Blood didn't come first.
Light did.
White-gold and searing, pouring from Mira's wrist like he'd opened a vein of raw sunlight. Bharat's hand burned where he held the blade, skin blistering, but he didn't let go.
Couldn't let go.
The Mark thrashed. Not metaphorically—physically. He could feel it writhing beneath her skin, trying to pull itself deeper, trying to anchor in bone and tendon and the soft parts of her that couldn't fight back.
Mira screamed.
Short. Sharp. Bitten off at the end like she'd swallowed the rest.
Bharat cut deeper.
The blade scraped something solid. Not bone. Something other. The Mark had roots—tiny filaments of divine script woven through muscle and marrow, binding itself so tightly to her that separating them felt like peeling her apart layer by layer.
"Almost—"
"Don't stop."
Her voice was raw. Shaking. But her free hand clamped down on his shoulder, holding him in place.
"Don't you dare stop."
He didn't.
One more cut. Precise. Angled just right to sever the last root without taking her radial artery with it.
The Mark came free.
It pulsed in his palm—small, dense, shaped like a knot of frozen lightning. Still alive. Still aware. He could feel it trying to latch onto him instead, tendrils questing for new skin to burrow into.
He slammed it onto the altar.
Hard.
The obsidian cracked. Not from impact—from contact. Like the Mark and the altar recognized each other. Like they were two halves of something that had been split a long time ago.
The grooves lit up.
Gold script raced along the channels, converging on the Mark. It convulsed once—twice—then began to dissolve. Not burning. Not melting. Just… unwriting itself. Stroke by stroke. Line by line. Like the temple was erasing a mistake.
And the grimoire—
Opened.
Pages flipping fast, faster, too fast to read. Wind roared through the chamber even though there were no windows, no doors, no air except what they'd brought with them.
Bharat grabbed Mira.
Pulled her back as the altar began to sink. Not collapse—sink. Like the floor was swallowing it whole. The grimoire rose with it, floating now, pages still turning, and beneath—
Beneath—
Something was waking up.
The first thing Bharat saw was eyes.
Hundreds of them. Thousands. Carved into the stone beneath the altar, each one blinking open in perfect synchronization. Not human eyes. Not animal. Just… watching. Calculating. Weighing them against some metric he couldn't see.
Then the voice.
Not sound. Not thought. Something between—like someone had learned to speak directly into the space where your spine met your skull.
"PARTICIPANTS."
The word made his teeth ache.
"OFFERING ACCEPTED."
"CONTRACT REVISED."
"Revised?" Mira gasped.
She was still bleeding. Not light anymore—just blood. Red and human and too much of it.
Bharat pressed his palm over the wound. It was deep. Deeper than he'd meant. The shared-pain contract flared, and suddenly his wrist was on fire too, phantom agony racing up his arm.
Worth it.
Had to be worth it.
"THE MARK OF RECALL: EXTRACTED."
"THE GROOM'S HEART: OFFERED."
"THE BRIDE'S COVENANT: NULLIFIED."
"Nullified?"
Mira's voice cracked.
"That means—"
"YOU ARE NO LONGER BOUND TO THE RESURRECTION CLAUSE."
The eyes blinked. Slowly. One wave after another, like a vast stone creature stretching after a long sleep.
"HOWEVER."
Of course there's a "however."
Bharat tightened his grip on Mira. She was shaking now. Not from pain—from something else. Something colder.
"THE MARK WAS A LOCK."
"YOU HAVE BROKEN THE LOCK."
"WHAT WAS LOCKED IS NOW FREE."
The grimoire spun faster. Pages tearing themselves free, scattering like golden leaves. The script on them wasn't fading—it was spreading. Crawling across the walls. The floor. The ceiling. Racing toward them like a living thing.
"Run," Mira said.
"What—"
"Run."
She shoved him toward the door. He stumbled, caught himself, turned back—
The altar exploded.
Not fire. Not force. Just… presence. Something vast and old and utterly indifferent to their existence stepping through the space where the altar used to be.
Bharat saw:
A shape too large for the room but somehow contained within it.Robes made of light and ash.Hands with too many fingers.A face that kept changing—old man, young woman, child, serpent, empty air.
And he knew.
This wasn't the temple's guardian.
This was the temple's purpose.
The thing the Ritual Codex had been designed to keep asleep.
The Adjudicator.
It spoke.
"FIVE HUNDRED YEARS."
The voice was everywhere. In the stone. In the air. In Bharat's bones.
"FIVE HUNDRED YEARS BOUND."
"FIVE HUNDRED YEARS WAITING."
"AND YOU—"
The too-many-fingered hand pointed at Bharat.
"—HAVE SET ME FREE."
"We didn't—"
"YOU OFFERED THE MARK. THE MARK WAS THE LOCK. THE LOCK IS BROKEN."
The Adjudicator stepped forward. The floor cracked beneath it—not from weight, but from wrongness. Like reality itself was trying to reject its presence and failing.
"I SHOULD THANK YOU."
"Please don't."
Mira pulled Bharat back. Her wrist had stopped bleeding, but the skin around the wound was turning black. Not infection—something worse. Divine corruption spreading from the inside out.
"BUT GRATITUDE IS NOT MY FUNCTION."
The Adjudicator's face settled on something almost human. Almost kind.
"MY FUNCTION IS JUDGMENT."
"AND YOU—"
It looked at Mira.
"—HAVE BEEN JUDGED FIVE TIMES."
"FOUND WANTING."
"RESET."
Then at Bharat.
"AND YOU—"
"—HAVE BROKEN THE CYCLE."
"UNPRECEDENTED."
"INTERESTING."
The word "interesting" carried the weight of a death sentence.
"WHAT SHALL I DO WITH INTERESTING?"
The grimoire slammed shut.
The eyes on the floor blinked out.
And the Adjudicator smiled.
Not cruel.
Not kind.
Just… curious.
"RUN," it said. "I WILL COUNT TO TEN."
Bharat didn't hesitate.
Grabbed Mira. Bolted for the door.
Behind them, the Adjudicator began counting.
"ONE."
The walls started folding inward.
"TWO."
The floor turned liquid.
"THREE."
Mira stumbled. Bharat caught her, hauled her upright, kept moving.
"The Codex—"
"Forget the Codex!"
"FOUR."
Something grabbed his ankle. Not a hand—just pressure. Like gravity had grown teeth.
He kicked. Felt something snap. Not bone—the concept of his ankle being bound.
"FIVE."
They hit the corridor. The Oath Corridor. Except it wasn't a corridor anymore—it was a throat. Pulsing. Contracting. Trying to swallow them whole.
"Together," Mira gasped.
"Together."
They ran.
Behind them, the Adjudicator's count continued.
"SIX."
"SEVEN."
"EIGHT."
And then—
Laughter.
Not the Adjudicator's.
Someone else's.
Close.
Too close.
Bharat skidded to a stop.
At the corridor's end, silhouetted against the faint light of the exit, stood a figure.
Tall. Hooded. Holding something that pulsed with the same gold light as the Mark.
The Ritual Codex.
"Looking for this?" the figure asked.
The voice was familiar. Horribly familiar.
Mira's breath stopped.
"No," she whispered.
The figure lowered its hood.
Bharat's heart dropped.
Because the face staring back at them—
—was his.