CHAPTER 14: EMBERS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS? PFFT

Idran lifted the coin, turned it in long fingers. "If someone is framing the Sanctum, we have a second war to worry about."

Venra smiled at Kaelen without warmth. "I doubt that...it is quite obvious everything became weird ever since he arrived,"

"I believe he is framing them and you are all gullible."

"Enough," Valerius said softly, and for a moment everyone obeyed the word like an order in their bones. He looked at Kaelen. "You will take a ward-collar for seven days. Voluntary. It will monitor, not bind."

"No," Kaelen said.

"Then they will vote to make it not voluntary," Valerius said.

Idran’s brow furrowed. "Voluntary buys peace."

Tiara shook her head in disgust. "Peace bought with chains is just a leash you’re too tired to bite."

Serenya’s eyes tracked the balcony shadows. "Heads up," she murmured without moving her lips.

A ripple crossed Kaelen’s skin. Echo’s ears pricked. Kaelen’s Aether sense licked upward, it was a thread like a violin string drawn to the breaking point.

"Down!" Serenya yanked Kaelen sideways. A needle of black glass hissed through the space his throat had just occupied and sank into the banner behind him. The Marrowind sigil blistered around the wound like burned flesh.

The guards shouted. Echo sprang forward, towards a blur of white and muscle straight up the column, claws finding stone seams. He hit the balcony with a snarl. A shadow rolled back, fired a second needle; Echo twisted, the shot scoring fur along his ribs. The assassin flipped to another beam.

Valerius thrust a palm; heat thundered. Fire hammered the beam an instant after the assassin left it. Splinters rained. The chamber erupted.

"Form ranks!" Idran barked, glass staff fanning a veil that caught falling shards.

Venra’s lightning turned feral. "Bring me his head!"

Calvess crouched behind his cone, muttering prayers that sounded more like curses.

Tiara flung a blade of compressed air. It sliced the assassin’s hood. For a heartbeat, they saw a scarred cheek, a mouth stained black by voidglass.

"Alive!" Serenya snapped. "We need..."

The assassin smiled like a crack in ice and threw a palm of gray powder. Every ward in the chamber flickered. The air went thin.

Kaelen felt the shape of the powder, it was unmaking, quiet as ash. He caught the edge before it spread and braided it into a harmless eddy that sank to the floor like tired dust.

The assassin started, startled, then leaped. Echo took him out of the air with a collision that sounded like a tree snapping. They tumbled. A knife flashed; Echo yelped.

Kaelen was there, too fast for thought, hands closing, not on flesh, but on the thread that anchored the assassin to his own momentum. He pinched. The man’s leap stuttered in midair, momentum bleeding away. He crashed short of the balcony’s edge and hung there, stunned. Kaelen was there, too fast for thought, hands closing,not on flesh, but on the thread that anchored the assassin to his own momentum. He pinched. The man’s leap stuttered in midair, momentum bleeding away. He crashed short of the balcony’s edge and hung there, stunned.

Serenya was on him in three steps, knees on elbows, blade at throat. "Who paid you?"

The assassin coughed a laugh. "You’ll never reach that door."

"What door?"

He grinned, teeth blue-black, and bit. Serenya swore, tried to pry his jaw open, but the poison was already working. His eyes filmed. His chest stilled.

"Three in two nights," Tiara said flatly. "That’s not a contract, that’s a campaign."

Idran’s face had gone the color of old parchment. "This chamber is sacred."

"Nothing is sacred to people who write laws with other people’s blood," Tiara said.

Venra shook splinters from her sleeve. "Sermons again. Charming."

Valerius turned on Kaelen. "Do you understand now?" His voice was quiet enough to cut bone. "You are a lit fuse. They will burn a city to snuff you."

Kaelen met his eyes. "Then teach me faster."

A dozen conversations exploded at once. Guards dragged the body. Echo limped down the column, fur torn and bright with blood along his ribs. Kaelen dropped to one knee and slid a hand to Echo’s side.

"Don’t," Tiara said sharply. "Not here."

Kaelen held anyway, not taking, just nudging the torn edges to remember whole. Echo huffed and leaned into him.

Idran slammed his staff once. The sound traveled like a clean line through noise. "Order. We must vote."

Venra’s smile sharpened. "At last."

Idran looked pained. "Proposals on the floor: custody by House Valerius with Conclave oversight; Sanctum containment; voluntary monitoring..."

"...and recognition," Tiara cut in. "Recognize him as what he is: Aetherborn. Protected by law, not hunted by rumor."

A hiss rippled around the circle.

Calvess stumbled to his feet. "We cannot sanctify heresy."

Serenya’s gaze found the high balcony where shadows thickened too carefully. "We can stop pretending the enemy knocks politely."

Valerius faced the circle. "No collar. No Sanctum cell. He trains, in my House, with watchers to soothe your paranoia. You want a leash, vote for someone else."

