The upper quarters were quieter than the Sandworks, but the silence felt thinner, stretched tight like skin over a wound.
Kain noticed it immediately.
The room they were given overlooked the city from high above, just below the uppermost tiers of the Obsidian Spire. From here, Ares Vaal looked almost peaceful. The streets formed clean lines. The furnaces vented their heat in controlled breaths. At night, the blue veins beneath the dunes pulsed softly, like distant stars trapped under glass.
But the vibration was still there.
Subtle now. Distant. Like something pretending to sleep.
Yuri lay on his back on the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling where faint cracks traced patterns like constellations. "I don't like it," he said finally.
Kain didn't turn from the window. "You don't like anything about this place."
"No," Yuri replied, more serious than usual. "I mean this feeling. Like the ground's listening."
Kain flexed his fingers slowly. The trembling hadn't stopped since the Warden spoke of the Heart. If anything, it had grown more familiar — less like fear, more like recognition.
"It is," he said.
Yuri propped himself up on his elbows. "You're saying that like it's normal."
"For this city, it probably is."
That earned a bitter laugh. "That's not comforting."
"I'm not trying to comfort you."
Silence settled again.
Outside, the city shifted into its night cycle. Heavy machines powered down with deep metallic sighs. Smaller mechanisms took their place — sorting arms, filtration drums, delicate constructs that glowed faintly as they worked through the darkness. People moved differently at night in Ares Vaal. Slower. More cautious. As if the dark carried rules the daylight pretended didn't exist.
Kain tracked it all without effort. Patterns emerged quickly — guard rotations, patrol gaps, the way certain alleys emptied completely while others stayed busy until dawn. He could already tell where trouble lived.
Yuri noticed him watching.
"You're doing that thing again," he said.
"What thing?"
"Staring like you're counting exits."
Kain didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Sleep came late. When it did, it was shallow.
Kain dreamed of roots pushing through stone. Of glass veins cracking open to reveal something vast and slow beneath them. He dreamed of a pulse that wasn't sound or motion, but intent.
When he woke, the vibration was stronger.
Morning came with no sunrise, only a gradual brightening as light was channeled down through mirrored shafts high above. Guards arrived shortly after, crisp and silent.
"The Warden will see you," one said. "Both of you."
They were led deeper into the Spire than before.
The architecture changed as they descended. The stone walls gave way to reinforced glass panels layered over black metal frames. Blue light ran through channels in the floor and ceiling, pulsing in slow, synchronized waves. Every step felt deliberate, like walking across the spine of something very large.
Yuri swallowed hard. "This is… newer."
"Yes," Kain said. "And closer."
They reached a chamber shaped like a massive ring, open at the center. Suspended within it was a column of translucent crystal, stretching from floor to ceiling. Inside the crystal, light swirled — blue, white, and something darker beneath it all, barely visible.
The Warden stood at the edge of the ring, hands clasped behind her back. Her mechanical arm was fully exposed now, its joints etched with the same symbols sewn into her coat.
"This," she said without turning, "is as close as anyone gets without dying."
Yuri's voice came out hoarse. "That's… the Heart?"
"No," she replied. "This is its shell."
Kain stepped closer, drawn despite himself. As he approached the crystal, the vibration inside his chest intensified, matching the pulse of light within. His breath slowed without conscious effort.
"You feel it," the Warden said. Not a question.
"Yes."
"Good." She turned to face him fully. "Then you understand why you're here."
Yuri shook his head. "I don't. At all."
The Warden regarded him for a long moment. "You don't hear it," she said. "But you see what it does. That will matter later."
She returned her attention to Kain. "Ares Vaal was built on top of a wound."
She gestured, and the crystal brightened, revealing faint fractures running through its core. "When Gaia tore the world apart, some places bled more than others. Here, the planet did not heal cleanly. What you call the Heart is the scar tissue — memory hardened into matter."
Kain's jaw tightened. "It remembers the old world."
"It remembers being whole," the Warden corrected. "And it hates what we've done on top of it."
Yuri folded his arms, unease etched across his face. "Then why build here at all?"
"Because resources follow wounds," she said flatly. "Soulglass grows where reality is thin. Power pools where pain was greatest. Every civilization that survives long enough learns the same lesson."
Kain stared into the crystal. For a moment, he thought he saw movement — not light, but shape. Something vast shifting just beyond perception.
"What happens when it wakes?" he asked.
The Warden didn't answer immediately. When she did, her voice was colder. "The ground liquefies. The Spire collapses. The dunes swallow the city. The Heart exhales, and Ares Vaal becomes history."
Yuri let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "So… we stop it?"
The Warden smiled thinly. "We delay it."
She stepped closer to Kain, lowering her voice. "You resonate with it because you are unfinished. The mountain kept you isolated, unshaped by the fractures of the world. That makes you… compatible."
Kain felt a flash of anger. "You're using us."
"Yes," she said simply.
Yuri took a step forward. "We didn't agree to—"
"You don't need to," the Warden cut in. "The Heart already did."
The lights flared suddenly. The crystal pulsed hard enough to send a shockwave through the chamber. Yuri stumbled. Kain stayed upright, teeth clenched as the vibration surged through him.
The Warden watched closely.
"See?" she murmured. "It responds to you."
Guards rushed in, hands on weapons. The Warden raised her mechanical arm, and they froze.
"That will be enough for today," she said. "Take them back."
As they were escorted out, Yuri hissed under his breath, "This is insane. We're not tools. We're not—"
"Kain," he stopped abruptly. "You're shaking."
Kain hadn't noticed. His hands were trembling violently now, fingers curling and uncurling as if pulled by invisible strings.
"I'm fine," he said, though the words felt hollow.
Back in their quarters, Yuri paced. "She's wrong. Whatever that thing is, it doesn't get to decide what we are."
Kain sank onto the bed, pressing his palms together until the shaking eased. "It's already deciding," he said quietly. "We just don't know how yet."
That night, the city did not sleep.
Sirens wailed in the distance — not alarms, but low warning calls that rolled across Ares Vaal like thunder. The blue veins beneath the dunes brightened, pulsing faster, irregular now.
Yuri stood by the window, watching workers flood the streets, securing equipment, sealing doors. "This isn't normal, is it?"
"No," Kain said.
The vibration spiked. For a split second, Kain heard it clearly — not sound, but intention, pressing against his mind like a hand against glass.
Remember.
He gasped, doubling over.
"Kain!" Yuri was at his side instantly. "What happened?"
Kain's vision swam. Images flashed unbidden — forests split by light, mountains cracking open, oceans pulling away from their shores. And beneath it all, a sense of loss so vast it made his chest ache.
"It's calling," he whispered.
Yuri's face went pale. "Calling you?"
"Us," Kain corrected. "You just can't hear the words."
Outside, the dunes shifted. Far beyond the city walls, something moved beneath the sand — slow, massive, inevitable.
High above, in the Obsidian Spire, the Warden stood alone at a console of glowing glyphs, watching the readings climb.
"Too soon," she muttered.
She flexed her mechanical fingers, metal whispering softly in the dark. "If they break before they're ready, this city dies."
The Heart pulsed again.
And this time, it pulsed back.