❂ Chapter 26: The Pale Matter Beneath
The silence after Vexi's blunt accusation lingered longer than expected.
"'Bad cow,' huh…" Havella muttered under her breath, arms crossed, a flicker of heat coloring her cheeks.
Jio, scratching the back of his neck, tried to pretend he hadn't heard anything. "Let's just… focus on getting out of here alive."
They walked beneath arches made of matter so pale it shimmered like bone under moonlight. There were no shadows in this place, yet no light source either. Alminice's realm was simply… visible. Tangible. Real by force of will.
Vexi lagged a bit behind them now, watching the void breathe — or rather, shift. Her brows stayed furrowed. "It's strange," she said softly, more to herself than the others. "Everything's… rearranging."
"Like a living maze?" Jio asked.
"No," she replied flatly. "Like it doesn't want to be a maze anymore."
There was something different in the air — or the lack of it. It was subtle, but Havella felt it too. The weight around her ankles, the stiffness in her breath… they weren't just tired. This place made them tired.
Jio sighed. His knife, the one he'd carved with during nights when they had no fire, was gone — probably the moment they passed through the portal. In his palm, he tried to draw Bright Call again.
It wasn't flame, nor light, not really. It was a shimmer of something brighter than light, a condensed pulse of intent and breath and self. It flickered once in his hand, reacting to the strange space like a candle tested by wind.
"It's weaker here," he whispered.
"No," Vexi said, eyeing the glow, "you are."
That shut him up.
Alminice hadn't followed them. Not physically, at least. But every now and then the walls shivered, and Havella felt the pressure of something ancient blinking just beneath her thoughts — like the walls remembered her, and didn't care for what they remembered.
Vexi kept whispering old words. Names, maybe. Not prayers. Not quite. "You can't speak the First's name here… it unwinds the paths."
"You said this was where she lived," Havella muttered, trying to follow her steps.
"It's where she hid," Vexi corrected, stopping suddenly. She pointed to a broken pillar, cracked like old tree bark. "This isn't just her realm. It's the root of the first everything — before Lords, before Fairies, before the concepts ever formed clean."
Jio sat on a low ledge, palms open, catching his breath. "Bright Call responds weird here. It's like I'm shouting in a canyon with no echo."
"You're not supposed to echo here," Vexi replied. "This isn't a place of mirrors. It's a place of mouths."
Havella kicked a stone and watched it bounce once… then float upwards slowly, like it changed its mind about gravity.
"This place doesn't obey."
"It remembers too much to obey," Vexi added. "Even Alminice can't go deeper, because her body holds all doors. But here, doors are just skin."
It was said like poetry, but Jio caught the point. They had entered not a new place, but a folded version of all other places. The weight of it settled behind his eyes. He could still feel Bright Call, but it flickered more like doubt now.
"I don't like this realm," Havella finally admitted.
"You're not supposed to," Vexi replied.
They moved forward, one hallway at a time, toward a truth none of them fully recognized — though the walls knew their names already.
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End of Chapter 26
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