The Mother of Shards didn't vanish when she was struck; she disintegrated into a billion microscopic razors. The air in the Wailing-Galleries was no longer a gas, but a swirling, violent cloud of glass-dust. Every breath Kiron took felt like inhaling needles.
The dust was reactive. It was "listening" to the rhythm of his panic. Every time he focused his mind on the pedestal at the end of the hall, the shards in that direction became denser, forming a shimmering, impenetrable wall of mirrors. The Mother was gone, but her hunger remained. She was trying to box him in with his own desperate intent.
"It's feeding on your focus," Nel-Eak's voice drifted through the haze, sounding distant and hollow. "The more you want to survive, the more it kills you."
Kiron's stone side was radiating a dull, throbbing heat. The basalt had reached the edge of his left eye, blurring his vision with a grainy, grey haze. He was losing time.
"Nel-Eak," Kiron gasped, leaning on Lament. "The 'Hollow-Link.' You did it at the Gate... you have to erase me."
Nel-Eak stepped through the glass-storm, the shards passing through his ghostly, memory-less form as if he were nothing but smoke. He placed a cold, grey hand over Kiron's heart—the only part of his chest that still felt like living flesh.
"Phantom Protocol," Nel-Eak whispered.
The world didn't go dark; it went silent.
Kiron felt his consciousness retreat into a deep, lightless well. His desires, his fears, his mission—all of it was wrapped in a layer of Nel-Eak's "Hollow-Void." To the glass-dust, Kiron had effectively ceased to exist. He was just another piece of debris in the dark.
Kiron's body moved on instinct, guided by the telepathic tether Nel-Eak held. He walked through the glass-storm, the shards drifting aimlessly around him, no longer forming walls. He reached the pedestal.
It was a column made of ancient, petrified rib-cages. Resting on top was the Liturgy of the Bone.
It wasn't a book or a machine. It was a calcified finger-bone, yellowed with age, tightly wrapped in a strip of preserved human skin. The skin was etched with jagged, ink-black symbols that seemed to writhe like worms.
Kiron's hand reached out. It was a slow, mechanical motion. The moment his fingers touched the bone, the "Hollow-Link" snapped.
Reality slammed back into his skull.
The glass-dust screamed as it sensed his return. The shards converged on the pedestal like a tidal wave.
"Kiron! Now!" Nyra's voice screamed from the entrance.
Kiron didn't hesitate. He tore the strip of skin away and shoved the calcified bone into his mouth. It tasted of ancient earth and bitter salt. He swallowed it whole.
For a second, his heart stopped.
Then, a violent, bone-deep shudder racked his body. He didn't hear a hum; he heard the sound of a thousand skeletons snapping to attention. The finger-bone he had swallowed didn't dissolve; it anchored itself in the center of his chest, radiating a cold, stabilizing force that raced through his marrow.
The "Decline" was no longer a rot; it was a reinforced cage. The stone moving up his neck suddenly halted, frozen in place by the relic's weight.
Kiron raised Lament, and a shockwave of pure, silent pressure exploded outward. It wasn't energy; it was an "Order" given to the physical world. The glass-dust didn't shatter—it simply fell, turning into harmless, inert sand that coated the floor like snow.
Kiron stood at the pedestal, half-stone, half-flesh, his left eye now a fixed, golden orb set in basalt. He could move his stone fingers now. They were slow, heavy, and possessed the crushing strength of the mountain itself.
"The King is heavy," Nel-Eak said, his voice returning to its normal, detached tone.
But as the relic settled into Kiron's gut, a vision flickered in his mind—not of a map, but of a heartbeat. He could feel the Pale-Vane. The traitor hadn't stayed in his cell. He was moving toward the Lower-Marrows, guided by the same blood-pull that had led Kiron to the Liturgy.