Dawn came quiet and grey.
No screaming bells.
No crackled hymns.
Just the low mutter of the city and the steady pulse of the tower, as if the stone itself had decided to hold its breath.
Doris woke with the certainty that today was the day.
No voice told her.
No ward flared.
She just knew.
So did everyone else.
The suite felt wrong in its stillness.
Mara was already dressed, hair braided back, hands busy with a pot she'd started before dawn. Edrin sat by the window slit, watching the light creep across the palace roofs toward the chapel dome. Dorothy hadn't even bothered to pretend she slept; she sat upright, staff across her knees, eyes open and watchful.
Flint paced.
Brian chewed on a wooden ring, content for once to sit in his cradle and watch the adults vibrate around him.
John stood at the wall, fingers pressed flat, listening.
"Well?" Doris asked hoarsely.
"The chapel's awake," he said. "Not wrong. Just… waiting."
"So are we," Mara said sharply. "Eat."
She thrust bowls at them—thick porridge fortified beyond reason, studded with bits of dried fruit and nuts she'd bullied or stolen from the kitchens.
Doris took a spoonful, swallowed against the tightness in her throat.
"This feels like the part of a story," Flint said, "where everyone shares meaningful words before doing something stupid."
"You can skip your part," Dorothy said.
"No, no," Flint protested. "I've been rehearsing."
He stopped pacing and planted himself in front of Doris and John, face uncharacteristically serious.
"You two are going into a hole under a chapel," he said. "If you see any cultists, stab them. If you see any priests, let Serais stab them. If the walls start talking, let Doris talk first. If the walls start singing, let no one sing along. If everything collapses, run upward. Gravity is not your friend. If you die, I will be offended."
Mara smacked the back of his head.
"Terrible speech," she said. "Too many stabbings, not enough promises."
Flint rubbed his skull. "It's a realistic speech."
Doris swallowed another bite of porridge.
She knelt by Brian's cradle.
He looked up at her, eyes clear, drool on his chin.
"Hey, little storm," she whispered. "We're going downstairs today. You're staying here."
He made an indignant noise.
She smiled faintly.
"I know. It's unfair. You're the one they want and we're the ones going. That's the point."
She stroked his hair.
"If anything feels wrong," she said softly, more to the tower than to the child, "you scream. Or laugh. Or kick. Dorothy will hear it. The walls will hear it."
Brian grabbed her finger and held on tight.
The hum sharpened around the cradle—baseline tightening, house symbol and crooked star pulsing in sync.
It felt like a promise.
Or a demand.
John came to stand beside her.
He kissed his son's forehead, then Doris's.
"Ledger?" he murmured.
She forced a breath.
"Ledger," she agreed.
At the table, she wrote:
— Descent day. Sanctum under Third Chapel. Leaving Brian in suite under Mara, Edrin, Dorothy, Flint, Kael, Elian. House symbol bright. Herenvale shard warm. I am afraid. Going anyway.
John added beneath:
— If this is the last entry in our hand: the answer was no. We went below to keep that answer true.
Mara watched them blot the ink.
"Go," she said roughly. "Before I change my mind and chain you here."
"You could try," Doris said.
"But I'd fail," Edrin added. "This is your fault line, girl. We taught you to feel it. We don't get to keep you from walking it."
He hugged her fiercely.
"Come back."
"I intend to."
Dorothy lifted her staff.
"Enough," she said. "You'll miss your own descent if you keep crying over it."
The corridors felt narrower than usual.
Every footstep too loud.
Every breath too sharp.
Maevra met them at the stair leading down to the chapel quarter. She wore no ceremonial robes today—just a dark coat, hair tied back, chalk tucked behind one ear.
"Good," she said. "You're late."
"We're on time," Halvar said.
"Emotionally, you're late," she corrected.
Orane arrived with Tessa and Merrit. Ren hovered with maps and slates, already anxious.
They descended together.
The chapel had been stripped bare—candles gone, benches pushed back, altarpiece shrouded. The air felt hollow, like something waiting to inhale.
