The staircase curved downward like a spine carved from obsidian, each step swallowing sound as Reiji and Akari descended into the forgotten tier of the palace. The air shifted—denser, colder, but threaded with something else. A vibration. A murmur. As if the stone itself remembered what was buried here.
Reiji felt it in his ribs before he heard it.
A whisper.
Not words—more like a breath brushing the inside of his skull.
Akari stiffened.
"You felt that too."
He nodded once. "We're already inside their echo chamber."
The Silent Court's influence was strongest here.
This was the layer beneath the throne—the part of the palace the public maps pretended did not exist.
A place meant for secrets, deals, and executions disguised as accidents.
But now, a place for truth.
Reiji's hand hovered near his blade but didn't touch it. Drawing steel here felt like waking something up. The stones carried a memory of violence, and waking that memory might call the wrong thing.
Akari walked half a step behind him, eyes surveying every fracture in the wall.
Her breaths were shallow but even. Controlled. Ready. She knew what they were walking toward: the throne that ruled from the shadows, and the puppeteer who had crafted the lies that shaped Reiji's life.
The corridor slowly widened until they reached a massive circular chamber.
A throne room—buried under the real one.
The "True Chamber," if the rumors were real.
Faint lanterns crackled on by themselves as they stepped inside, revealing walls covered in layered sigils—some carved fresh, some half-erased, some still bleeding faint red as if carved moments ago.
Akari whispered, "These aren't just symbols… They're binding marks."
Reiji's jaw tightened.
The Silent Court didn't rule by influence alone—they ruled by ritual.
At the center of the room was an elevated platform, and on it sat a throne of blackened glass. Not ornate. Not grand. Its simplicity made it more terrifying.
Someone was already sitting on it.
The Director.
The hooded figure leaned forward slowly, hands folded, observing them as if they were expected dinner guests.
His voice echoed without the walls carrying it.
"Reiji."
One word.
But it trembled through the chamber like a blade dragged across glass.
Akari moved subtly closer to Reiji's back, ready to guard his blind angle.
Reiji stepped forward.
"You wanted me here."
"Of course," the Director replied. His tone was calm, almost amused. "Every shadow eventually returns to the hand that cast it."
Reiji's nails dug into his palms.
He kept his voice low and steady.
"You sent people to kill me. Manipulated the Court. Staged uprisings. All to shepherd me into this cage. Why?"
The Director tilted his head as if evaluating a child's answer on an exam.
"You misunderstand. I did not want your death."
He leaned back into the throne's cold surface.
"I wanted your awakening."
A quiet stillness swallowed the chamber.
Reiji felt his pulse sharpen.
Akari felt it too.
"Awakening?" Reiji echoed. "You talk as if you own my life."
The Director chuckled—a slow, indulgent sound.
"Own? No. No one owns a shadow. But one can… shape it."
He raised his fingers, and the sigils along the walls pulsed once—softly, like a heartbeat.
Reiji felt something twist deep in his chest, an echo of memories improperly stitched together. Pain flickered at the edges of his perception, the kind of pain that wasn't physical.
Akari grabbed his arm.
"Reiji—stay with me."
Her voice steadied him.
He exhaled, grounding his senses, pushing the distortion aside.
The Director continued, unfazed.
"You live because I chose for you to live. You survived the massacre because your existence served a purpose. You've walked through every blade, every betrayal, every illusion—because I selected the path beneath your feet."
Reiji's voice dropped to a deadly calm.
"You're lying."
"If I were," the Director said, "you wouldn't still be breathing."
The lanterns flickered violently.
Shadows rippled across the floor.
Akari unsheathed her dagger.
Reiji didn't stop her.
"You created the war between the clans," Reiji said, voice low. "You wrote the disappearances. You orchestrated the sigil hunters. All of it. WHY?"
The Director tapped the throne's armrest.
"Because the world cannot be governed by kings," he said softly.
"It can only be governed by those who move in silence."
He stood.
The air changed—thicker, colder, alive.
"You will inherit this seat, Reiji."
Reiji froze.
Akari's eyes widened in horror.
The Director stepped down from the platform, each step echoing like a falling hammer.
"You were shaped for it. Hardened for it. Perfected for it."
He raised a hand—and the sigils on the wall ignited in crimson fire.
Reiji's vision flickered.
A memory not his own snapped into view—
A child, isolated.
A boy trained in impossible conditions.
A young operative watched from afar.
Hands choosing him.
Voices molding his destiny like clay.
