Cel lay at the chasm's edge, staring into the depths.
The white light pulsed far below - steady, gentle, almost alive. Each beat sent warmth through his chest, so different from the violet crystal shriek that had destroyed his hearing. So different from the four burning suns that had scorched his skin.
This light felt... safe.
His cracked lips pulled into something that might have been a smile if his face hadn't been so ruined.
'Maybe...'
The thought formed slowly through exhaustion and pain. He wouldn't survive another day in the maze - this much was certain. The burns covered most of his skin. His impaled hand wouldn't stop bleeding. His legs couldn't hold his weight anymore.
But that light was unlike everything else in this nightmare.
And the skeleton had jumped toward it without hesitation.
'The trial.' The words surfaced distant in his mind. 'Find the moon.'
He'd searched the entire maze - or what little he could reach of it. The moon had vanished from the sky. The answer wasn't above. Wasn't in the crystal formations or the mirror lake.
But deep below, where even the crystal-infested creatures were drawn…
Maybe that's where it was.
Maybe that's where he'd find what he needed to complete this trial. To earn the Moon Goddess's blessing and escape this place before his body finally gave out.
It was the only hope he had left.
Cel's left arm trembled as he dragged himself forward. His body scraped over the edge, and for one terrible moment there was nothing beneath him but air.
He fell.
The air rushed past him. His body tumbled through darkness, too weak to even flail.
He slammed into a wide ledge jutting from the chasm wall.
The impact drove the breath from his lungs. His body bounced once, then slid across crystal before stopping at the ledge's edge. For a moment he lay there, stunned, teetering over the drop.
Then his weight settled.
Pain registered distantly - his shoulder, his ribs, something in his back.
Cel's fingers twitched against smooth stone. His cheek pressed against crystal, cold seeping through burnt skin.
'Down.'
The word echoed in his skull. Not a choice. A command his body obeyed without consulting his mind.
His left hand scraped forward, finding purchase. Then his knee dragged up. He crawled across the ledge toward the next outcropping, his body moving like something already dead, animated by will alone.
Each movement should have been agony. His burns stretched and split with every reach. His impaled hand dragged uselessly, leaving a trail of blood. His shoulder screamed from the impact.
But the pain felt... distant.
Muffled, like the silence that had swallowed his hearing.
His left hand reached for the next crystal. The edge sliced his palm - he watched blood well up, watched it smear across crystal. The pain registered somewhere far away, disconnected from him.
He kept descending.
The walls pressed closer. The violet glow from the crystals grew dimmer, overwhelmed by that white radiance rising from below. With each movement down, the light grew stronger. Warmer.
His breathing steadied. The constant burn in his chest eased. His throat stopped feeling like shredded glass.
Cel's foot slipped on smooth stone. He caught himself, barely, fingers scraping for purchase. His body swung wild for a moment before finding purchase.
He should be panicking. Should be terrified.
But he wasn't.
His legs stopped shaking. The trembling in his arms faded. When he reached for the next handhold, his grip felt... steady. Strong, even.
Cel pulled himself onto a wider ledge and paused. His legs shifted beneath him - not crawling now. Walking.
When had he stood up?
He looked down at his feet, planted firmly on crystal. Looked at his legs supporting his weight without collapsing.
A crystal formation beside him caught his reflection, its surface smooth as glass.
His face stared back at him.
But the expression wasn't his own. The reflection's eyes held nothing - no rage, no defiance, no spark of the newly found hope. Just empty acceptance. The face of someone who had already surrendered to his fate.
Cel's hand reached for the next formation. The reflection's hand reached too, matching his movement exactly.
He kept descending. His body moved with increasing ease, as if the journey required less effort with each step.
The reflection followed beside him, its hollow eyes tracking him.
'Wait… isn't that…?'
The thought barely surfaced before slipping away.
'What was it again?'
A shiver crawled up his spine. His instincts screamed at him to stop, to look, to remember.
But he didn't.
His steps never faltered. His gaze never wavered. Whatever it was, it didn't matter anymore.
He focused on the path below. Left hand. Right foot. Down.
The white light pulsed stronger now, close enough that its warmth touched his skin. Not burning - nothing like the suns. This heat seeped into him gently, filling something that had been empty for so long.
Cel's next step found solid ground.
Since…
Since when?
He blinked, swaying. The chasm walls rose impossibly high above him - he'd been descending for... how long? Minutes? Hours? The memory felt hazy, like trying to hold mist.
The cavern floor stretched before him, smooth and vast. And there - suspended in the center like a captivating star - hovered what he'd been drawn toward.
A sphere of pure light.
It filled the cavern, so enormous his mind struggled to grasp its scale. The white radiance pulsed from within it, steady as a heartbeat, casting everything in gentle luminescence.
Bones lay scattered across the floor beneath it - pale fragments studded with violet crystal growths, half-buried in the ground.
He didn't look at them.
All that existed was the light.
'Beautiful.'
The word formed in his mind, soft and certain. This was beauty - real beauty. Everything else had been false. The pale moon from his vision, his family's faith, all of it hollow compared to this.
Cel's left foot moved forward. Then his right. The pain in his feet had vanished. When had that happened? He couldn't remember his last step hurting.
