Cel's eyes snapped open to gray dawn.
The nightmares had chased him through the entire night again - his father's fists falling like rain, the cultists' blades carving fresh channels in his flesh, his family's backs turned in unified rejection. Sleep had been no refuge, just another battlefield where his tormentors held dominion.
At least he'd slept through. His body had demanded that much, dragging him under and refusing to let him surface no matter how his mind struggled against the dreams.
His throat felt like he'd swallowed sand. When he tried to work moisture into his mouth, his tongue scraped uselessly. The gnawing in his stomach had faded to constant ache, but thirst screamed with every attempted swallow.
He pushed himself upright, every joint protesting. The burns on his arms pulled tight. His feet throbbed. The empty leather pouches lay discarded nearby - no water, no food. Today he would venture out or accept slow death.
Cel dragged himself toward the entrance, using the larger stones for support as debris scattered beneath him. Morning air pressed against his chest as he cleared the threshold.
Then he stopped.
Violet crystals ringed the hilltop.
They rose from the ground in twisted formations that hadn't existed yesterday, creating an uneven barrier between the ruin and the void below.
His mind reeled. He'd circled this hilltop several times. Walked every inch of it. The ground had been bare stone, nothing more.
'When did these—?'
The thought died as he watched the nearest formation expand and contract in a slow, deliberate rhythm.
'Is this how the crystals grow?'
He descended and approached the crystal barrier. The surface was warm beneath his palm, humming with faint vibration. The crystals probably fed on heat from below, drawing up through stone in their alien expansion.
He'd seen stranger things in this maze. It was just another impossible property of this place, like passages that folded or reflections that haunted.
Beyond the crystals, the void remained perfectly still. The liquid darkness pressed against the hill's base as if held back by an invisible boundary.
The crystals formed a complete ring, each moving in synchronized rhythm. They weren't tall - perhaps waist-high at their peaks - but dense enough to make passage difficult without fresh cuts.
His sanctuary had been the one place where the world held still. Now even that mercy had been stripped away.
Cel circled the ruin, examining gaps between formations. His throat contracted again. Without water, his body would begin shutting down within a day. The burns would fester. His blood would thicken.
There - to the east, two crystals stood slightly farther apart. The space looked like he could fit through without receiving fresh cuts.
He moved toward the gap, feet crunching over loose stone. The breathing crystals flanked his approach, their expansion creating subtle groans he felt as vibrations rather than heard. Sharp edges jutted at awkward angles, forcing him to map his route carefully.
He positioned himself between the formations and reached out, gripping the left crystal for balance. The warmth surprised him - almost body temperature. The vibration pulsed beneath his palm.
Then, the ground shifted.
Not the grinding rumble of earthquake or a sudden lurch of collapsing earth. This was a lifting motion - smooth and deliberate, as if the entire hilltop had decided to rise several inches in a single breath.
Cel froze. Every muscle locked as the surface continued its slow lift. Three inches. Six. A foot.
Then it descended with the same measured pace.
The movement wasn't coming from the crystals.
His fingers slipped from the formation as understanding crashed over him. The rough texture beneath his feet. The way crystals suddenly emerged in organic patterns. The warmth radiating through his soles.
Something beneath the crystals was breathing.
Every instinct screamed to move, to run, but there was nowhere to go. The void surrounded him completely, and movement might wake whatever creature he'd been climbing on.
Beneath him, the breathing continued its steady rhythm. Rise. Fall. Rise. Each cycle lifted him from the darkness below, then lowered him back - steady and undisturbed, like breath in dreamless slumber.
Cel's hands trembled as he slowly pulled back from the crystals. His weight shifted with glacial care, trying to avoid sudden pressure. The burns and cuts screamed as he adjusted stance, but he bit down on any reaction.
The creature showed no sign of waking. Its breath continued in a measured pattern.
His legs trembled - whether from terror or the strain of moving so carefully, he couldn't tell. He'd been climbing on something large enough to mistake it for terrain. And now he had to climb back down again without waking it.
Had this thing followed the void to the hilltop during the night? How had he not woken when it arrived? He'd been exhausted, yes, but for something this massive to settle around the ruin without disturbing him seemed impossible.
The parchment sketch flashed through his mind - the creature with fairy-like wings and crystal growths covering its body. The crystals matched. He twisted carefully, searching the creature's back for any sign of wings, but saw only more crystal formations jutting from its spine in irregular patterns. Perhaps the wings were folded beneath, hidden from view.
