Yesterday, 01:42 AM
Gorinthian’s feet pawed smoothly against the smooth stone of the floor, unhurried, as he led onward. Soon, the Anchor gave way to a deeper, denser silence the moment they crossed the threshold toward the inner tiers.
Adrian did not look back. His hand remained tucked behind him. The Kane signet ring pressed a dull, familiar circle into his flesh. Usually it was a quiet anchor to self, but now, he wondered why his subconscious called to it. He disliked the notion that he was uneasy.
At the grand archway of The Gallery, Gorinthian stopped. The tiny creature turned his head halfway, the movement slow and deliberate, and settled his gaze on a threshold where Adrian instinctively expected a sheer drop-off or a blind wall of absolute nothingness. Instead, the edge folded inward, opening into a silent, light-drinking expanse that stretched deeper than the stone had any right to allow. Gorinthian stared at the impossible boundary a moment longer before looking sideways at Adrian.
"I don't go in the Gallery,” Gorinthian said, his voice flat, carrying the dry rattle of dead leaves swept across concrete.
He shifted his gaze past Adrian’s shoulder to where Nimeda stood. A strange, sluggish pause settled in the space between them. Gorinthian's brow furrowed slightly. It was a look that carried the weight of an unwritten warning, a silent nudge suggesting the air inside was precious only for those who belonged. Yet, he offered no command, made no move to block her path. Instead, a flicker of sharp, uncharacteristic curiosity crossed his features, his gaze lingering on the pair of them with the intense, calculating stare of a creature watching a rare experiment unfold for the very first time.
"Do as you like,” Gorinthian muttered, turning his face away and folding his arms until his hands disappeared in the fur of his exposed belly.
Adrian stepped past him without a word.
He stepped forward, and the floor beneath him seemed less like polished stone and more like immense, compressed sheets of ancient ice. Everywhere was translucent and glowing with a deep, pale luminescent blue, veined with jagged fractures that went impossibly deep. It was a space of terrifying, crystalline beauty, soaring upward into vaulted arches carved from what looked like frozen light, yet carried no chill explained by temperature. Every surface refracted light in distorted, multiplying angles, turning the long aisle into a vast, silent sepulcher of endless time.
His stride was measured and shoulders back, the rigid physical discipline of a man who spent his mornings shaping every line of his frame holding fast against the creeping surrealism of the floor. At the far end, what he took at first to be a polished panel of glass stretched from floor to ceiling.
He stopped a foot away. His jaw tightened, the prominent muscles ticking once. He raised his chin, expecting the crisp, unyielding reflection of his 6’1” frame, the clean-shaven contour of his face, the exact posture of a man entirely in control of his surroundings.
Instead, the surface yielded. It wasn't glass. It was a thin, cold pane of something else, and behind it, the dark space bled outward into an endless gallery of human shapes.
He didn't see faces. Not clearly. There were no distinct eyes, no sharp lines of jaw or curls of brown hair he could pinpoint. But he knew.
They were impressions: tall, shifting silhouettes cast in charcoal and smoke, bleeding away into the gray distance like ghosts standing just behind a fogged window. A dozen of them, a hundred of them, stretching into an impossible horizon. Each shape carried a different posture of desperate hunger. One leaned with the heavy, calculated slouch of a man wearing a tyrant's crown; another stood rigid, bound to the service of an unseen master; another reached out with desperate, clawing precision toward a prize that dissolved at the touch.
They were all him. He couldn't make out the details, but every instinct in his blood recognized the blueprint. They were a legion of Adrians, chasing a hundred different thrones, falling to a hundred different ruinous ends.
A cold prickle of vertigo jabbed behind his ribs. For a man who built his entire life on being a singular, carefully architected entity, the realization that he was merely a repeating pattern of fate swirled his stomach sick.
He stared at the shifting silhouettes, his breath catching in his throat. Every instinct screamed against it. No. He was not a template stamped out by some unseen hand. He was the product of two grueling hours a day in the gym, of meticulous calorie counting, of late nights mastering the cold syntax of business, of an unyielding discipline that carved his body and mind out of raw, obstinate will. He had engineered himself. He was Adrian Kane.
And yet, looking into that infinite gallery, a creeping, insidious doubt clawed at his chest. If every shadow before him was also himself, if this rigid control, ruthless ambition, and heavy, hollow hunger for power was just a script written by forces he had never chosen, then what was he? Was his discipline just a cage he built to decorate a prison he had no idea he was jailed within? Was every choice he ever made just a rerun of a play he'd already performed in the dark?
In that moment, they seemed to realize his proximity, and sheer weight of them pressed against the glass like a physical crushing force, threatening to wash away every boundary of who he was if they broke through. He could feel his individuality fraying at the edges, dissolving into the roaring tide of a million dead lives. If he let go for even a second, he would be swallowed completely by the collective ocean of his selves. Panic, sharp and terrifying, clawed at his throat. If the glass broke, he would lose himself.
His jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked beneath his clean-shaven cheek, and a hot flash of humiliation and rage overrode the nausea.
Without breaking his stare, Adrian raised his left hand. The signet ring felt heavy as if the metal itself were straining toward the pane. He pressed the face of the ring directly against the surface.
“I am Adrian Kane!" He meant to assert against the void, his voice low and vibrating with a defiance that felt suddenly thin. “I begin and end with myself.”
To his shock, the ring didn't hit resistance. It sank.
