The wind outside the western corridor hummed low, brushing through broken panes like a breath from the deep past.
Ryuji stood before the sealed ledger room, once reserved for the elite records of the Ninth Oath. Its door was thick, iron-banded, and dust-laden. Few had entered it in years. Most believed its contents had been cataloged and archived during the Dominion's final gathering.
But Ryuji had seen the ledger's location marked in the old scrolls, the unedited copies never released to the Council. It had been hidden, deliberately misfiled.
A thin key hung on a cord around his neck. He'd found it buried beneath his father's study, wrapped in crimson cloth.
Now, it slid into the lock with a quiet click.
The door opened inward.
The room inside was cold. Dry air wrapped around him like linen, still and untouched. Shelves lined the stone walls, each filled with narrow books and cracked ledgers. Faded seals marked some as forbidden, others simply forgotten.
He moved slowly, eyes adjusting to the dim amber glow of the wall torch he carried. He wasn't sure what he was searching for. A name. A date. A sign that someone had never sworn the oath they claimed to.
Then he found it, tucked between two larger tomes. A black-bound book without a title, its spine marked only with a faint white line.
Inside were the signatures of every officer who had pledged to the Ninth Oath. Their blood seals, their creed. Dates. Places.
And toward the end of the list, Ryuji saw it.
A missing entry.
A blank where one should not be.
He checked the surrounding names. General Thelin, Ser Damos, Warden Ilna, each line bore their mark. Each entry carried the seal of the Dominion Court. But between them, one line was blank. No signature. No seal. Just empty space.
His heart began to pound.
According to the public record, there were nine who bound the final oath. But this ledger showed only eight had ever signed.
Someone had stood among them… but never truly vowed.
He turned the page. Scribbled in the margin was a brief note, almost overlooked,
"Keeper of silence. Watcher beneath the name. No seal required."
That was not standard. That was not lawful.
That was chosen.
And it meant one thing, someone had remained in the Ninth not to serve, but to observe.
A spy.
Perhaps worse.
He closed the ledger and pressed his hand against the page, as if trying to feel the shape of the lie it contained.
Who had hidden among them? And why?
He thought back to the faces in the training yard, the commanders who had mentored him, the war councils he had sat through as a young initiate. So many had carried secrets. But one had always kept too quiet. Always asked questions, but offered none.
Archon Velis.
Long retired. Thought to be in exile.
But something about that had never sat right.
Velis had been present during the Fracture Years, but no record placed him at the sealing ceremony. Yet somehow, he remained on the council rolls until the very last vote.
Ryuji set the ledger down, his mind racing.
If Velis never sealed the Pact, then everything he'd advised after was suspect. Every order. Every silence. Every delay.
And if he'd remained within the council walls, hidden, perhaps under another name, then the truth may still be within reach.
He stepped out of the archive and into the western hall. It was nearly morning now. A faint gray light stretched across the frost-streaked windows.
His breath misted in the cold.
A soft sound caught his ear, movement, faint, just ahead.
He stopped.
A figure turned the corner and vanished behind one of the old war banners. Ryuji narrowed his eyes, then followed quietly.
The hall twisted, leading toward the decommissioned servant quarters. No one lived there now. Only the dead or forgotten came here.
He stepped into the long corridor and saw the shape again, a cloaked figure kneeling before a cracked wall panel.
When Ryuji approached, the figure turned slightly.
It was not Velis.
It was someone younger.
A woman, eyes sharp with recognition, voice low.
"You shouldn't be down here, Daima Ryuji."
He paused. "And yet you are."
She stood, brushing dust from her gloves. Her cloak bore a faded white sigil. Not the Dominion crest. Not any known house.
But the same mark from the book in the archives.
The same mark burned into the pillar stone.
"Who are you?" Ryuji asked.
She tilted her head. "Someone who remembers. Someone who warned them once, and was ignored."
Ryuji felt a cold weight settle in his chest. "You knew about the seal?"
She nodded. "I knew about what lies behind it."
He stepped closer. "Then tell me the truth."
The woman looked past him, toward the distant halls. Her voice dropped.
"You won't find the truth here, Ryuji. Not all of it. Not anymore."
"Then where?"
Her eyes met his. Calm. Unafraid.
"You'll need to go beyond the breach. To where the pact began… and where it failed."
He felt the words strike like a slow drumbeat in his bones.
The breach.
The place no one returned from.