If this was the same creature from the illustration, wings like those could have brought it here in perfect silence, lowering it around the ruin so gently he'd never woken.
He forced the thoughts aside. Whatever this thing was, it was sleeping. And his only hope was that it stayed that way.
Cel began his descent with glacial care. Each shift of weight deliberate and measured. His burnt hands found purchase on crystal edges. His torn feet searched for stable ground. The breathing continued beneath him - steady, undisturbed.
Then, the rhythm changed.
The breath that lifted him held longer than the others. The descent came slower. Cel froze halfway down what might have been the creature's flank.
The creature was waking.
His fingers dug into the crystal growth beside him. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. Should he climb faster, try to reach the ground before it fully woke? Or freeze and pray it drifted back to sleep? Both gambles. Both likely to fail.
The breathing shifted again. Deeper. More deliberate. The surface beneath his feet tensed, muscle moving under skin he'd mistaken for stone. The crystals trembled with building energy.
Movement exploded beneath him.
The creature surged forward in a single massive stride. Cel's stomach lurched as the world tilted violently. His grip on the crystal saved him from tumbling as the beast's back tilted at an impossible angle. The ground that had been horizontal seconds ago was now a steep slope threatening to slide him toward the void.
He pressed himself against the crystal outcroppings, arms wrapped around their base, legs scrambling for purchase on the rough hide. The creature's next step sent shockwaves through its body.
It was descending the hill.
Moving toward the void.
Horror flooded through Cel's chest. His hands moved without thought, pulling desperately at the crystals as if he could somehow steer the massive creature away from the liquid darkness. The formations didn't budge. The creature didn't slow. His efforts were as meaningless as a fly trying to redirect a charging horse.
'No, not into that you damn—'
His fingers dug into the crystals until blood welled from his torn palms. Every instinct screamed to jump, to throw himself free, but there was nowhere to go. The slope was too steep, the void too close. He would tumble straight into that hungry darkness.
The creature reached the hill's base and stepped onto the void.
The liquid exploded instantly.
Tendrils of darkness shot upward, wrapping around the creature's forward limb. They coiled like serpents, layer upon layer of nothingness binding to flesh and crystal alike. Where they touched, the surface seemed to drink light itself, creating wounds of absolute black against the creature's dark hide.
But the beast didn't stop.
Its next step sent tremors through Cel's bones. The void writhed in response, more tendrils erupting upward. They grasped at legs, wrapped around the creature's underbelly, and climbed toward the crystal-crowned back. Each new contact point pulsed with hungry intent, trying to pull the creature down into itself.
The creature pushed forward.
Cel watched the liquid climb higher with each stride. The tendrils moved with terrible purpose, wrapping tighter, pulling harder. The creature's breathing grew labored. Its steps slowed. Yet it continued crossing the void's surface, muscles tensing and releasing beneath Cel's desperate grip.
The crystals along the creature's spine flared brighter. Violet light pulsed through each formation in waves, starting from the base of the neck and traveling backward. When the light reached the crystals Cel clung to, heat bloomed against his arms. Not the killing heat of the maze, but warmth that pushed back against the void's cold hunger.
The liquid recoiled from the illuminated crystals. The tendrils loosened slightly, though they didn't release. The creature took advantage, surging forward with renewed strength before the void could recover.
They were moving deeper into what had been the maze. Cel risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the hill receding behind them, the ruin perched atop it like a crown. The sleeping giant was awake now, and Cel was trapped on its back while it waded through a sea of hungry nothingness.
His fingers ached from gripping the crystal. Blood from his torn palms made the surface slick. The creature's movements grew more violent as the void's resistance increased - sharp lurches that nearly tore Cel free, sudden drops when a leg sank deeper into the liquid, explosive rises when it pulled itself forward again.
The void surged higher. Tendrils now reached past the creature's shoulders, grasping at the lower crystals on its back. One tendril stretched toward Cel's leg. He jerked his foot away just as the darkness brushed his heel, leaving a cold burn where it had almost made contact.
The creature's breathing came in deep, rattling gasps. The crystals pulsed faster, brighter, but the light seemed strained. The void was winning through sheer persistence, adding more tendrils with each passing moment, creating a web of emptiness that dragged at every movement.
