Chương 31: The Man from the College

The Gallery of the Glass Sun did not regain its order. It only imitated the shape of it. The guards re-formed their lines. The priests guided the guests toward the side exits. The nobles began speaking again in voices too low and too quick, each already trying to understand which version of the incident would be most useful to them. The College mages sealed away the shattered pieces of the broken cage, stabilized the remains of the contaminated beast, and isolated the living saboteur under three layers of seals.

But the blood was still there. On the tiles. On the shards of glass. On Zayn's sleeve. And that blood, no one could erase quickly enough. He could still feel the gain inside him. Not enough to change his body in any deep way. Not enough to bring him seriously closer to the others. Not enough to turn him into anything but a weak summoned standing among monsters of potential. But enough for the human killing to have left a denser mark than all the scavengers combined. That was what remained clearest.

Not the man's cry. Not the hot blood. Not the opened throat. The +2. Zayn realized that while the elites were evacuating the gallery and the world around him kept screaming in acceptable forms. He was not thinking of the dead man as a person. He was still thinking about the yield. And that absence of immediate shame taught him more about himself than any system window ever had. Mira passed by him without stopping. She said nothing. She did not need to. Her silence no longer felt like a question.

It felt like a blade sheathed for the right moment. Farther off, Elias was surrounded by two officers, a mage, and three guests he had probably just saved. He was barely answering, his attention already split between Lena, the beast on the ground, Jonah holding the living saboteur down, and the corridor where Zayn had vanished for a few moments. Still the center. Still the one who gathered everything even when the room exploded. Zayn looked away. Maelor appeared at the edge of the thinning smoke. Not running.

He was walking fast, but with that glacial control that made every step more unsettling than open panic would have been. His gaze passed over the captured saboteur, the shattered cage, the technical partition, then the human corpse in the corridor. Finally over Zayn. One second. Enough to see. Not the system. Not the absorption. But the calm. The wrong kind of calm. Maelor made no comment.

"The living," he said only. Zayn understood perfectly. So did the Grand Archivist. Then a reading tablet brought by one of the College mages vibrated sharply in the air. The man went pale.

"Grand Archivist." Maelor turned his head.

"What?"

"The cage validation didn't come from a stolen seal. It came from an active access." The noise around them seemed to fall away. Maelor held out his hand. The tablet floated to him. He read three lines. His face barely changed. Barely.

"Name." The mage hesitated. A bad sign.

"Secondary Archivist Orven Daal. Department of ritual beasts and temporary containment." Maelor closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. No visible anger. Which meant a great deal of anger.

"Current location?" The tablet vibrated again.

"His personal seal has just left the preparation wing. He's heading toward the north walkways." Jonah, still keeping the saboteur pinned with the help of two guards, looked up.

"He's running." Not a question. Maelor was already turning toward Voss.

"Lock down the public exits." Then to Elias.

"The five of you. With me." Lena frowned.

"Us?"

"He knows the sanctuary's internal routes. The guards will take too long to close every secondary walkway. You are already armed, already mobilized, and he won't expect me to use you immediately after the incident." Jonah smiled without humor.

"I love being an administrative surprise." Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Maelor did not slow down.

"Then follow." He moved. And for once, no one argued. They left the Gallery of the Glass Sun through the ruptured technical partition. Behind the stained glass, the muffled chaos of the presentation continued. Ahead of them began a different sanctuary: service corridors, narrow stairways, maintenance walkways, ritual transport ducts. No gilding. No frescoes. Only the machinery hidden beneath the sacred. Maelor moved quickly. Too quickly for a mere scholar of offices.

Voss joined them at the first intersection with two knights, then sent them to seal another route with a short gesture.

"Orven Daal," he called.

"I know that name."

"A great many people know that name now," Maelor replied. Mira was almost noiseless as she ran.

"Function?"

"Management of living containments used for demonstrations, training, and controlled studies." Jonah swore.

"So exactly the kind of man who could release the beast in the gallery."

"Yes." They emerged onto a suspended walkway above an inner atrium. Below, novices and servants were already fleeing under the orders of the guards. Farther away, three doors were slowly descending, sealing the main accesses. Too slowly. A figure crossed the opposite walkway. A short College robe. A satchel of seals. Gray hair pulled back. Right hand pressed against a flight tablet. Above him, for Zayn alone: 42 Orven Daal. Not a warrior. But not weak, either.

