The voice was not a Seer’s. It was cold and precise, a sliver of glass slid into the warm, humming heart of the rite. It cut through the ceremonial chant, silencing a hundred voices at once. Every head in the amphitheater turned. Kaelen’s muscles went tight, his hand instinctively going to the obsidian charm in his pocket. The plan had not accounted for this.
Kellan Shaw, the ambassador from the Cog-Mind Conclave, stood from his seat in the dignitaries’ section. He had not raised his voice, but the sheer, sterile confidence of it had commanded the room. He walked down the tiered steps, his charcoal-grey uniform a stark wound in the sea of Seer indigo and gold. He stopped just short of the central floor, a polite distance from the humming Scrying Basin.
— Forgive the interruption, Speaker, — Shaw said, his voice carrying with engineered clarity. — But the Conclave has a matter of urgent stability to present to this Parliament.
The Parliament Speaker, a man whose face was lost in the shadows of his heavy cowl, remained silent for a beat. The air was thick with confusion. This was not procedure. This was a violation.
— The district of Veridia, — Kellan Shaw continued, his pale grey eyes sweeping the crowd as if he were reading a ledger. — Its temporal bleed is accelerating. Our models project a 92% chance of total systemic collapse within three standard months. The district is a danger to itself and its neighbors.
A low murmur rippled through the delegates. Kaelen felt Seraphina shift beside him, a subtle tension in her shoulders. Shaw was laying a foundation, brick by logical brick.
— Under the mutual defense and stability treaty signed two decades ago, — Shaw’s voice was relentless, a diagnostic engine stating its findings. — Article seven, sub-section four, allows for a partner faction to invoke a stability clause. To prevent catastrophic temporal loss, the Cog-Mind Conclave hereby invokes that clause. We will assume temporary administrative control of Veridia’s temporal charter. For its own protection.
The murmur became a roar. Annexation. He had said it in the driest, most legalistic terms possible, but it was annexation. He was using their own laws, their own treaties, to steal Kaelen’s home right in front of them. The price of their inaction was now this cold, public seizure.
Then, a new voice rose from the Seer benches.
— I second the motion.
Kaelen’s blood went cold. It was Lucius Thorne. He stood, his face a mask of smug, pious concern. He looked directly at Seraphina, a look of absolute triumph in his eyes. The traitor had just shown his hand. He was a Conclave pawn. The last piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
The chamber exploded.
It was not a single sound, but a thousand. The scrape of stone benches as Seers leaped to their feet. The furious shouts of accusation. The panicked cries of the junior adepts. The entire, carefully constructed harmony of the Equinox Rite shattered into a cacophony of rage and fear. The air, once heavy with incense, now smelled sharp and metallic, the scent of massed adrenaline. The constellation of T-Minus displays across the amphitheater flickered wildly, a storm of nervous green and panicked blue.
The Speaker banged a ceremonial staff against the stone floor, but the sound was lost in the din. The order of the Parliament had broken. This was not a debate; it was a mob.
And then a new sound cut through it all. A deep, resonant chime that was not part of any rite. It was an alarm. It came from below, from the canals, a sound that vibrated up through Kaelen’s bones. Another bell joined it, then another, until the entire Athenaeum was shaking with the tolling of its deepest war-bells. The Conclave’s flotilla was moving. The Canal Guard was engaging them.
The cold war was over. The real war had just begun.
In the heart of the chaos, Seraphina’s hand found his arm. Her grip was like iron.
— Now, — she said, her voice a blade in the storm.
The chaos was their cover. The price of the Conclave’s move was the complete breakdown of order, and they would spend that currency without hesitation. Kaelen didn’t think. He acted. He grabbed her hand and pulled her down from the tier, into the surging, shouting crowd on the main floor. People pushed against them, their faces masks of confusion. He moved like an auditor through a panicked market, finding the gaps, using the flow, his eyes locked on the target. The Scrying Basin.
They were a single entity, his tactical drive fused to her intuitive grace. He shoved a portly delegate aside; she offered a placating hand to another they jostled. He saw the path; she felt the currents of the crowd.
— Hold the lower arch! — Seraphina’s voice rang out, clear and commanding, cutting through the noise. She was not just fleeing with him; she was leading the counter-attack even as they moved. — Matrona Helia’s guard, to the Speaker! Don’t let them take the floor!
He saw a cluster of guards in their chitin armor hesitate, then turn and form a protective wall around the Speaker’s dais. She was directing the battle, turning the political chaos into a physical defense. Her T-Minus flickered, the exertion costing her, but her voice never wavered.
They were halfway there. Twenty feet to the basin. Kellan Shaw had seen them now. He was shouting orders to his own guards, pointing directly at them. The Conclave uniforms began to push through the crowd from the opposite side. It was a race.
Kaelen saw the heavy ceramic urn he had noted earlier. He changed their vector, angling toward it. Seraphina understood without a word, her body moving with his. The roar of the crowd, the tolling of the war-bells, the frantic, shifting lights—it all faded into a single, sharp point of focus. The basin. The plan. Her.
He felt the obsidian charm in his pocket, a hard, cracked piece of reality. It wasn’t a lie anymore. It was a promise he was about to keep. They were ten feet away. The Conclave guards were closing from their right.
The air around the Scrying Basin was electric, its surface no longer still but churning with wild, uncontrolled light, mirroring the chaos that had consumed the Parliament. It was a storm of raw power, waiting for a command.
They were almost there.