Reiji staggered.
Akari caught him before he fell.
"Reiji—look at me. LOOK at me."
Her voice tore him out of the fabricated memory.
He met her eyes, and reality anchored itself again.
The Director watched them with a thoughtful tilt of his head.
"You cling to her like she is your anchor," he said.
"Good. You will need one when you ascend."
Reiji straightened, breath stabilizing, expression cold.
"I'm not here to inherit anything."
The Director smiled beneath the hood.
"You already have."
He snapped his fingers.
The sigils shifted.
The chamber roared.
Something in the air bent—pressure crushing downward, gravity twisting sideways.
Akari gasped as the floor trembled under her boots.
Reiji pushed her behind him as the throne room reconfigured, the walls contorting like something alive.
And from the cracks in the stone…
Figures emerged.
Hollow silhouettes.
Ghosts of operatives long dead—memories bound into sigils, puppets of the Court.
Akari's eyes widened.
"These are—"
"The previous heirs," the Director said calmly.
"Failures. Each one."
The shadows advanced—silent, weightless, deadly.
Reiji drew his blade in a single motion, steel catching the crimson glow.
"You turned them into this."
The Director remained still.
"I preserved them. Their purpose did not end with their death."
Akari darted forward, slashing the first silhouette—but her blade passed through it at an angle, disrupting the shape but not destroying it.
"They're not solid!"
"Then make them be," Reiji said, meeting the next one head-on.
He slashed downward—cutting through the chest of the wraith—but the shadow reformed behind him.
Reiji spun, deflecting a swipe of spectral claws that left gashes in the stone.
Akari slid beside him, voice tight.
"They're echo constructs. They reform unless we sever the anchor!"
"The sigils," Reiji said. "Shatter the ones feeding them."
They split.
Akari sprinted along the wall, daggers flashing as she carved through glowing symbols. Each destroyed sigil caused one wraith to collapse into drifting black dust.
Reiji parried, slashed, dodged—fighting not to kill the shadows, but to buy Akari time.
Every strike reverberated with a metallic ring that shouldn't have existed.
The Director watched like a scholar observing an experiment.
"You see?" he said, voice echoing above the chaos.
"You move exactly as we designed. You survive exactly as we intended."
Reiji ignored him.
Akari shattered another cluster of sigils—two more wraiths dissipated, screaming without sound.
Reiji lunged toward the largest sigil carved directly beneath the throne.
The moment he moved, three wraiths converged.
He ducked under a claw swipe, rolled, slashed upward, cleaving through a shadow's head. It dissolved just long enough for him to dive toward the anchor mark.
Akari yelled, "REIJI—BEHIND YOU!"
One wraith materialized inches from his spine.
Reiji planted his foot, pivoted, and drove his blade straight into the sigil beneath the wraith instead of the wraith itself.
The carved mark cracked—
Then exploded.
Every shadow in the chamber convulsed, howling in silence before collapsing into ash-like fragments that evaporated into the ceiling.
The chamber went dead quiet.
Akari steadied herself against a pillar, breathing hard.
Reiji wiped blood—his or someone else's—off his cheek.
But the Director… did not move.
Not a single step.
He simply observed, then slowly descended the final stair of the platform.
"You destroyed one anchor," he said.
"A necessary test."
Reiji pointed his blade at him.
"You're done testing me."
"No," the Director said calmly.
"You're ready."
He extended a hand—not threatening, but offering.
"Reiji. You cannot kill me. Not yet."
His voice softened.
"Because you still need what only I can give."
Reiji didn't blink.
"And what is that?"
The Director leaned close enough for Reiji to see the faint outline of a face beneath the hood.
"The truth," he whispered.
"The one truth you fear more than my lies."
Reiji felt a cold shiver crawl down his spine.
Akari stepped between them, blade raised.
"We're done listening to you."
The Director did not look at her.
He only watched Reiji.
"As long as you reject your origin," he murmured,
"you will always be exactly where I place you."
Reiji tightened his grip—
But something in his chest cracked, like a chain being pulled taut.
The Director straightened and turned away.
"Come to the Tower Without Light," he said, walking toward a sealed iron passage that opened by itself.
"If you truly want to break free."
He stepped through the threshold.
The door slammed shut behind him.
Silence fell.
Akari touched Reiji's shoulder.
"Reiji… are you okay?"
His voice was steady—but hollow at the edges.
"We're going," he said.
"To the Tower."
He sheathed his blade.
"And this time…
he won't walk away."