A specialist mage, dense enough to be dangerous on his own ground. Zayn felt the thought come immediately. More than any beast he had killed. More than the human in the smoke. An enormous target for him. Not invincible. But rich. The word arrived on its own. Rich. Not powerful. Not dangerous. Rich. He should have pushed it away. He let it exist for a full second. Orven turned his head toward them. His face tightened. Then he placed two fingers on the tablet. The floor between the walkways opened. Not completely.

Just enough to release three long, pale forms from maintenance compartments hidden beneath the arches. Corrupted service beasts. Not large. Fast. 9 8 11 They sprang onto the cables, ran along the railings, and rushed toward the group.

"He's emptying the secondary cages!" Maelor shouted. Elias moved first.

"Close formation!" Jonah drove his blade into the metal of the walkway.

"You do not pass." The line tightened. The first beast hit it and lost enough speed for Mira to open its throat in passing. The second climbed the railing to flank. Lena cast a thread toward Jonah, then toward Elias. The third, the 11, slipped beneath the edge of the walkway, vanishing for a second into the blind angle. Zayn saw it anyway. The number slid beneath their feet. 11 He could have warned them. He did. But not fast enough. Not immediately.

Another fraction of a second in which his mind calculated the angle, the possible gain, the moment when no one would see too clearly that he had detected it before anyone else. That fraction was enough for the beast to burst up near Lena. It did not reach her throat. Elias knocked it back with the shaft of his weapon. Again. The number above him did not change this time, but the scene itself was enough to rekindle the old burn. Zayn threw himself at the beast Elias had just driven back. Not out of protection.

Out of irritation. It rolled against the railing, already off-balance. He was on it in an instant, drove his dagger into its belly, then ripped the blade upward until he felt the resistance give. [Soul Strength Absorbed: +1] A small gain. Still filthy. But the attack had been too aggressive. Too late to be purely preventative. Too committed to be only a reflex. Lena saw it. She did not understand everything. But she saw the expression. Not the face of someone who had just prevented an attack.

The face of someone who had just recovered something he considered due. Orven Daal had already crossed the opposite walkway. Mira broke after him first.

"He's heading for the containment archives!" Maelor took a shortcut. They descended through a side stair so narrow Jonah had to run almost sideways. The walls vibrated around them. Orven was releasing locks behind him, not to kill them directly, but to saturate the pursuit. A glass cage burst open on their right. Black, featherless birds, almost skeletal, erupted out in a swarm. 2 3 2 4 1 Too numerous to be worth much individually. Too alive not to draw Zayn's attention. They darted toward faces.

Lena raised her staff and created a brief arc of protection. Jonah swore, covering his eyes. Mira cut three flight paths in two movements. Elias ducked through and shielded Maelor from a wing-strike that could have opened his cheek. Zayn killed two of them almost by reflex. [Soul Strength Absorbed: +0] [Soul Strength Absorbed: +0] Nothing. Immediate irritation. Another proof. He was no longer killing only when necessary. He was killing to check whether something might fall into his hand.

They finally reached the containment archive wing. The place looked less like a library than a morgue for procedures. Rows of white metal lockers, floating tablets, memory cylinders, vitrines of seals, maps of temporary cages, ledgers of beasts and residue. Orven was there. In front of a large open cabinet. He was already rifling through the cylinders. When he turned, he held a black tube sealed against his chest. His face was pale, but not panicked.

The face of a man who knows he no longer has return paths, only delays.

"Put it down," said Maelor. Orven gave a short, dry laugh.

"You don't even know which one is missing yet." Mira shifted slightly to the right. Jonah to the left. Elias remained in the center, of course. Lena behind them, ready to link. Zayn, meanwhile, saw the number. 42 And he thought: +3? +4? Maybe more. He did not even try to lie to himself. If Orven died by his hand, he would take something. And part of him wanted that before it even wanted to understand what the traitor was carrying. Maelor took one step forward.

"Orven. Who gave you access to the galleries?" The man laughed again. Not for long.

