Chương 121: Chapter 54: Breaking Nets

The four of them stood before the room with the same expectation. Selena, in particular, looked at Cassian. The man was a mystery in himself, but barely had she fixed her eyes upon him when her thoughts were interrupted by his own words. —Ladies first —Cassian ordered. His voice resonated strangely clear in the silent space. —Astrid, Selena. Use your perception of the Void. Let it guide you. In this room, instinct and resonant affinity are more reliable than bookish knowledge of what each object does.

Touch, feel, and choose. Astrid moved with decision. Her blue gaze, concentrated now, scanned the boxes like a scanner. She walked with measured steps, stopping here and there, extending her hand without touching. After a minute, she stopped in front of a stone box of a slightly warmer hue. Without hesitating, she reached into the top opening and pulled out its contents. It was an artifact Selena did not expect. A pair of shoes. They were not spectacular; in fact, they looked very, very old.

They were made of dark, worn leather, with simple laces and a thin sole. They bore no particular signs of luxury, arcane power, or complexity. But they were cared for with a meticulousness that contrasted with their humble appearance. Astrid held them with an expression of silent satisfaction, as if she had found exactly what she was looking for. Then it was Selena's turn. She took a deep breath, trying to silence the murmur of her analytical mind.

She lowered her defenses, allowing that strange perception she had developed little by little over months, that sensitivity to the "void" of residual power, to expand. She walked slowly along the perimeter of the room, her fingers lightly brushing the air in front of the stone boxes. Some emanated cold pulsations, others a dull heat, others a sensation of vertigo or absolute stillness. She followed a straight, imaginary path, guided by a subtle tug, a sustained note on a frequency that only she seemed to hear.

She stopped in front of a common gray stone box, lacking any distinguishing features. She extended her hand, inserting it into the cool darkness of the interior. Her fingers found something small, smooth, circular. She pulled it out. It was a ring. Simple, made of burnished bronze that gleamed with a faint coppery luster in the bluish light. It had no gems. But on its outer surface, engraved with exquisite delicacy, were inscriptions in Volg-Thûr.

Selena, with her measured curiosity, read them instantly:"To my beloved daughter." A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold of the room ran down her spine. The ring was not ornamented, but its antiquity was palpable; it could be breathed in the metal, in the patina of time, in the archaic simplicity of the engraving. It had to be over five thousand years old, without a doubt. It was an artifact older than Eliud, older than the kingdom of Erabergh itself as it was known.

A ring from one daughter to another, a bond of familial love carved in metal, lost in time and now kept as an artifact. Selena stared at it, turning it between her fingers, and for an instant, it was as if a ray of warm, golden sunlight, foreign to the cold light of the room, struck her directly in the eyes. She blinked, disconcerted. —You are interesting, girl —Cassian said from behind her, his tone unvarying, as if commenting on the color of the wall.

Selena turned to look at him but caught Astrid's face with a raised eyebrow. It was Cassian who continued without waiting for an answer. —No one had chosen it for a very, very long time. It is not as… useful as Astrid's shoes. It was a flat comment, without judgment, merely a statement. —Magnor —he called out then, projecting his voice so that it was deliberately heard across the room. —It is your turn. Choose with your head. The giant did not need to walk around the room.

He marched with resounding steps, straight and without hesitation, to a black box that stood out among the gray ones. He reached his enormous hand inside and pulled out a pair of gloves. They were not made of leather, but of a fine, gleaming chain mail that jingled softly with the movement. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. —Ha! —Magnor let out. His voice, surprisingly, contrasted with his colossal body.

It was a kind, almost cordial voice, deep but not threatening. —The same one again. I get along well with them. He tried them on his scarred hands; the mesh adjusted like a second skin. —Alistair —Cassian commanded. —Your turn. The red-haired bishop did not need to rely on the perception of the void. He pulled a detailed map of the site from within his robes, consulted some notes, and with the efficiency of the artifact expert the King had announced, approached another black box.