Cel's arms trembled. His grip was failing. The creature's next violent lurch would throw him free, and then the void would have him. After everything - the torture, the imprisonment, the maze's horrors, the mirror realm's torments - he would end as nothing more than another reflection swallowed by darkness.
The creature took another step.
Then another.
Its legs moved slower, pushing through the clinging mass like wading through mud. The liquid had risen to its chest, tendrils wrapping around its neck, pulling its head down toward the hungry surface.
They were going to die here. Both of them, claimed by the void that had waited so patiently.
The crystal beneath Cel's grip turned white-hot.
He jerked back with a gasp as every formation along the creature's spine ignited simultaneously - violet to blinding white in a single breath. The air shimmered. Heat slammed into him like a physical blow.
The crystals shattered.
They exploded outward in a cascading chain, molten fragments raining down on the void. Each impact detonated with brilliant light. The liquid darkness recoiled, tendrils snapping back as if burned.
The creature surged forward through the chaos, legs suddenly free.
Cel pressed himself flat against bare hide between the superheated sockets, fragments whistling past his head. More crystals fell from the creature's flanks - each one exploding on contact, pushing the void back in violent bursts of light.
Violet crystals jutted from the ground ahead. The creature hauled itself onto solid ground with a final stride and exploded into a sprint.
Violet crystals jutted from the ground ahead. The creature hauled itself onto solid ground with a final stride and exploded into a sprint.
The acceleration slammed Cel backward. Only his desperate grip on the remaining crystal kept him from sliding off the creature's flank as it surged forward with terrifying speed. Wind tore at his face. His injured body protested every jarring impact as the creature's feet hammered against stone and crystal.
The maze blurred around him - violet edges streaming past like falling stars. He squeezed his eyes shut against the rushing air, unable to watch the deadly formations they were racing through. All he could do was hold on, muscles burning, lungs fighting for air in the wind-whipped chaos.
Time lost meaning. There was only the creature's pounding rhythm, the heat rising from its exhausted body, and the screaming pain in his arms as he clung to survival with weakening fingers.
When the creature finally began to slow, Cel's relief was so profound he nearly released his grip. The sprint faded to a stumbling run, then a heavy trot. Eventually, the creature staggered forward several steps before stopping entirely, its massive form trembling with exhaustion. Smoke still rose from the empty sockets where crystals had been, and the remaining formations pulsed weakly, their light guttering like dying flames.
Cel remained frozen against his anchor point. His arms were locked around a crystal, muscles cramped and screaming. His breath came in ragged gasps that matched the creature's labored panting.
They'd crossed the void. Both of them. Somehow.
The creature stood motionless for a while. Behind them, the liquid's surface had already smoothed once more, perfectly still as if nothing had disturbed it. The hill rose in the distance, the ruin still perched atop it, impossibly far away now.
Ahead stretched the crystal maze - razor sharp formations filled with heat and horror. The creature had carried him from one trap into another, from the void's patient hunger into the maze's active malice.
But he was alive - for now.
Cel's grip on the crystal loosened slightly. His fingers were numb, his palms raw and bleeding. The creature's breathing gradually steadied, though it didn't move. Perhaps it was gathering strength. Perhaps it was dying. Cel couldn't tell and didn't have the energy to care.
He closed his eyes and let his head rest near the warm crystal base, careful to avoid the sharp edges. The four suns burned overhead. His throat still screamed for water. His body still carried its catalog of wounds.
He'd needed to return to the maze to find the moon - but not like this. Not clinging helplessly to a creature he didn't understand, dragged toward an unknown destination. The ruin had been his sanctuary, his one safe place in this nightmare. Now it was lost to him, separated by a sea of hungry darkness he could never cross again.
The creature took a single step forward, almost gentle compared to its previous violence. Then another. It was moving deeper into the maze, carrying Cel along like unwanted luggage on its crystal-crowned back.
He didn't try to escape. Where would he go? The void waited behind. The maze stretched ahead in formations he couldn't navigate on foot in his weakened state. And somewhere in this nightmare, the moon remained hidden, waiting for him to complete a trial that seemed designed only to find new ways to kill him.
So, Cel maintained his grip and let the creature carry him forward, into whatever fresh horror the crystal maze had prepared. At least he was moving toward his goal, even if he'd lost all agency in how he'd get there. The moon was somewhere ahead in this labyrinth.
He just had to survive long enough to find it.