The barrier didn't shatter; it melted into a rush of absolute, blinding gravity. The shadowy impressions didn't wait behind the glass anymore. With a silent rush of violence, the endless shapes surged forward, rushing out of the dark and slamming straight into his chest.
Adrian did not look back. His hand remained tucked behind him. The Kane signet ring pressed a dull, familiar circle into his flesh. Usually it was a quiet anchor to self, but now, he wondered why his subconscious called to it. He disliked the notion that he was uneasy.
At the grand archway of The Gallery, Gorinthian stopped. The tiny creature turned his head halfway, the movement slow and deliberate, and settled his gaze on a threshold where Adrian instinctively expected a sheer drop-off or a blind wall of absolute nothingness. Instead, the edge folded inward, opening into a silent, light-drinking expanse that stretched deeper than the stone had any right to allow. Gorinthian stared at the impossible boundary a moment longer before looking sideways at Adrian.
"I don't go in the Gallery,” Gorinthian said, his voice flat, carrying the dry rattle of dead leaves swept across concrete.
He shifted his gaze past Adrian’s shoulder to where Nimeda stood. A strange, sluggish pause settled in the space between them. Gorinthian's brow furrowed slightly. It was a look that carried the weight of an unwritten warning, a silent nudge suggesting the air inside was precious only for those who belonged. Yet, he offered no command, made no move to block her path. Instead, a flicker of sharp, uncharacteristic curiosity crossed his features, his gaze lingering on the pair of them with the intense, calculating stare of a creature watching a rare experiment unfold for the very first time.
"Do as you like,” Gorinthian muttered, turning his face away and folding his arms until his hands disappeared in the fur of his exposed belly.
Adrian stepped past him without a word.
He stepped forward, and the floor beneath him seemed less like polished stone and more like immense, compressed sheets of ancient ice. Everywhere was translucent and glowing with a deep, pale luminescent blue, veined with jagged fractures that went impossibly deep. It was a space of terrifying, crystalline beauty, soaring upward into vaulted arches carved from what looked like frozen light, yet carried no chill explained by temperature. Every surface refracted light in distorted, multiplying angles, turning the long aisle into a vast, silent sepulcher of endless time.
His stride was measured and shoulders back, the rigid physical discipline of a man who spent his mornings shaping every line of his frame holding fast against the creeping surrealism of the floor. At the far end, what he took at first to be a polished panel of glass stretched from floor to ceiling.
He stopped a foot away. His jaw tightened, the prominent muscles ticking once. He raised his chin, expecting the crisp, unyielding reflection of his 6’1” frame, the clean-shaven contour of his face, the exact posture of a man entirely in control of his surroundings.
Instead, the surface yielded. It wasn't glass. It was a thin, cold pane of something else, and behind it, the dark space bled outward into an endless gallery of human shapes.
He didn't see faces. Not clearly. There were no distinct eyes, no sharp lines of jaw or curls of brown hair he could pinpoint. But he knew.
They were impressions: tall, shifting silhouettes cast in charcoal and smoke, bleeding away into the gray distance like ghosts standing just behind a fogged window. A dozen of them, a hundred of them, stretching into an impossible horizon. Each shape carried a different posture of desperate hunger. One leaned with the heavy, calculated slouch of a man wearing a tyrant's crown; another stood rigid, bound to the service of an unseen master; another reached out with desperate, clawing precision toward a prize that dissolved at the touch.
They were all him. He couldn't make out the details, but every instinct in his blood recognized the blueprint. They were a legion of Adrians, chasing a hundred different thrones, falling to a hundred different ruinous ends.
A cold prickle of vertigo jabbed behind his ribs. For a man who built his entire life on being a singular, carefully architected entity, the realization that he was merely a repeating pattern of fate swirled his stomach sick.
He stared at the shifting silhouettes, his breath catching in his throat. Every instinct screamed against it. No. He was not a template stamped out by some unseen hand. He was the product of two grueling hours a day in the gym, of meticulous calorie counting, of late nights mastering the cold syntax of business, of an unyielding discipline that carved his body and mind out of raw, obstinate will. He had engineered himself. He was Adrian Kane.
And yet, looking into that infinite gallery, a creeping, insidious doubt clawed at his chest. If every shadow before him was also himself, if this rigid control, ruthless ambition, and heavy, hollow hunger for power was just a script written by forces he had never chosen, then what was he? Was his discipline just a cage he built to decorate a prison he had no idea he was jailed within? Was every choice he ever made just a rerun of a play he'd already performed in the dark?
In that moment, they seemed to realize his proximity, and sheer weight of them pressed against the glass like a physical crushing force, threatening to wash away every boundary of who he was if they broke through. He could feel his individuality fraying at the edges, dissolving into the roaring tide of a million dead lives. If he let go for even a second, he would be swallowed completely by the collective ocean of his selves. Panic, sharp and terrifying, clawed at his throat. If the glass broke, he would lose himself.
His jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked beneath his clean-shaven cheek, and a hot flash of humiliation and rage overrode the nausea.
Without breaking his stare, Adrian raised his left hand. The signet ring felt heavy as if the metal itself were straining toward the pane. He pressed the face of the ring directly against the surface.
“I am Adrian Kane!" He meant to assert against the void, his voice low and vibrating with a defiance that felt suddenly thin. “I begin and end with myself.”
To his shock, the ring didn't hit resistance. It sank.
The barrier didn't shatter; it melted into a rush of absolute, blinding gravity. The shadowy impressions didn't wait behind the glass anymore. With a silent rush of violence, the endless shapes surged forward, rushing out of the dark and slamming straight into his chest.