Venra’s mouth curled. "How noble. How predictable."

Kaelen stepped forward before anyone else could speak. "Add one more proposal. I’ll stand before any test you choose if you open the doors that hide the truth. The Source beneath this city. The Silent Seat that signs writs in graves. The ledger of Sealed Births with a blue clasp. You want obedience? Try honesty."

The chamber recoiled as if he’d slapped it.

Idran’s eyes narrowed. "How do you know of..."

"Hearsay," Tiara said quickly, too quickly.

Calvess clutched his cone. "Even the words are forbidden."

"What good are forbidden words when they’re already written on a contract for my death?" Kaelen asked.

A long, taut silence stretched. Somewhere high in the tower, a bell struck the hour and shivered through their bones.

Idran exhaled first. "We table the vote until sunrise tomorrow. In the interim, Kaelen does not leave House Valerius."

Venra’s lashes lowered. "House arrest with a pretty name. Acceptable."

Valerius’s nod was a blade. "I’ll keep him alive."

Serenya pocketed the black coin. "I’ll keep him unpoisoned."

Tiara touched the lacquered case under her cloak. "And I’ll keep him informed."

Calvess folded his cone to his chest. "May the Sanctum forgive us."

"You can ask for it," Tiara said. "It won’t answer."

The session broke in a storm of silk and arguments. Guards cleared the gallery. Blood spattered the Marrowind banner like an omen.

Valerius caught Kaelen’s arm as the circle thinned. "You will not go below."

Kaelen eased free. "Then show me what’s down there so I don’t have to."

Valerius’s stare didn’t move. "There are doors you don’t open and live."

"Someone already decided I don’t," Kaelen said.

Serenya’s eyes tracked a robed figure sliding into a side passage, too fast, too smooth. She touched Tiara’s elbow. "Your traitor just blinked."

Tiara’s mouth flattened. "Follow."

"Not you," Valerius said to Kaelen. "You go home."

Kaelen looked at Echo, at Tiara, at Serenya’s ready blade, at the chamber where fear and hunger braided into policy.

"I’m done being led," he said.

Valerius held his gaze. "You stay in my House, you live to see the morning."

"Then bar your doors," Kaelen said. "I have a letter to read."

He turned and walked out with Echo limping beside him, Tiara and Serenya flanking like bad decisions he refused to apologize for. Behind them, bells tolled again. This time, it was low, patient, and close enough to feel in the teeth.

Far below the Tower, deep where the city’s foundations met stone older than names, something answered the bell with a pulse that wasn’t sound.

The Source stirred.

******

"Seal the hall!" a guard shouted.

The Wards flared along the Council Chamber’s domed ceiling, throwing pale nets of light over shattered stone. Large smoke hung like bruised silk. Two councilors were being lifted by healers. A third lay still, face veiled.

Kaelen stood in the circle of attention he did not want,his cloak torn, shoulder bandaged where a knife had grazed. Echo prowled around him, hackles high, nose wrinkling at the scent of char and old blood.

"The Hollow Veil," a Conclave usher said, voice quivering. "No sigils. No House colors."

"Which means coin, not cause," Dame Serenya answered, wiping a line of dust from her sleeve. "Which means someone bought them here."

"The Conclave is not a market," the High Priest snapped.

"Everything in Luminis is a market," Serenya said. "Even outrage."

Lord Valerius stepped into the wreckage like a verdict. His robes unruffled, eyes molten. "Enough. Remove the bodies. Send healers to the west wing. And you...!" his gaze cut to Kaelen, "will follow me home."

A representative in Soltair blue bristled. "He should be placed under Conclave protection."

Marrowind’s archmage countered dryly, "Containment, not protection. He draws knives like a magnet."

"Or the knives follow the coin," Tiara said, stepping from the shadow of a cracked pillar. Her hair was dust-gray now, eyes ice-clear. "You all heard the whisper the dying one gave him. ’The Silent Seat sends regards.’ Is the Sanctum sending greetings in steel?"

The High Priest stiffened. "The Silent Seat does not...do this! "

"Does not what?" Tiara cut in. "Speak? Or get its hands dirty?"

Valerius didn’t flinch. "This chamber is compromised. We’re done here." He glanced at Serenya. "Double the patrols between the Tower and my gates."

Serenya’s mouth tilted. "They’ll already be ahead of us."

"Then make them behind us," Valerius said. To Kaelen: "You return to House Valerius. Tonight."

Kaelen looked from the smoking stones to Tiara. She didn’t nod; she didn’t shake her head. She said, very evenly, "I’ll find where the coin washed in. Keep breathing."

He touched Echo’s ruff. "We’re going."

Serenya fell in behind them, steps quiet on the ruined floor. "Try not to die in the carriage," she murmured. "It ruins upholstery."

Outside, the night air was cold and clean. Bells tolled from the Sanctum spires like a warning that had learned to sing.