttered. "You're not going up there."
The dead surged again, stronger this time, pulling his attention inward.
Left. Now.
He skidded around a corner just as the tunnel behind him collapsed inward, not from gravity but from pressure—as if something massive had slammed into the space, crushing it closed. Dust blasted past him in a choking wave.
Kain slammed into a reinforced door, shoulder first.
It didn't budge.
Behind him, stone cracked again.
He turned, braced, and shoved with everything he had.
The dead pushed with him.
The door screamed—metal bending, sigils flaring briefly—then tore free from its hinges and crashed inward. Kain tumbled through and hit the floor hard, the breath exploding out of him.
He rolled instinctively, coming up on one knee.
The room was small, circular. A maintenance chamber, by the look of it. Crates stacked along the walls. A ladder bolted upward through a hatch in the ceiling.
And three people staring at him in shock.
City guards.
Desert steel armor. Sand-colored cloaks. Spears half-raised.
For half a second, no one moved.
Then the tunnel behind Kain ruptured.
Roots punched through stone like spears, tearing into the chamber in a storm of debris and screaming faces. Pale sap splattered across the floor, hissing where it touched metal.
One of the guards screamed.
Another reacted faster—thrusting his spear into the mass.
The weapon sank deep.
And stopped.
The root twisted.
The guard was yanked off his feet and slammed into the wall hard enough to crack bone. He slid down, unmoving.
"BACK!" the captain shouted, voice breaking. "FALL BACK!"
Kain didn't think.
He moved.
He grabbed the fallen guard's spear as he ran past, weight and balance settling into his hands like he'd trained with it for years—even though he hadn't. The dead guided his grip, adjusted his stance.
The root lunged again.
Kain drove the spear through a glowing knot in its surface—a place the dead showed him.
The impact sent a shock up his arms. The root shrieked—not with sound, but with pressure—and recoiled violently, tearing itself free from the chamber wall.
The guards stared.
"What—what are you?" one whispered.
"No time," Kain snapped. "Up. Now."
Another root burst through the ceiling hatch, splintering metal. Dust and fragments rained down. Something laughed through the pressure—thin, distorted, furious.
The captain hesitated only a moment, then nodded. "MOVE!"
They ran.
The ladder rattled violently as they climbed, the chamber below filling rapidly with writhing roots and collapsing stone. Kain went last, forcing himself upward as the hatch buckled beneath him.
A root wrapped around his ankle.
Cold burned up his leg.
He roared—not in pain, but in defiance—and slammed the spear down, pinning the root against the ladder rung. The dead surged, screaming in unison inside him, and the root burst, dissolving into ash and sap.
Kain climbed.
The hatch above exploded open, light flooding down, and hands grabbed him, hauling him up and out.
They emerged into chaos.
The Obsidian Spire's lower interior shook violently, walls cracking, glass conduits shattering overhead. Civilians screamed, running in all directions as guards tried—and failed—to impose order.
A deep, resonant thrum rolled through the city.
The Spire was reacting.
"What did you bring up here?" the captain demanded, gripping Kain's arm.
Kain shook him off, eyes scanning the space.
"I didn't bring it," he said. "I stopped it from coming all the way."
That wasn't reassurance.
Another shockwave hit, throwing people off their feet. A section of the Spire's inner wall split open, and pale roots punched through, writhing wildly.
Screams erupted.
Kain felt the pull again—stronger, more urgent.
It's reaching for them.
He moved without waiting for permission, sprinting toward the breach.
"HEY!" someone shouted behind him. "STOP!"
Kain skidded to a halt near the roots, heat blasting off them like fever. He could feel the dead inside him straining, some terrified, some enraged.
"You don't get them," he whispered.
The roots surged toward him.
Kain planted his feet.
He didn't stab.
He listened.
The screaming sharpened, individual voices separating from the mass. Faces pressed against the root surfaces again, clearer now—men, women, children, eyes wide with remembered terror.
"I know," Kain said hoarsely. "I know you're tired."
The roots hesitated.
Guards shouted behind him. Someone fired a bolt of magic that scorched a root black—but it only thrashed harder in response.
"Stop!" Kain yelled without turning. "You're feeding it!"
He stepped closer, ignoring the heat, the pain, the blood trickling from his nose again.
"I won't let it drag you back," he said to the dead. "Not into that."
The pull reversed.
Suddenly the weight inside him spiked, nearly dropping him to his knees. He gritted his teeth, muscles shaking as he forced himself to remain standing.
The roots shrieked.
Not in triumph.
In loss.
They withered rapidly, cracking, crumbling into ash that scattered across the marble floor. The breach sealed itself, obsidian flowing like liquid stone to close the wound.
Silence crashed down.
Kain collapsed to one knee, gasping.
The city stared at him.
Guards. Citizens. Warden's agents emerging from upper levels, weapons drawn but uncertain.
No one spoke.
Kain lifted his head slowly.
"If you seal me," he said between breaths, "it'll try again. Harder."
The captain swallowed. "And if we don't?"
Kain looked toward the depths of the Spire, where the presence still writhed, wounded but alive.
"Then we prepare," he said. "Because that wasn't an escape attempt."
Another tremor rolled through the stone beneath their feet—smaller, controlled.
A warning knock from something patient.
"That," Kain finished quietly, "was a test."
The dead stirred inside him.
And for the first time since he'd woken, they weren't screaming.
They were bracing.