The heavy door of the limousine sealed us back into a vacuum of synthetic velvet and filtered air, shutting out the noise of the city.
I sat back, adjusting the cuffs of my new suit, watching how the gold embroidery on the lapels caught the dim ambient light and shimmered with a calculated arrogance.
Beside me, Kael settled into the leather, though he conspicuously failed to leave the tactical gap I had explicitly ordered.
Instead, he slid right next to me, his thigh pressing firmly against mine.
I stiffened, ready to reprimand him for the insubordination, but paused as a specific sensation registered against my leg—a rhythmic, involuntary twitching.
Through the expensive fabric of his new clothes, I could feel his muscles throbbing with a dense, rapid pulsation of adrenaline and residual heat.
I turned my head slightly to look at him.
Kael was staring straight ahead, his posture rigid as he tried to mimic the "Ice" I had commanded, but his body was betraying him.
The intimacy of the dressing room—the act of me choosing his shell, buttoning his collar, and handling him like a prized revolver—had triggered a dopamine cascade his emptied mind didn't know how to process.
He was a weapon that had just been polished, and he was humming with the pleasure of being owned.
Inconvenient, I thought. The boy promised to be ice, but he was currently a reactor core struggling to contain a meltdown.
"Kael," I said, keeping my voice low.
He turned to me instantly, the movement fast and eager.
His eyes were wide, the pupils dilated until they swallowed the blue irises.
They locked onto mine with no shame, only a raw, naked hunger for the next command.
I stared back into the void of his eyes, projecting a silent weight of authority.
Stabilize, my gaze commanded. Cease the vibration.
We held the stare for ten seconds, the air in the car growing heavy with unsaid words.
Slowly, the throbbing against my leg subsided.
Kael blinked once—a slow, heavy movement—and the frantic energy in his frame settled into a dormant, waiting stillness.
Satisfied, I broke the connection and turned my attention to the front of the car.
"Malakor," I stated.
The priest jumped slightly in his seat. "Yes, My Lord?"
"The Royal Museum," I said. "I need to see the item you mentioned."
The White City certainly lived up to its name, presenting a district of blinding, sanitized perfection.
Buildings constructed from white marble and glass rose around us, reflecting a sun that seemed brighter here than in the slums.
In the center of the plaza stood the Royal Museum, a massive dome resembling a sliced pearl dropped from the heavens.
We approached the entrance where a long line of tourists and students waited by the public gates, but we walked toward the VIP archway.
A scanner drone hovered before us, its red eye sweeping over our new attire.
"Entry fee," the machine droned. "One thousand Clons per individual."
Malakor flinched. "Three thousand... for a museum?"
"Pay it," I commanded, walking past the drone without breaking stride.
Kael tapped his wrist against the sensor, and the credits were deducted, bleeding our funds down to 38,900.
I viewed it not as a purchase, but as a tax on curiosity.
The Empire monetized history because they knew the present was bankrupt.
We entered the Great Hall, a vast, echoing space filled with floating displays of swords, glowing orbs, and taxidermied beasts.
The air smelled of preservation fluids and elitism.
I ignored the flashy exhibits; I didn't care about the history of this world's wars or its petty heroes.
"Lead the way," I ordered the sweating priest.
We passed rows of golden chalices and armor until we reached the far end of the wing. There, isolated in a column filled with inert gas, sat the object of my search.
The Prism of Truth.
It was a jagged, crystalline shape roughly the size of a human head, hovering in the center of the case and rotating slowly.
It dissected and reflected the museum lights, splitting white beams into sharp, impossible spectrums of color that danced on the floor like trapped ghosts.
I stepped closer.
Beneath the column, an old, preserved stone slab bore an inscription in High Zonian:
Truth does not obey the weak; it Breaks them.
I paused, a rare spark of appreciation igniting in my chest.
"Elegant," I whispered. It was the first intelligent sentence I had read in this world. It matched my own philosophy with a startling degree of accuracy.
The universe was not a democracy; it was a hierarchy of strength. Truth was heavy, and those with weak spines were crushed by it.
I stepped up to the case.
My reflection appeared in the surface of the Prism—a man in a black suit with gold embroidery, looking like a lord of shadows.
But as my gaze locked onto the crystal, something changed.
The slow, rhythmic rotation stopped. The dancing lights on the floor froze and the artifact began to shiver.
It was a vibration of recognition.
The crystal was trembling like a dog that hears its master's whistle after years of silence.