Couldn't remember why anything had hurt at all.
The burns on his skin - were they still there? He looked down at his arms. Saw the blistered flesh, the weeping wounds, the blood. But felt nothing. They might as well have belonged to someone else.
Another step forward.
The light pulsed. His heart pulsed with it.
'The trial...'
The thought drifted through his mind like smoke, barely formed before dissolving. There had been something. Some task. Some reason he'd been suffering.
But it seemed so distant now. So... unnecessary.
Why had he been searching? Why had he fought? This peace had been waiting all along. Just here. Just below.
Each step brought him closer. The warmth intensified - not burning, never burning. It filled the hollow spaces inside him. The emptiness carved out by a year of starvation and torture. The wounds left by his family's betrayal. The cracks from watching his father beat him while his mother did nothing.
All of it... filling.
Becoming whole.
The sphere towered before him now, so close he could reach out and touch it. Its surface rippled like liquid silver. Inviting. Welcoming.
'Home.'
Yes. That's what this was. He'd been searching for a home. For somewhere he belonged. And he'd found it. Finally.
Cel lifted his left hand, fingers extending toward the light.
The warmth reached out to meet him, eager, hungry. It wrapped around his hand like a lover's touch, gentle and consuming. The sensation traveled up his arm—not pain, but fullness. Being filled. Being completed.
His knees buckled.
Cel gasped as the light surged into him, pouring through the point of contact. It flooded his veins, his bones, his mind. Every empty space inside him suddenly packed full of something vast and eternal.
His lips curved into a smile.
This was everything. This was all he'd ever needed. The maze didn't matter. His trial didn't matter. Finding the moon didn't matter.
Only this.
Only—
The cavern shook.
The tremor hit with brutal force, violent enough to crack the crystal formations on the walls.
Cel's hand ripped free from the sphere as he fell sideways.
The warmth vanished instantly, replaced by crushing cold.
His consciousness slammed back into place.
The pain returned all at once.
His knees hit the ground. Pain exploded through his legs, sharp and immediate. The burns on his skin screamed. His impaled hand throbbed with each heartbeat, blood pulsing hot between his fingers.
He gasped, lungs heaving like he'd been held underwater.
'What—'
His vision swam. The cavern spun around him, crystal walls refracting light in dizzying patterns. He pressed his left hand against the floor, trying to anchor himself.
The sphere hovered before him, pulsing gently.
It was beautiful. Inviting.
Cel's chest tightened. The urge to reach out again clawed at him, desperate and immediate. Just one more touch. Just to feel that warmth, that completeness—
'No.'
He jerked his gaze away, jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. His hands shook. His entire body trembled with something between withdrawal and rage.
'This thing… manipulated me.' The thought arrived with perfect clarity.
But when had it started?
Cel's breath came faster. He'd climbed down into the chasm on his own. Hadn't he? He'd made that choice. Seen the light and decided—
'Decided what?'
His fingers dug into the stone floor. When exactly had he decided? When had the pain stopped mattering? How had his body suddenly become strong enough to walk when moments before he couldn't even stand?
His mind raced backward through fragmented memories.
The crystal maze. The spire in the distance - he'd avoided it. Gone the opposite direction every time.
Why?
He'd told himself it looked dangerous. Ominous. Something about it felt wrong.
But what if that feeling hadn't been his own?
His stomach clenched. The thought wormed deeper, spreading like infection through his memories. Every decision he'd made in the maze - every turn away from the spire, every frustrated return to the ruin, every restless urge to keep moving in the other direction.
What if none of it had been his choice?
The marks he'd carved to track his path had disappeared. The maze had folded in on itself, passages appearing and vanishing. He'd assumed it was the maze's nature.
What if it had been guiding him all along? Herding him like cattle toward this exact spot?
Cel's breathing grew ragged. His nails bit into his palms hard enough to draw blood, mixing with the dried gore already coating his hands.
Even now - especially now - that warmth pressed against his skin. Gentle. Patient. Waiting for him to reach out again.
To surrender.
Just like the reflection watching him from the wall. Just like his father had wanted. Just like the cultists who'd bled him for a year, waiting for him to break.
Just like everyone who'd ever tried to make him into something less.
Heat flooded through Cel's chest - not the sphere's false warmth, but something hotter. Sharper. The rage that had kept him alive when he should have died a dozen times over.
His jaw clenched. His fingers curled into fists despite the agony in his right hand.
'It almost had me.'
The sphere pulsed before him. That gentle rhythm matching his heartbeat, trying to align again. Trying to pull him back.
Cel tried to push himself up. His legs trembled, refusing to hold his weight. He collapsed back onto his knees, gasping.
He needed to move. Needed to crawl away, find somewhere to hide from that light while his mind was clear enough to think. The cavern had to have other passages, other routes.
He turned.
A massive head filled his vision.
Cel's breath stopped.
Pale, translucent skin stretched over angular bone structure. Violet light burned in hollow eye sockets.
The creature blinked.
Slow. Deliberate.
Its head tilted slightly, studying him with an intelligence that made his skin crawl. Not animal. Not human.
Something else entirely.