The sigil finished forming.
It did not glow this time.
It burned.
High above the fractured skyline, lines of white fire etched themselves across the sky in deliberate geometry. Every district dimmed in response. The city's hum deepened into something heavier, almost strained.
Lyra felt it first.
Not in her hands.
Not in her chest.
In her bones.
"It's synchronizing," she whispered.
Caelum's eyes tracked invisible patterns overhead. "No. It's escalating to a higher protocol."
Kael glanced down at the hunters below. They had stopped advancing. All of them had turned toward the sky.
Waiting.
Arin stepped closer to the siblings, voice low. "When it does that, something big changes."
"How big?" Kael asked.
She hesitated.
"They rewrite sectors."
The words hung in the air.
A distant rumble rolled across the city. Entire blocks in the lower districts began to dissolve into light. Not exploding. Not collapsing.
Erasing.
Buildings fragmented into particles and streamed upward toward the sigil like data being recalled. Streets unraveled into thin lines. People caught within the affected zone froze mid-motion, their bodies turning translucent.
Lyra's breath caught. "They're deleting them."
The lead hunter's voice carried upward again.
"You misunderstand the crown."
Kael looked down sharply. "Then explain it."
The hunter stepped forward into clearer view.
"The crown does not control the city. The crown stabilizes what was unleashed."
Lyra's pulse quickened. "Unleashed by who?"
The hunter held her gaze.
"By you."
The rumble intensified.
Another sector began to unravel.
Arin backed away from the rooftop edge, panic rising in her voice. "They've never erased this much at once."
Caelum's expression shifted for the first time.
Concern.
"They're reallocating mass and energy toward the crown," he said. "Feeding it."
Kael turned to him. "For what?"
Caelum did not answer immediately.
Because he already knew.
The sky above the broken crown tower split open.
Not wide.
Just enough.
A vertical fracture formed in the clouds directly above the jagged spires. From within it, something moved. Not a shape. Not a creature.
A pressure.
Like an ocean held back by glass.
Lyra staggered as the pull intensified.
"It's not locked," she breathed.
"It's contained."
The hunter's voice dropped, stripped of its earlier composure.
"If the crown fails, the containment fails."
Kael's fists clenched. "Containment of what?"
The hunter's white eyes flickered again.
"Of the Collapse."
The word hit differently.
Not a metaphor.
A name.
The rumbling grew violent now. Entire bridges snapped loose and streamed toward the crown tower as raw material. The sigil overhead pulsed in rhythm with the fracture in the sky.
Arin grabbed Kael's arm. "If they're feeding it, that means it's weakening."
Caelum nodded once. "Or preparing."
"For what?" she demanded.
"For reintegration."
Lyra felt the truth of that word settle in her chest.
Reintegration.
Memory.
Power.
Consequence.
She turned toward her brothers.
"If the crown is stabilizing whatever we unleashed…" Her voice steadied despite the tremor in her hands. "Then we're the variables it can't predict."
Kael understood immediately.
"You think we can control it."
"I think we can end it," she replied.
Caelum's gaze sharpened. "Or release it entirely."
Silence.
Below, the hunters no longer watched passively. They were moving again, repositioning across rooftops, cutting off lower exits.
The lead hunter called up to them one final time.
"If you approach the crown without understanding it, you will finish what you started."
Lyra met their gaze without flinching.
"Then we'll understand it."
The sky fracture widened slightly.
From within, a ripple pushed outward against invisible boundaries. The crown tower's jagged frame glowed white-hot along its cracks.
Kael stepped closer to the edge, resolve hardening.
"What exactly are we trying to do?" he asked.
Not fear.
Clarity.
Lyra answered.
"We reach the crown before the city finishes feeding it."
Caelum completed the thought.
"We access its core. Not the stabilizer systems. The root architecture."
Arin frowned. "That sounds like suicide."
"It's objective," Caelum corrected calmly. "If the crown is a lock, it has a key interface."
Kael exhaled slowly. "And we're the keys."
Lyra nodded.
"If the Collapse is still out there, pressing against this world, then the system is holding it back by sacrificing people. Erasing districts. Recycling minds."
Her voice sharpened.
"I won't let it keep doing that."
Another sector below dissolved into light.
The skyline felt thinner now. Less stable.
The crown pulsed again, stronger.
Caelum's calculations accelerated. "We have limited time. Once the reintegration phase completes, access pathways will be sealed permanently."
Arin stared at them. "You're talking about breaking into the most fortified structure in the city while it's actively rewriting itself."
"Yes," Kael said simply.
"And surviving whatever's inside," she added.
Lyra's light brightened, no longer fragile. Focused.
"We're not surviving it," she said quietly.
"We're confronting it."
The objective settled between them, solid and immovable:
Reach the broken crown tower.Access its core before reintegration completes.Discover the truth of the Collapse.Decide whether to seal it forever… or face what comes through.
The wind shifted direction.
From the tower.
Carrying heat.
Below, the hunters began ascending in coordinated leaps.
Kael cracked his knuckles.
"Guess we're done running."
Caelum glanced once more at the narrowing sky fracture.
"Probability of survival remains low."
Lyra looked at both of them.
"Probability of doing nothing is worse."
For a moment, the three stood in silent alignment.
Not back-to-back this time.
Side by side.
The crown pulsed.
The city trembled.
And far above, something pressed harder against its cage.