"The morning ritual was unusual." The truth slipped out before I could stop it.
His eyebrows rose above his spectacles. "Unusual how?"
I should have lied. Should have cited exhaustion or distraction. Instead, I found myself speaking.
"The Gate's light changed. Just for a moment. Gold instead of white."
Master Theron went very still. Then, moving with surprising speed for his age, he gripped my arm and pulled me into an alcove.
"Gold, you said? You're certain?"
"Yes, but?—"
"Has this happened before? Any other variations? Changes in the binding words' resonance? Fluctuations in the drain rate?"
The questions came rapid-fire, and with each one, my unease grew. He knew something. Had been looking for something.
"Master Theron, what?—"
"Not here." He glanced down the corridor, checking for observers. "Tonight. After your extended meditations. Come to the archives. Lower level, third stack from the east wall."
"That's the restricted section."
"Yes." His fingers tightened on my arm. "Tell no one else what you saw. No one. Not even, especially not, the High Keeper."
"Master Theron, you're frightening me."
"Good." He released my arm, stepping back. "Fear might keep you alive long enough to learn the truth."
He shuffled away, returning to his dottering old scholar act so quickly I almost doubted the last minute had happened. But the pressure marks from his fingers remained on my arm, and in my mind, a single word echoed.
Truth.
What truth could be more terrible than what we already knew? We kept gods imprisoned. We bled to maintain the chains. We stood between the mortal world and divine destruction.
What truth could be worse than that?
The morning bell tolled again, calling us to our duties. I walked toward the meditation chambers, my mind churning, my hand throbbing, and deep beneath the Citadel, the Gate pulsed with golden light that no one else could see.
Not yet.
THREE
Aria
The meditation chamber was supposed to be a sanctuary. Stone walls carved with prayers of binding, each ancient word chiseled deep into the grey rock by hands that had turned to dust centuries ago. The floor was marked with the sacred geometry of containment, circles within circles, stars that intersected at precise angles calculated to channel and suppress divine power. The air hung thick with incense, its cloying sweetness designed to empty the mind of everything but duty, to strip away thought and leave only purpose.
I'd been kneeling on the cold stone for three hours, reciting the Litany of Chains until the words blurred into meaningless sound. My knees ached with a deep, grinding pain that spread up my thighs. My throat was raw, scraped rough from hours of whispered recitation. The golden veins in my palm pulsed with each heartbeat, a rhythmic throb that seemed to grow stronger with every passing moment, hidden beneath fresh bandages but impossible to ignore. They burned, not with heat, but with something else—a kind of awareness that made my skin crawl.
By chain and covenant, we hold.
By blood and binding, we contain.
By will and watching, we?—
The world exploded.
Not with sound or fury, but with something far worse, a rupture in reality itself that sent me sprawling across the chamber floor. The meditation cushion flew across the room as if struck by an invisible fist, landing in a heap against the far wall. Force slammed through the Citadel like a god's scream, a shockwave of pure magical energy that bypassed the physical entirely and struck directly at something deeper. My body hit stone hard enough to drive breath from my lungs, ribs compressing painfully, but that was nothing compared to what happened to my eyes.
