Seraphina remained where she was long after the others had fallen silent.
The sanctum felt different now. Not quieter, but tighter, as though the space itself had drawn inward by a fraction too small to measure. The aetheric conduits embedded in the walls continued their steady glow, yet their rhythm no longer matched her breathing.
Selene broke the silence first, her voice lower than before.
"The land won't lie for us anymore."
Seraphina did not turn. "It never truly did."
"No," Selene agreed, stepping closer, "but it used to hesitate."
Corvus watched the shifting patterns along the floor. The projections he had dismissed earlier still lingered faintly, residual afterimages clinging to the air like chalk dust. Several routes no longer reappeared when the system recalibrated.
"Delay required friction," he said. "What we're seeing now suggests compatibility."
That word settled uneasily.
Seraphina folded her hands together, fingers interlacing slowly. "Then we've reached the end of misdirection."
Selene's expression hardened, though her tone remained measured. "We can still interfere at the margins. Obscure sightlines. Force inefficient movement."
"But not stop him," Corvus said.
"No," Selene replied. "Not anymore."
Seraphina turned at last, meeting their gazes. There was no shock in her eyes, no visible fear. Only calculation, sharpened by acceptance.
"Then we shift priorities."
Corvus inclined his head. "From avoidance to containment."
"And readiness," Selene added.
Seraphina nodded once. "Begin withdrawing assets that can't be repositioned quickly. Anything that requires time we no longer have gets abandoned."
Selene hesitated. "That will leave gaps."
"Yes," Seraphina said quietly. "And pretending otherwise will cost more lives than admitting it."
Corvus studied her for a moment before speaking again. "You're assuming the breach won't be singular."
"I'm assuming it won't be clean," Seraphina replied.
She moved past them toward the edge of the sanctum, where the crystal walls thinned into translucent panels overlooking the outer terraces. Below, members of the Virelith moved through their routines, unaware of how sharply the future had narrowed.
"For generations," she continued, "this tribe prepared for erosion. Slow pressure. Gradual failure."
She rested a hand against the crystal surface. It was cool beneath her palm.
"This will be impact."
Selene followed her gaze. "Then we need to decide who we protect first."
Seraphina did not answer immediately.
When she finally spoke, her voice was steady. "We protect what can endure change."
Corvus understood. Selene did too.
Neither of them argued.
Behind them, the sanctum's aetheric hum deepened slightly, adjusting to the decisions made within its walls. Outside, the towers continued to catch the light as they always had, beautiful and indifferent.
Preparation began not with ceremony, but with quiet instructions passed hand to hand.
No alarms were raised.
No declarations made.
Only the slow, deliberate reshaping of a people who understood that survival was no longer about time.
It was about what remained standing when time ran out.
----------
Arif felt the change before anyone spoke.
It wasn't dramatic. No surge, no tremor. Just a quiet resistance in the air, like the world had adjusted its expectations of him and was now watching to see if he would meet them.
They moved again.
The passage beyond the Oblivion Spire narrowed, the walls no longer smooth but layered, compressed into uneven planes that pressed closer the deeper they went. Light thinned. Sound dulled. Even footsteps lost their echo, swallowed by the dense atmosphere.
Vaelor walked a half-step behind Arif now. Not by order. By instinct.
"This place," he said quietly, resting the greatblade against his shoulder, "doesn't feel hostile anymore."
Arif didn't look back. "That's because it's stopped deciding."
Vaelor frowned. "That supposed to make me feel better?"
"No."
Ahead, Ilyra paused, crouching near a seam where the stone fractured into faintly glowing veins. She ran two fingers along it, then pulled back slowly, as if the surface were warm.
"It's stabilizing around us," she said. "Not fully. Just enough to tolerate movement." She hesitated, then added, "Around you."
Arif stopped.
The others followed suit, their formation tightening without instruction.
He closed his eyes briefly and breathed in. The air pressed against his lungs, dense and measured, but it no longer resisted him outright. It flowed when he allowed it to. Pulled back when he didn't.
The Imprint stirred.
Not visibly. Not yet. Just a subtle alignment beneath his skin, like tension easing along a joint that had been misaligned for years.
"I'm not anchoring it," Arif said. "It's anchoring to me."
Ilyra straightened, unease flickering across her features. "That's not how systems work."
Arif opened his eyes. "Then stop thinking of it as one."
They moved on.
The corridor widened into a hollow chamber, its ceiling lost in shadow. The floor here was uneven, broken by shallow depressions where dark aether pooled sluggishly, like oil under water. The air was heavier. Not crushing, but intent.
Something shifted.
A distortion rippled across the chamber, subtle enough that it might have been missed if not for the way the light bent around it. A pressure followed. Focused. Directed.
Vaelor's grip tightened. "Contact."
Arif stepped forward before anyone else could react.
The sigils surfaced along his forearms, faint and restrained, their edges feathered with drifting motes that sank into his skin rather than dispersing outward. The Imprint didn't flare. It adjusted.
The distortion sharpened, resolving into a compact mass of compressed force, unstable and searching. It pressed toward them, testing the space they occupied.
Arif raised his hand.
The pressure met him and slowed, its shape warping as the environment recalculated around his presence. Not stopped. Redirected. The mass slid aside, grazing the chamber wall before dispersing into harmless fragments of light.
Arif exhaled, steady but deliberate.
That had taken more than it looked like.
Vaelor noticed immediately. "You felt that."
"Yes."
"How many times can you do that?"
Arif lowered his hand, the sigils already retreating beneath his skin. "Enough."
Ilyra watched him closely now, not as a mage observing magic, but as someone reassessing a variable she no longer fully understood.
"You're not forcing it," she said. "You're… negotiating."
Arif met her gaze. "I'm listening."
Silence settled again, heavier than before.
They continued forward, each step taking them deeper into Xyphos's interior, into systems that no longer reacted blindly but watched, learned, adjusted.
And Arif understood something then, with a clarity that had nothing to do with power.
The planet wasn't delaying them anymore.
It was measuring how quickly it could afford to let him go.