The floor had cooled by morning, but it still bore the shape.
Stone wasn't supposed to change like that — not without tools, not without heat. And yet the spiral remained, carved clean into the slab beside his bed, faintly cracked at the edges as if it had always been there, waiting beneath the dust for someone to notice.
He crouched beside it, fingers hovering just above the lines. He didn't want to touch it. Not again.
The pattern twisted inward: one clean stroke, circling down into a tight knot. No symbols. No text. Just the curve, cold and quiet, like the curl of something still breathing deep beneath the surface.
The boy stared. He hadn't slept, not really. Not after waking up to that sound — that not-sound — rising through the stone. Not after feeling it echo in the back of his skull like a name he didn't remember answering to.
He should've called for someone. He should've told the house warden or gone straight to the temple stewards in the lower ring. That's what the signs said. That's what they all said.
But he hadn't. And now the sun was up.
The city of Mournreach stirred outside. Heavy carts clattered down the ridge-path, metal wheels scraping over old stone. A distant bell rang to signal the morning water draw. Another chime followed it, softer and slower — someone had passed during the night. Common in the upper rings, especially among the sick.
The boy stood, brushing off his palms, and stepped carefully around the spiral.
He didn't live alone. His assigned dwelling housed eleven other children — most younger, a few older, none especially close. All of them were inside, scattered between the narrow washroom and the cramped breakfast hall on the first floor. No one else had noticed the mark.
Or maybe they had and didn't want to admit it.
He moved through the hallway in silence. The walls were close here, tight with old pipes and copper joints that leaked steam when the heat vents kicked on. He liked this part of the house. It felt stable. Tucked away.
Someone bumped into him at the bottom of the stairs. A girl with short-cropped hair and a steel tooth, one of the newer placements from the third ring. She looked up at him, opened her mouth, paused, then stepped around him without a word.
That was fine. Most didn't speak to him unless they had to.
He made it outside before the stewards could start asking questions. The streets were still quiet in the uppermost reaches of Mournreach — cobbled paths lined with rusted guardrails, flickering lanterns, and balconies that leaned just a little too far over the edge. Below, the city fell away in layers: homes carved into the cliffside, descending in spirals that mirrored the pattern on his floor. At the bottom was the haze. The Hole.
It had no official name. Maps labeled it "District Null," but everyone just called it the Hole — a black pit at the heart of the city where no one was allowed to go. Some said it was a wound left over from the first descent. Others said it was something older, something the city had grown around like a scab.
He stared down at it, eyes following the faint shimmer of heat rising from the base. The deeper levels were always warmer. Some believed it was natural, others said the city core still burned.
And others — the ones in robes, the ones who whispered to statues and held prayers under their tongues — believed it was alive.
The boy pulled his coat tighter. He didn't believe much of anything. Not after last night.
The sound had returned while he was dreaming. Not loud, not sharp — just… present. Like someone humming behind a wall. It had pulled him awake, just before dawn, and when he opened his eyes, the spiral had been there.
And he'd known — without question — that it had something to do with him.
The same way he knew he wasn't supposed to tell anyone.
He turned away from the rail and started walking. Today was a workday. The older children were expected to assist the archive clerics at the ridge observatory — sweeping floors, carrying books, sorting glyph-stamps for the record keepers. He wasn't especially good at it, but he was quiet, and quiet children were easy to keep around.
The observatory stood higher than any other building in the city, save the old Bellspire. From its windows, you could see past the rings and all the way to the ash flats beyond the city's edge. On clear days, you could even glimpse the ruin towers scattered across the flats — relics from a war no one remembered.
He arrived without speaking to anyone, nodded at the steward at the gate, and entered through the east corridor.
Work was slow. The clerics didn't speak much, and most of the tasks involved moving objects from one place to another without disturbing their order. He didn't mind that. It gave him time to think.
He kept thinking about the spiral. About how the sound hadn't gone away after waking. It was still there, faint and low, like it had moved into the back of his ears and set up camp. No one else seemed to notice. No one flinched or stared. Either they couldn't hear it, or they were better at pretending.
The boy picked up a tray of stamped wax glyphs and moved toward the sorting shelves.
That's when the whisper came again. Louder, this time. Closer.
Not a voice. Not exactly. But he understood it.
A name.
His.
Not the one the stewards used. Not the one carved into his bedpost. But one he hadn't heard before — one that didn't belong in any language he knew. And yet it fit.
He froze, hand tightening around the edge of the tray. A flicker of heat ran up his spine. Not pain. Not fear. Something else. Like… being seen.
Behind him, a candle went out.
He turned.
No one stood there. Just shelves. Dust. Stale air and fading light.
But the spiral had followed him. It was etched into the stone beneath his feet — faint, but real.
And this time, he did touch it.
The stone pulsed beneath his fingers.
And the world went very, very still.