Chapter 28
The corridor bent twice before opening into a round chamber that hadn’t existed in any blueprint—not even in the ancient reconstruction maps of the tower’s skeletal memory. Raiel stepped through the threshold, and the door vanished behind her. Not closed—vanished. The chamber was wide, circular, smooth as bone. The walls curved upward without seams, as if carved from a single massive shell. And in the center, hovering just above the floor, was a mirror. It wasn’t glass. It wasn’t anything physical at all. It shimmered like memory suspended in logic. A frame made of light, with depth that should not exist. She didn’t approach it. The air tasted different here—salt and copper, like blood rinsed in the sea. The glyphs along her spine—those invisible circuits of the system’s recognit
- Writer