Halvar found the seam.
Spoke the word.
The floor moved.
A ring of stone sank, revealing the narrow stair spiraling downward.
Cold air breathed up at them.
Doris's skin crawled.
"Lovely," Ren muttered.
"Stay topside," Maevra ordered. "You're in charge of pulling."
Halvar nodded to Doris.
"Shard."
She touched the Herenvale fragment to the top step.
Recognition rippled through the stone.
No scream.
No lunge.
Just a quiet yes, I remember.
They descended.
The sanctum shell was close, tight, pressing against their skin like a held breath. Doris felt the point of overlap—tower patterns, chapel hum, sanctum hunger.
"This is it," she whispered.
Halvar's voice drifted from ahead. "Talk. Let it hear you. Let it match your rhythm."
"It doesn't know what to follow yet," Doris murmured. "We teach it."
Brian's laugh flickered in her memory.
And then—
It flickered in the sanctum.
Doris froze.
"That's not him," she whispered sharply.
"No," Halvar said. "It's repeating an imprint."
"It shouldn't have one."
"I know."
Serais's low hum faltered.
Orane raised her sword.
The sanctum played the laugh again, wrong tone, wrong rhythm.
It was trying to coax a response.
Trying to summon him.
Doris stepped forward immediately.
"No," she said.
The sanctum paused.
John mirrored her stance.
Serais added tone.
Halvar added baseline.
Lyr added lattice.
Orane added readiness.
Together, they pushed.
No.
The imitation dissolved.
Doris breathed again.
"Shard," Maevra said.
Doris lifted it.
Recognition shivered through the chamber—collapse, fire, death, refusal. The sanctum compared them all to the bright flare of a child laughing at a wrong hymn correcting itself.
And something aligned.
A low harmonic filled the space—steady, grounded, unmistakably familiar.
"The quiet-room baseline," Lyr whispered. "It's accepting it."
Halvar swallowed. "Then we proceed."
They reached the hinge.
Ancient Voidborn geometry spiralled across stone—patterns Brian had drawn in chalk before he could crawl properly.
Doris's breath hitched.
"This is… mine," she whispered.
"Yours," John corrected softly, "and his."
The hinge pulsed.
A dark ripple crawled across its lowest spiral.
"That's Paragon work," Lyr snapped. "Recently reinforced."
"How recently?" Maevra asked.
Serais hesitated. "Hours."
The chamber went still.
"They know we came," Lyr breathed.
"No," Halvar said grimly. "They wanted us to."
Doris didn't hesitate.
She stepped forward, pressed her palm to the spiral, and the sanctum's memories flooded her as she saw Herenvale collapse, fire burning, a screaming town, a cracked hymn, and a child's bright refusal.
"It remembers," she whispered.
And remembering, it waited for instruction.
Doris gathered every thread—tower, chapel, quiet-room baseline, chalk house pattern, the echo of Brian's laugh.
"Sanctum," she said gently. "Hear us. You do not open for the First Flame. You do not break. You hold. You refuse."
John's voice joined hers: "You do not call Brian."
Serais: "You do not answer the false hymn."
Lyr: "Anchor to the quiet room."
Halvar: "Restore."
The sanctum shuddered...
Then expelled the Paragon echo like a cough.
The dark ripple vanished.
The platform dimmed.
The chamber breathed.
"It purged it," Halvar whispered.
"No," Maevra said. "It learned to."
Doris's legs finally shook.
John steadied her.
"Up," Maevra ordered. "Before someone tries to rewrite the lesson."
They ascended.
The sanctum hummed behind them; not confused, nor hostile.
Learning.
Remembering.
Refusing.
Holding.
And far above, in a chalk-drawn house, Brian laughed in his sleep.
The tower hummed in answer.
And deep below, a chamber built before empires existed hummed too, just faintly....
not echoing.
Remembering.
The sanctum had taken its first step toward holding, and the world above—trembling and wide—waited to see what came next.