Kett's threads snap tight across the chamber, slicing through the front wave of bone-bound husks. They fall—but others climb over their bodies without pause, silent as smoke.
Branvel's flame wreaths the circle, but it's burning fast. Too fast.
"We're boxed in," he growls.
"Let them come," I say.
The Vault stirs at my voice. The ring answers with a cold pulse, slow and steady—like counting heartbeats in a storm.
Wren presses closer to me, her hands trembling. "We can't hold forever."
"We won't need forever," I say.
The enemy surges. Voul slams his staff into the stone, summoning a quake of sigils that shatter a cluster of them at once. Nera hums louder, her mouth glowing with that eerie stitched light, unraveling a dozen more.
But it isn't enough.
The rival's influence is woven into them—*around* them. It's not just force keeping them alive. It's purpose. He gave them a thread of his will, and they follow it like moths to flame.
And we are the fire.
The next wave slams into Sov. He drops low, sidesteps, and drives his blade through the chest of one—only to catch another on his side.
"Don't let them drag you down!" Lira shouts, yanking him back into the circle.
Then, a sound.
*Not* from the husks.
From above.
A distant scream—human, not rewritten.
Fenn looks up. "That was from the surface."
Wren grabs my arm. "The Threadless. They're attacking the upper rings."
It was never just here.
The labyrinth was a *distraction.*
"He's splitting us," I realize. "Divide the Vault. Snap the defenders. Reclaim the seal line."
Jeral grits his teeth. "Then we fight two wars."
"No," I say. "We *end* one."
The ring hums louder. I feel the shape of the chamber beneath us—the roots of the city. There's something we haven't tapped yet. A thread Vellidra left buried under the core of the Vault.
I slam the ring into the center stone.
A burst of stormlight erupts.
The ground *sinks.*
Not crumbles—*descends.*
The whole circle drops into a deeper pocket, far beneath the labyrinth. The bone-bound fall with us, confused.
Light floods the space.
But it's not from the Vault.
It's from *her.*
Vellidra's last echo, waiting here in the deepest dark.
She doesn't speak.
She simply raises her hand.
And all the threads in the chamber freeze mid-motion.
Bone shatters.
Silence reigns.
For now.
Because the rival knows we found this place.
And he will *never* let us keep it.