Chapter 1458: Story 1458: Marked in Glass

The shard throbbed in Mira’s palm, burning cold, sinking deeper until it was no longer a weapon but a wound. Veins of blue light spread from it, racing up her wrist like frost across glass. She gritted her teeth, trying to pry it free, but it was no longer separate—it had become part of her.

Elena scrambled to her side, eyes wide. “Mira—it’s changing you!”

“I know.” Mira’s voice cracked under the strain, but she didn’t loosen her grip. “If I let go, it might take me whole.”

The chamber around them shuddered as though in response. The ichor pit boiled, furious, tendrils lashing the walls, splattering black fire. The faces pressing from the membrane twisted into rictus grins, their teeth grinding like gears.

The tower knew. It had given Mira a shard of itself, and now it demanded something in return.

The corridor they had come through folded shut, the walls sealing like stitched flesh. Only one new passage split open, yawning wide and wet, leading deeper into the labyrinth.

Elena’s panic flared. “It wants us to go further.”

“Then we don’t have a choice.” Mira dragged herself upright, ignoring the burning in her hand. The shard pulsed in rhythm with the tower, as if syncing her heart to its hunger.

They stepped into the corridor. The walls writhed more violently now, their translucent flesh bulging with shadowy shapes that clawed for release. Some of them whispered Mira’s name, their voices echoing from within her skull. Elena pressed close, trembling.

“Mira, it’s calling to you. Just you. Why?”

Mira’s jaw clenched. “Because it knows I’ll fight back. And it wants to see how far I’ll go.”

The passage spat them into another chamber, larger than the last. Here, spires of black glass jutted from the floor, glowing faintly blue. At their bases lay bones—not human, not alien, but something between. The air was thick with a humming resonance that rattled their ribs.

Elena hugged herself. “This feels like… a throne room.”

The shard in Mira’s palm pulsed harder. She doubled over, a strangled cry tearing from her throat. Images flashed in her mind—cities crumbling, skies splitting, the monarch’s triple skull pressing through the threshold. But woven through it all was another vision: the tower itself, rising endlessly, crowned in screaming light.

The shard wasn’t just a weapon. It was an invitation.

“Mira?” Elena’s voice wavered.

Mira straightened, her eyes glowing faintly blue now, veins of light spidering across her forearm. Her voice carried an undertone not her own when she spoke. “It’s not just a tower. It’s a gate. A gate that hungers.”

As if to confirm her words, the spires shuddered. From between them, a figure pulled itself free. Its body was a lattice of glass and bone, its face a shifting mask of those same trapped silhouettes. It stood tall, elegant, but its presence crushed the air like a weight.

Elena staggered back. “What—what is that?”

The figure’s voice was a thousand overlapping tones. “The shard chose you. You are no longer trespasser. You are vessel.”

Mira tightened her grip on the burning shard. For the first time, the tower didn’t resist—it leaned toward her, waiting.

And behind them, faint but growing, the monarch’s howl shook the labyrinth. It was coming.