They didn't realize they were being separated at first.
That was the cruelty of it.
There was no sudden collapse. No roar. No monsters clawing out of the stone to scatter them. Floor Two simply widened—corridors stretching farther than they should, angles bending subtly wrong, distances lengthening until voices no longer carried as they once had.
The floor didn't push them apart.
It let them drift.
Caelum walked at the center, Red Amendment steady at his side, Mireya close enough that he could see the faint rise and fall of her shoulders. Seraphine was ahead, posture straight, eyes tracking the space as if mapping it in layers. Ysara lingered at the edges, quiet as ever. Iscahrel followed last, murmuring softly to himself, fingers worrying the chain of his censer.
Aurelian was gone.
The absence still hung over them, unspoken, heavy.
They moved through a long gallery of fractured stone—pillars collapsed into ribs, the ceiling arching high enough to make sound feel small. Their footsteps echoed too many times, as if the floor were replaying them out of sync.
Then Ysara stopped.
"Hold," she said quietly.
The word didn't echo.
That alone was wrong.
Caelum halted instantly. Mireya did the same. Seraphine turned, eyes narrowing.
"What do you hear?" Seraphine asked.
Ysara frowned. "Nothing."
They waited.
The silence pressed in—not a Quiet Zone, not the clean absence of sound they'd learned to recognize. This silence felt unfinished, as if something were supposed to fill it and hadn't yet decided how.
Iscahrel swallowed. "My prayers aren't—" He stopped, confusion flickering across his face. "They're not echoing."
Caelum glanced back.
The corridor behind them was still there.
But it was farther away than it had been a moment ago.
Not physically—visually.
Like looking down a hallway through warped glass.
"Mireya," Caelum said softly.
"I see it," she replied.
The space between them and the last arch stretched subtly, stone textures repeating themselves in ways that felt… recycled.
Seraphine took one careful step backward.
The floor did not move.
But the distance doubled.
She stopped immediately.
"Don't move," she said. "Any direction."
Ysara's breath came slow and controlled. "It's not closing," she said. "It's spacing."
Caelum felt it then—a faint pressure behind his eyes, like a headache forming just out of reach. The same sensation that had preceded rules before.
"Movement is permitted," he murmured.
Seraphine looked at him sharply.
"The inscription," he continued. "Floor Two's threshold."
Mireya finished it quietly. "Stillness is observed."
The floor responded.
The space between Caelum and Mireya stretched.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that their shoulders no longer brushed.
Caelum reached out instinctively.
His fingers missed her arm by inches.
Mireya didn't move.
She met his eyes, calm but alert. "Don't chase it," she said. "It wants reaction."
Iscahrel shifted his weight nervously.
The distance between him and the others tripled instantly.
"No—" He froze, eyes wide.
"Stillness," Seraphine snapped.
He obeyed.
The space stopped growing.
They stood like that—five figures suspended in a chamber that was quietly rewriting its geometry, testing their instincts like pressure points.
Ysara closed her eyes.
"Listen," she said. "This isn't separation by walls. It's separation by choice."
Caelum swallowed. "So if we move toward each other—"
"It punishes it," she said. "If we move away—"
"It rewards it," Seraphine finished.
As if to confirm it, the corridor ahead shifted subtly, revealing branching paths that hadn't existed moments before. Wide, open avenues that invited forward movement.
Mireya's jaw tightened. "It wants us apart."
"Yes," Ysara said. "But not violently. Not yet."
Iscahrel's voice shook. "How far?"
No one answered immediately.
The floor answered instead.
A soft sound—almost like a sigh—rolled through the chamber. The new paths became clearer, more defined. Light shifted to guide the eye forward, away from one another.
Caelum felt Red Amendment hum faintly.
Not hunger.
Interest.
Seraphine straightened. "We don't fight this," she said. "We don't rush. We don't cling."
Mireya nodded once. "We go where it allows."
Iscahrel hesitated. "And if it doesn't allow us back?"
Seraphine met his gaze evenly. "Then we survive long enough to earn it."
The distance between them began to widen again—slow, patient.
Caelum exhaled.
"Then we do it clean," he said.
One by one, they chose paths.
Not running.
Not hesitating.
Just stepping forward when the floor opened space for it.
The moment Caelum took his first step away from Mireya, the pressure eased. The headache faded slightly. The floor seemed to relax, geometry stabilizing around his movement.
The lesson was immediate and brutal.
Attachment was resistance.
Acceptance was survival.
Caelum walked alone.
The corridor he followed widened into a vast, fractured plaza filled with toppled stonework and collapsed bridges that led nowhere. No enemies waited. No traps snapped shut.
Just space.
Too much of it.
Sound behaved strangely here—his footsteps arrived half a second late, echoing behind him like something else was following at a respectful distance.
He stopped.
The echo stopped.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
This floor did not punish him for existing.
It punished him for reaching.
Further in, he found signs of others—drag marks, blood smears, bent metal—but no bodies. No weapons. No answers.
At the center of the plaza stood a stone monolith etched with faded markings. Not instructions.
Records.
Names carved over names, scratched out, overwritten.
He touched one.
The stone vibrated faintly.
A whisper brushed his ear.
Not a voice.
A sensation.
Remember.
Caelum stepped back, heart pounding.
Mireya moved through narrow corridors where the walls leaned close enough to scrape her shoulders. The space reacted differently to her—tightening when she hesitated, loosening when she advanced with purpose.
She tested it.
Paused.
The corridor constricted, pressing in, stone groaning softly.
She stepped forward.
It widened again.
"Intent," she murmured. "Not direction."
Her blade hummed faintly, responding to the rule.
She didn't look back.
Ysara found herself in a place that listened.
A circular chamber layered with shallow grooves carved into the floor. Every step sent vibrations outward, rippling back seconds later with subtle distortion.
She smiled faintly.
"A thinking space," she whispered.
She knelt, placing her palm flat against the stone.
The floor pulsed.
She felt the echoes of others—far away, distorted, but present.
"Good," she said. "So we're not erased."
Seraphine navigated a long causeway suspended over darkness. No walls. No rails. Just a narrow stone path stretching ahead.
She did not slow.
The floor respected certainty.
She felt it watching her—not approving, not judging.
Measuring.
Iscahrel stumbled into a broken chapel where symbols lined the walls in half-finished prayers. The air here was thick, heavy with something like expectation.
He knelt without thinking.
The space did not punish him.
It waited.
Tears streaked his face as he whispered his faith into a place that did not promise to answer.
Hours passed.
Or minutes.
Time behaved as poorly as distance here.
Eventually, the floor changed again.
Paths bent back toward one another—not abruptly, not dramatically, but gradually, allowing reunion only after acceptance had settled.
Caelum heard footsteps that matched his own.
He turned.
Mireya emerged from a side corridor, expression unchanged, eyes sharp.
They stopped several paces apart.
The floor waited.
Caelum did not reach for her.
Neither did she.
The distance held.
Then—slowly—it lessened.
They walked closer without accelerating.
The space allowed it.
Seraphine joined them next. Then Ysara. Then Iscahrel, pale but breathing.
No one spoke at first.
Then Ysara exhaled softly. "It wanted us to know," she said, "that together is a privilege."
Seraphine nodded. "Not a default."
Caelum looked around.
The chamber they stood in now was wide, stable, quiet. No enemies. No traps.
A resting place.
The floor pulsed once.
Approval.
Somewhere deeper in Floor Two, a door waited.
With more skulls.
And now—
They understood what separation really cost.