Kael's hand closed around the quill. Or what was cleared out of it. The spine hit into his palm—sharp, cold, broken. Valen hadn't even smashed it. He'd demolished it. Spread cinder and bootprints over the rune like it were waste.
The needle in Kael's neck responded. It beat once, moderate and overwhelming, like it was getting a charge out of this.
"Move, Voidborne."
Two Seekers stood within the entryway. Armor dark and clear. Visors are smooth—no eyes, no expressions. Their daze bars buzzed discreetly in their hands. No rank. No names. Fair muscle.
Kael didn't reply. He didn't ought to. He stood up, muscles tight, sore. The shard burrowed into his palm, cold working up his arm. For a moment, he thought he felt a faint echo of the ancient reverberation.
But the needle snarled louder.
Skyreach Door wasn't just like the others.
This one didn't tear. It opened—clean, sharp, like a cut made by something that knew what it was doing. A tall cut of obsidian and debilitated green light, sitting profound underneath the Institute. Smooth edges. Consider.
The discussion started with an introduction. Kael's teeth hurt.
Tech-priests bustled underneath it, altering gleaming runed cables, chanting beneath their breath. All of it nourished vitality into the dividers. Like they were mining it.
Six Seekers stood adjacent, all more seasoned. Their armor was scarred—burn marks, corrosive harm, runes flickering like they were on the edge of shorting out. None of them looked at Kael. But the appall within the discussion? He didn't have to see their faces.
"Thistle. How… blessed."
Silas. He ventured out from the shadows like he had a place there. No robes presently. Field equip. Tight, commonsense. Silver needle-shaped stick on his collar. His grin was small, exact.
"Valen's little… occurrence gives us an opportunity. You'll take his part. Same objective." He flicked something on a data slate. "Skyreach is steady. One of a kind. We're sending in a Reverberation Catalyst. Outline the grid from the interior."
He held something out—a dull circle, a dark gem with veins of violet light moving interior it.
"You carry this to the center. Enact it. Done."
Kael gazed at it. The murmur coordinated the quill. Coordinated his rune.
It was a trap. And likely a bomb.
"And on the off chance that I do not?" His voice felt like it came from somewhere else.
Silas's grin didn't move. He lifted a silver farther.
"This talks to the needle in your spine. Right presently, it's set to compliance."
Press.
Kael's entire body went white-hot. Not warm. Not torment. Pulverization. Like his bones were breaking from the inside. He hit the ground difficult. Couldn't shout. Couldn't think. Everything in him came separated.
At that point, it ceased.
He panted, chest heaving. Sweat dribbling.
Silas hunched another to him. Calm.
"Another setting softens your lower nerves. Need to test it?"
Kael didn't reply. Couldn't.
A couple of the ingenious Seekers moved. One—a lady with a scar through her lip and a shining ruddy cyber-eye—glanced at Silas. At that point looked absent. Didn't say a word.
Silas stood. "Skyreach group, move out. Thorn? Attempt not to trip."
Strolling through the Entryway didn't feel like an entrance. It felt like suffocating in commotion.
Kael lurched forward. Discuss tasted like copper and spoiled. The ground was wrong—angled in ways it shouldn't be. Obsidian towers extended up like claws. The sky was a bruised purple, beating.
Gravity flashed. One step overwhelming, another step coasting.
Lieutenant Vex—the scarred woman—pushed him forward. "Locus is two klicks northeast. Move." Her breath hazed his visor. "And Thorn? Attempt anything, Voidborn, and I'll conclude you some time recently, Silas gets the chance."
The group moved in quietly. No chatter. No jokes. Fair work.
Kael kept moving. The circle buzzed in his hand, syncing with the needle in his spine and the shard of the plume still tucked in his glove. All of it murmuring together. Terrible concordance.
Then—
"Contact. Eight o'clock. Shadow-stalkers!" Annoy yelled.
Reality shuddered.
Three shapes peeled off the towers. Not creatures. Not men. Something in between. Appendages are long as well. Joints bowed off-base. Dark metal skin. Faces level, fair green lines gleaming where eyes ought to be.
"Open fire!" Annoy snapped.
Plasma lit up the dim. Blue streaks hit the lead stalker and passed right through.
"Echo-shades!" one Seeker yelled. "Bullets do nothing!"
The stalkers raised their hands. Vitality flared green.
Annoyed hammered her hand to her chest. "Press Protect, brace!"
The primary impact hit.
Not fire. Not affect. It expelled.
One Hunter's arm vanished. Gone, rather like that. No blood. Fair cinder coasting, at that point gone.
Freeze. The group scattered. No cover. Plasma futile.
Vex's shield flared—red light holding, but scarcely.
Kael hit the soil behind a rugged shake. The sphere burned in his hand. The needle shouted. The plume shard cut more profoundly.
And then—
"Kael."
His mother's voice. Not delicate. A shout.
"Do not Believe THE EYES!"
Kael looked up. One stalker moved closer. It's green opening pulsed—and behind it, fair for a second…
A human eye. Wide. Startled.
Not machines.
Detainees.
The stalker pointed once more. Straight at Annoy.
Kael moved without considering.
He pummeled the sphere and quill shard together, then drove them both into the ground.
Split.
Indigo light detonated outward.
No sound. No warm. Fair hush. Unadulterated quiet that rolled out in a wave.
The stalkers solidified. Their green lights flashed.
At that point the wave pulled back—sucked everything in.
Kael's hand drained. The plume and circle intertwined. His palm burned. The stalker closest to him smashed. Its shell vanished.
A man dropped to the ground. Thin. Eyes wide. He wore what was cleared out of the Foundation adaptation.
"They… lied," he whispered. At that point, he went still.
The other stalkers shrieked—digital pain—and vanished.
Hush once more.
Annoy brought down her shield. Her eyes bolted on Kael. Not abhorred presently.
Fear.
"What… was that?"
Kael gazed at his hand. A rune was burned into his skin. Bending, violet, and indigo. Still smoking.
The sky over beat once. Not from the Door.
From something more profound.
Something that saw him.
End of Chapter 8.