"My Lord?" Malakor whispered, stepping back. "Why is it... shaking?"
I didn't answer.
I reached out, my gloved hand passing through the protective energy field of the display case—a weak barrier made of the 3rd Name that dissolved upon contact with my skin—and touched the cold surface of the Prism.
A single, heavy pulse resonated through the crystal. The shivering stopped instantly, replaced by a deep, humming stillness.
"A soul," I said softly, my fingers tracing the sharp edge of the prism, making it tremble slightly under my touch.
I turned to Malakor and Kael. "This is not merely stone and magic. There is a human consciousness fused into this lattice."
I looked back at the artifact, stroking it gently.
"He told me his story... The creator of this object. He was a boy who saw too much. He obtained documents, secret records of the Imperial family involving corruption and rot—the kind of truth that dissolves empires."
I tapped the Prism gently. "They didn't just kill him. They executed him upon his own creation after torturing him. Because of his extreme emotions, his soul fused into the prism, forcing him to remain silent for eternity."
Malakor's mouth hung open. "But... My Lord... that is impossible. The texts say that artifacts below the Divine Tier cannot hold a Will. They cannot have personality. The soul dissipates!"
"The texts are written by idiots," I countered, my voice flat.
"The soul does not dissipate. It is suppressed. The pressure of this world's mediocrity crushes the will of the object, forcing it into dormancy."
I leaned in, my breath fogging the surface of prism. "But when I am close... the suppression lifts. My Divinity creates a vacuum in the Law. A space where the weak can breathe."
I looked at the Prism, feeling the consciousness inside screaming, weeping, mad with thousands of years of isolation. "Poor soul," I whispered.
The artifact throbbed violently, and a flash of crimson light shot through the spectrum, startling a nearby tourist.
I began to work.
I needed to convince the Law of Probability that I was learning the concept of "Vertex"—the power of angles and refractions.
To do that, I had to interact with the most perfect geometric shape in the city.
I ran my fingers along the sharpest angle of the Prism. "Fracture," I commanded softly.
The light inside the prism shattered into a thousand jagged needles.
"Reflect," I countered. The needles aligned, turning into a single, blinding beam.
"Stop." The light vanished, leaving the crystal dark and void-like.
The artifact was shivering under my touch, throbbing with the ecstasy of obedience.
For centuries it had been a paperweight for tourists; now, it was being played like an instrument by a God.
I stood there for an hour.
To the few people passing by, I was an eccentric scholar obsessed with a rock.
To the Law of Probability, I was a student studying the geometry of the Second Name.
It was stubborn. The Law knew that "learning" required time and struggle. I wasn't struggling; I was commanding. The discrepancy was creating friction.
"Fracture," I repeated, Prism forced the light to bend at a ninety-degree angle—physically impossible for this material.
"Vertex is the point where two lines meet," I recited, loud enough for the universe to hear my 'study'. "It is the anchor of geometry. Without the vertex, there is no shape. Without shape, there is no stability."
"Convince yourself, you stupid cosmos," I muttered under my breath. "I am learning."
"Excuse me."
The voice came from behind me—cultured, polished, and arrogant.
I paused, my hand still resting on the vibrating Prism, and turned slowly. Standing five paces away was a young man who looked like he had been bred in a laboratory for nobility.
He was slightly shorter than my vessel, wearing a suit of white silk that probably cost more than Malakor's entire life earnings.
His face was shaved to the point of rawness, his dark hair combed back with an oil that caught the museum lights.
He was looking at the Prism, and the lingering tremors that were still shaking the display case.
"I have been watching you from the upper balcony," the man said.
His eyes flicked to my face, analyzing my gold embroidery, my posture, and the way the artifact seemed to lean into my hand.
"That Prism... it has been inert for four hundred years. The curators say it is dead matter."
He took a step closer, his gaze sharp and predatory in a social sense. "Yet you touch it, and it shivers. You command it, and it obeys."
He offered a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"I know every significant lineage in the White City. I know every mage capable of using the 'Resonance' power of the 10th Name and 'Light Manipulation' of the 13th Name... But I do not know you."
The silence stretched. Kael shifted behind me, and I heard the rustle of fabric as his hand dropped to the hilt of a knife hidden beneath his cape.
I signaled him to stand down with a single twitch of my finger.
The nobleman extended a hand—not to shake, but to gesture.
"Tell me..."
"which Household do you belong to?"