From its interior, he extracted a steel broadsword. It was not exceptionally long, but its blade was wide and heavy. The strange part was its handle. It reflected the bluish light of the room in a bizarre, undulating way, as if the metal did not entirely obey the normal laws of refraction, creating small, distorted rainbows around it. Alistair examined it with a critical eye, nodding to himself. Cassian observed that everyone had their artifact.

—Then, the business with the artifacts is finished —he announced, his voice recovering its administrative edge. None of them moved, but Selena felt the weight of what rested in her palm, and the curiosity to know what it would do grew in her heart. —Remember this: these are property of the Crown. Any loss, damage, or misuse will be paid for according to the status of the accused, and the consequences will not be limited to the economic. The warning was clear, cold, and it closed the event like a slammed door.

Without further ado, he had them put away their new objects. Selena slid the ancient bronze ring onto the index finger of her left hand, where it fit with a surprising warmth. Cassian guided them back through the labyrinth of locks and staircases, emerging into the more mundane light of the barracks, but each now burdened with a fragment of ancient power and a tangible link to the Crown. The mission had acquired a new dimension, as palpable as the cold bronze against her skin.

The day ended abruptly, like all of Cassian's instructions. Selena returned to her quarters, the weight of the bronze ring on her index finger feeling strangely familiar, as if it had always belonged there. Upon crossing the threshold of her room, a sudden wave of dizziness struck her with the force of a punch. She leaned against the cold stone wall, the palm of her left hand pressed flat against the rough surface in search of an anchor. The world seemed to narrow around her, the edges of her vision blurring.

A phantom warmth she had come to take for granted, the soft, constant heat of Corren's bracelet on her right wrist, vanished. It was not a gradual cooling. It was a sudden absence, a void where a comforting presence had been before, a silence on a frequency her skin had learned to listen to. The protection, the tenuous link that buffered the sharpest echo of her trauma, had broken. The dark stone and thread bracelet was still there, physically intact, but it was just a piece of stone and thread now. Dead.

Panic, cold and sharp, dug its claws into her chest. Valerian was right. Her mind spun, desperate, searching for a solution within the chaos of the rising nausea. She remembered the jester's encrypted warning:"Remember to press it very hard when you put it on, with enough force... for when the bracelet breaks." With hands that shook uncontrollably, she rummaged through the pockets of her vest, through the folds of her clothes. Her fingers, numbed by the dizziness, found the small, cold object.

She pulled it out: the blood-red earring Valerian had given her, the dark stone set in black silver. She did not waste a second. With a clumsy, urgent movement, she placed it in her left earlobe, searching for the piercing hole with a certain desperation until she succeeded. Then, she pressed with all the strength she could muster, crushing the earring against the cartilage of her ear, as if she wanted to sink it into her own flesh, to fuse it with her body.

The pain was sharp, piercing, a physical counterpoint to the mental dizziness. She held it like that, holding her breath, the seconds stretching out like hours. Two minutes that felt like an eternity of silent struggle against the dissolution of her senses. Only then, slowly, like the tide receding from a besieged beach, the pressure in her skull began to ease. The world stopped narrowing; the contours of the furniture, the carpet, the fireplace, reasserted themselves.

The dizziness dissipated, leaving only a residual ringing and the throbbing pain in her ear. The earring, now firmly pressed and warm from her skin, seemed to emit a faint vibration, a new dam against the tide of trauma. It was not the same as the bracelet; it was colder, more metallic, less organic. But it worked. She had saved herself. Just barely, and through foresight.

A deep, shaky sigh escaped her lips, a mixture of relief and a grim realization: she was walking a tightrope over an abyss, and her safety nets were beginning to break one by one. After a hearty dinner that she barely tasted, she put on her nightgown, an automatic gesture of normalcy. Fatigue, both physical and emotional, overwhelmed her. She let herself fall into bed, and sleep took her by the hand with an unusual speed and depth. There were no nightmares, no visions of the Void.

It was a black, dense, incredibly restorative sleep, as if her body and mind, on the verge of collapse, demanded a total blackout to rebuild themselves.