"You still think this is an infiltration?" He tapped the black tube against his chest.

"You built doors everywhere, Maelor. The Ashes only understood before you did that a lock is as useful for opening as it is for closing." Voss tensed.

"Who among the Ashes?" Orven backed toward a secondary door.

"You're already too late." He broke a small seal in his palm. The door behind him burst open. Not onto a corridor. Onto an outer conduit leading to a transport walkway. Wind rushed into the archive. Orven leapt. Elias moved at once. Mira too. But Zayn was closer to the angle. And above all, Zayn had already understood the other thing. The black tube. The proof. Orven was holding it too high, too tightly. He was not just trying to flee. He was trying to escape with something. So Zayn did not aim for the man.

He threw his dagger at the wrist. The blade hit. Orven cried out. The tube dropped. Lena caught it almost by reflex with a pale thread before it could roll into the void. For that single second, Orven lost his balance. Elias reached for him. Too heroic. Too obvious. Zayn saw the angle before anyone else. If he nudged Elias even slightly, Orven would fall. A traitor worth 42 into the void. Maybe dead. Maybe absorbable if he dealt the final blow? No. Not if the man fell on his own. So useless.

The thought almost made him smile inwardly. Even his urge toward murder was already learning the conditions. He did not push Elias. Not because it would have been wrong. Because it would not have profited him. Elias caught Orven by the collar. But the secondary archivist had planned for that too. He bit a seal hidden in his sleeve. Not a death capsule. A rupture seal. His robe flared at once in blue lines. Maelor shouted for the first time.

"Elias, let go!" Too late. Or almost. Zayn moved without proper thought. Not to save Elias. Not exactly. To avoid losing the group's center, the cover, the structure, the element everyone still depended on and whose fall would have made everything unmanageable far too quickly. He sliced through Orven's sleeve at the wrist with his second knife. The rupture seal went with the cloth. It exploded in the void behind them. The walkway trembled. Orven, thrown off balance, dropped to his knees at the lip of the conduit.

Elias dragged him back and slammed him to the floor. Jonah was on him instantly.

"This time, you stay alive." Orven spat blood, laughed once more, then his mouth froze. Mira knelt down, too late.

"No." Not a capsule. Not poison. Her gaze dropped to the man's neck. A black line had lit beneath the skin. Then gone out. Orven Daal died in silence. No convulsion. No scream. Just cut off. At a distance. Maelor stood perfectly still. His face, at last, became truly cold.

"They shut him down." The traitor was dead before he could be questioned. But he had not fled empty-handed. Lena still held the black tube in her thread, suspended above the void. She slowly drew it back, her hands trembling. Maelor took it. The seal on it was cracked, but legible. Not a College sigil. Not the sanctuary's. A transit card. A route. Voss saw it and swore under his breath.

"Out of Aurelis." Maelor opened the tube. Inside, a thin memory plaque bore a single partial destination, etched in haste before being sealed. East Gate — Vaulne Relay — transfer before dawn. The room emptied of sound. Even the black birds still trapped in the conduits seemed to have gone quiet. Jonah looked up.

"So it leaves the sanctuary." Mira finished the thought.

"And the city." Elias, still crouched near Orven's body, stared at the extinguished mark beneath the skin.

"Someone killed him to protect that route." Zayn, for his part, was looking at the corpse. 42 had disappeared. No value. No gain. Too late. He felt a frustration almost sharper than the urgency of the evidence. Then he understood what that meant. He was looking at a man murdered remotely, a traitor who might have explained the attacks, and his first real irritation was that he had not been able to take anything from him. There it was. Clear. Sharp. No need to dress it up.

The Throne had not chosen a victim of a bad system. It had chosen someone who, standing before a useful but inaccessible corpse, first regretted the lost gain. Maelor rose with the memory plaque in hand.

"We leave before they move the relay." Lena stared at him.

"We?" The Grand Archivist looked at the five summoned.

"Yes." Then his eyes stopped on Zayn.

"The sanctuary is already breached. Staying here is no longer protection." Outside, through the open conduit, Aurelis stretched beneath the cold morning light. And somewhere, beyond its eastern gates, a road had just opened. Not toward safety. Toward the next part of the trap.