My throats sore.
And now that I noticed it, it annoyed me. It had been over fifteen minutes, and still no drinks. Not even water. With the Regent's wealth and station, it was hard to believe it was an accident.
I leaned back slightly, trying not to let my annoyance show. If I had to talk, I just hoped I wouldn't choke on my own words.
Then the doors opened.
They didn't creak or groan. They simply parted. Silent. Regal. The room dimmed ever so slightly - not from lighting, but presence.
Something heavy entered the chamber. Not loud, not fast. Just heavy. Like the pressure of a storm before it breaks.
Breathing grew harder, not suffocating, just thick. The kind of air that made your chest feel like it was under water. My eyes drifted to Arthur, curious for his reaction.
He felt it too. His usual calm had stiffened into something tense. Controlled, yet the underlying tension was there.
The one entering wasn't ordinary.
A figure moved between the tables, walking slowly toward the stage. Their robe was simple - pure white, hemmed with no adornment. But what stood out most was the hood covering their head.
Of course.He's from the High Church.
And like all initiated male clergy, his face would never be seen again. Not in life. Not in death. It was a sacred tradition, rooted in the image of the Emperor - who, in all depictions and eyewitness accounts, never once removed his mask.
The Church taught that true faith required no identity, only service. The flesh was fallible. The mask was a symbol of purity - of devotion without ego.
Trailing the robed figure were floating mechanical eyes - half bronze, half flesh, if you looked close enough. Symbols glowed inside each iris, written in some dialect that pulsed with living divinity.
I'd never seen anything like them.
That's... Certainly something.
The crowd bowed, silently, heads lowering like blades of grass before wind.
All except one.
The Regent, standing up at the foot of the stage, didn't bow fully. He stood and dipped his head in acknowledgment - not submission. It was the measured respect of a peer, not a servant.
As the Emperor's brother, and the highest-ranking noble here, he had no need to grovel like the rest of us.
He simply stepped aside, offering the dais to the Hierarch.
The eyes began drifting through the room, scanning. When one passed close to me, I felt it before I saw it - like something was unraveling me from the inside. Measuring things I didn't want measured.
Creepy.
I kept my gaze down. You didn't challenge something like that. Not unless you had to. And I certainly wanted to keep my passive spectator appearance for now.
By the time I dared to look again, the figure had reached the stage.
He didn't ascend it.
He didn't have to.
Light bent around him subtly, as if the flame of the chandeliers leaned inward toward him, drawn by something deeper than gravity. The eyes returned, forming a silent orbit, each one staring somewhere - or perhaps, nowhere at all.
The Hierarch murmured something - too low to hear - and the Regent raised a gloved hand.
The grey crystal embedded in his palm sparked faintly, and along with it, wind blew.
But only where it needed to. Clothes fluttered. Hair danced. But not a single cup moved. Not a single candle flickered. Not a table shifted.
"Silence before the Hierarch," the Regent said, his voice magnified through some divine-tech mechanism. His eyes were much more serious and cold than before.
Silence answered him.
No one dared object. Not even the nobles too proud for prayer.
So that's the Church's top blade.
No fanfare. No guards. No entourage beyond floating, all-seeing eyes. Just presence.
And in this empire - presence was everything.
"Mary Magdalene," the Regent said, still standing straight, "you are the first to be tested. Step forward."
And she did.
And the world stilled around her.
Mary moved with the grace of a myth. Her hair, a waterfall of golden platinum, shimmered under the crystal chandeliers. Her dress, a simple white thing without flaw, flowed around her ankles like wind-woven silk. Her steps were noiseless.
When she knelt before the Hierarch, she didn't seem submissive.
She seemed... sacred.
A priestess. A sword. A question.
One hand to her heart. The other to her knee.
She didn't glance at the crowd.
She didn't have to.
The Hierarch stepped forward. From beneath his robe, he drew a blade the length of a finger - its hilt jeweled in quiet runes, and its edge ceremonial, but sharp.
He sliced across his index and middle fingers.
Dark blood welled. But it didn't fall.
It glowed. Hung suspended, clinging to his fingertips like sap.
He whispered something - something meant for her and her alone - and then pressed those fingers to her brow.
Light erupted.
But not flame. Not heat.
Divinity.
Blinding, cleansing, absolute.
My breath caught. Not from awe. From instinct.
It was the kind of light that didn't just burn the eyes - it touched the soul.
My fatigue vanished. My aches dissolved. For one perfect moment, I forgot I was afraid. I forgot the ceremony. The danger. The game I was playing. It was like a rush of dopamine flooded my brain.
Then it was gone.
Mary remained kneeling. Her eyes were closed, her expression soft. Not triumphant. Not overwhelmed.
Just... serene.
The voice that followed came from everywhere.
"Mary Magdalene. Veilwalker on the Path of the Hallowed. You are received beneath His divine gaze. Rise, servant of the One True God."
Gasps. Murmurs. Not whispers - full-on disbelief.
Even Arthur flinched beside me.
"A Veilwalker," he muttered. "And on the Emperor's Path? History just bent."
I didn't say a word.
I barely breathed.
Eyes of Truth...So she really did inherit them.
One of the Twelve Divine Eyes, left behind by the Apostles after their betrayal. Their fates scattered across the world - marked as the highest form of heresy.
And yet here she stood.
The Inheritor of one of the twelve.
Mary opened her eyes. Golden. Infinite. Her breath was steady. She smiled - a quiet, unreadable smile - and bowed once more to the Hierarch, who did not speak again.
She stepped down from the dais like a queen descending her throne.
But even now, even with the ceremony moving on...
Everyone watched her.
And then the Hierarch turned.
Not toward the Regent. Not toward the nobility.
To me.
I couldn't see his eyes. I couldn't see his mouth.
But I felt it.
And then, every floating eye in the room twisted in unison -
And locked onto me.
"Damian, who has no family," the voice said, deeper now, echoing from the stone itself. "You are next to be judged."