Upon activating the sigil, the floor groaned.
It wasn't the ordinary shifting Marcus had braced for. A strong, tectonic rumble shook the dark plaza floor. It vibrated through his boots and into his teeth, happening for the second time in an hour.
The rift burst open, tearing through reality and shattering everything nearby. A violet-rimmed portal surged from the obsidian cracks behind the altar. It sliced through stone with a shrill, piercing scream. There was no gradual buildup; it was the force of something violently breaking free. Obsidian shards burst into the air, paused for a moment, then fell to the ground. The rift's pressure spilled into the plaza.
The violet light didn't merely glow; it bruised the air. It pulsed like a frantic heartbeat, uncomfortably close. Tension filled the air, holding its breath for the coming storm.
Taryn and Lysara hesitated; their boots froze instantly on the trembling stone. Their storm-grey and violet eyes widened in fear as they stared at the swirling tear in space.
They weren't looking at a path to advancement.
Memories flooded back from the last portal's emergence. It had been on Floor Fifty, amidst a field of frozen voices. Marcus lay dying at their feet.
Lysara's gaze darted to Taryn, searching for reassurance. "Taryn—" she began, hesitating. She struggled to find words that didn't feel like begging.
Taryn remained silent. Her hand moved to the strap of her bandolier, gripping it like a lifeline on a shaky bridge. She recalled the hue of this violet. Before it ate, it changed from bruised to black at the edges, like a wound healing. The sound of ice cracking when Marcus's body hit it echoed in her mind. She remembered standing this close to a similar portal. She had vowed never to watch a rift take someone from her again. Now it loomed, patient and hungry, inviting her to step inside.
"It's not the same rift," Lysara said quietly, though doubt laced her tone. Her Ecliptis training showed clear differences between this tear and the one on Floor Fifty. Different resonances, anchor points, and bleed rates stood out. But none of that mattered to her, especially after witnessing a friend go still on the ice. Knowledge and fear ran on separate circuits, and fear had the older wiring.
To them, the violet-rimmed tear didn't feel like a doorway. Instead, it felt like a deadly trap, like the one that had taken something from them before.
Marcus felt the hesitation before he understood it. He read it like he had read the crater earlier. The stiff shoulders and the shared glance between the two women spoke volumes he wasn't part of. Their eyes kept flicking to the spot where he would have fallen if their memories were real, not borrowed. He didn't have Taryn's memory of the ice. He only caught a faint echo of it. He had glimpsed it through her memory—a vision ignited by the Scout's death. He saw the shape of fear but couldn't fully grasp it.
He stood at the edge of his own portal, feeling like an outsider. Two women prepared for a death that, as far as he knew, hadn't touched him at all.
He didn't offer a reassuring word. Words couldn't erase a memory that lived in the body, not the mind. He learned this after years at interview tables. He watched people flinch at doors that had never harmed them. He didn't wait for their fear to create a deadly delay for the Spire's predators. In a place like this, hesitation meant death, and the Spire didn't care about trauma. He stepped forward, moving with smooth, left-dominant speed. He crossed the threshold first. It wasn't that their fear didn't matter. The only proof he could give them was to go ahead and come out safe on the other side.
The moment his boots left the obsidian, he felt a strong pull in his bones. It wasn't a fall; it was like the tower was pulling apart his essence. It aimed to reset his body for the next stage of the machine.
He heard Taryn's breath catch behind him. A moment later, he heard her boots scrape against the stone. She was following him, fear and all. Whatever this portal cost, it was clear that watching him go alone would cost her even more.