The walls shimmered with silence.
Lyric sat alone in the interrogation cell beneath the Council chamber — or, not quite alone.
The room was shaped like an octagon, each wall etched with containment runes and legal scripture in soulsteel ink. It wasn't meant to punish. It was meant to keep things in.
Things like forbidden marks.
Things like him.
He exhaled slowly. Not fear. Not yet. Just breath in a room that didn't echo.
Then the door creaked.
Vhentyr Cael'theron stepped inside.
His coat was gone — replaced by ceremonial black lined with gold. His gloves were stained. His face, calm.
Lyric stood, every muscle on edge.
"Was that supposed to be a rescue?" he asked.
Vhentyr said nothing at first. He crossed the floor slowly, glancing at the walls.
"You're bleeding through your bounds," he murmured. "The sigils are destabilizing."
"That's not my fault."
Vhentyr looked at him then. Not like a rival. Not like a fellow noble.
Like a puzzle.
"It's not about fault. It's about function. What you are… shouldn't function."
Lyric flinched.
The second mark pulsed once under his skin.
"You didn't come here to kill me."
"No," said Vhentyr. "If I had, I wouldn't have knocked first."
He stepped closer. There was no blade at his hip now, but Lyric still felt cut.
"Do you know what the law says about dual-marked? Real law — not the spiral codes."
Lyric shook his head.
"It says: the gods do not share. And if they do… the vessel dies."
For a moment, there was silence again. But not the sterile kind. This silence had weight. Shape.
And then—
"Unless the vessel is meant to be something else."
Lyric blinked. "What do you mean?"
But Vhentyr didn't answer. He raised one gloved hand. A small glyph bloomed into light above his palm — the Cael'theos sigil of binding oaths.
"You want answers?" he said. "I'll offer you one truth. No riddles. No riddled ink."
He leaned in, voice quiet:
"You are being watched. Not just by gods. But by whatever they fear."
Lyric's skin prickled.
The second mark flared — just once, and the walls cracked. A hairline fracture across a rune of containment.
Vhentyr stepped back.
"Chain yourself before someone else does," he said, already turning. "Because the next time they summon you… I might not interrupt."
He left without waiting for a reply.
The door shut.
Lyric sank back against the wall, breath shallow.
He pressed a hand to his chest — where one mark had always been.
Then lower — to where the second pulsed again. Slowly. Like it had been listening.
From the ceiling, a single drop of ink fell.
It didn't splatter.
It crawled toward the cracked rune.