Eveline Marrowen had written the report three times.
The first draft bled emotion ink smudged where her brush trembled describing the boy's bloodied ears and the thunder that rolled from a clear sky. She fed it to the brazier.
The second was cold, stripped to facts like a merchant's ledger. Elder Huo Tan would have stamped it without question, but it felt dishonest. She burned that too.
The third sealed now in the scroll tube — struck the balance she needed: precise, unflinching, yet careful not to invite scrutiny she could not survive.
She pressed the outpost's wax seal onto the tube: a thorn-wreathed rose, emblem of the Umbral Rose Covenant. Inside went the jade slip duplicate, the boy's name (now recorded as "disciple
Lin Wei, Realm 4, currently in enforced seclusion for qi deviation"), the tear's sequence, the layered whispers that still echoed in her mind, and the forbidden utterance that had summoned the response.
She did not write the name itself.
No sane person committed Lucian Thaloryn to paper.
Eveline rose from the low desk. Midday light slanted through the narrow window slit of her chamber, catching dust motes that danced like lazy qi strands. She felt the ache of two thousand years in her bones — not age, exactly, but the slow accumulation of watching the world turn while she remained the same.
A knock.
"Enter."
Huo Tan stepped inside. No weapon today, only the quiet authority of a man who had lived six millennia and still looked forty.
"You finished?"
She offered the tube. "Third draft. Clean."
He accepted it, turned it slowly as though checking for hidden fractures in the jade.
"The boy?"
"Stable now. The deviation cleared after dawn. He remembers nothing of the curse or the name. Whatever answered… took that memory cleanly."
Huo Tan grunted. "A mercy, perhaps. Less merciful for whoever must scrub the blood from the barracks stones."
Eveline hesitated. The question had been burning since last night.
"Elder… what is this world, truly? Beyond the sects and the Ladder we all climb."
Huo Tan regarded her for a long moment — the look of someone who had asked the same question centuries ago and learned the cost of the answer.
He leaned against the doorframe, arms folded.
"You've lived long enough to know the surface," he said. "Aetherion is vast. Continents the size of old empires, ley lines thick with qi that sects fight over like starving dogs over meat. The Seven High Sects — Argent Cathedral, Dawnspire, Umbral Rose, Stormward Bastion, Ivory Meridian, Blacklake Tribunal, Ashglass Monastery — rule the high places. They claim the best spiritual lands, hoard the ancient manuals, control the spirit stone mines. Below them, kingdoms rise and fall like seasons. Mortal emperors bow to sect envoys, pay tribute in resources and talented youths. The sects pretend to protect the world; the kingdoms pretend they still matter."
He paused, gaze drifting to the window slit.
"But none of that is new to you. What you ask is deeper. Why the Ladder exists at all. Why cultivation is not chaos, but a path with steps — Ember Vein to Eternal Throne, if the legends are true."
Eveline nodded slowly. "The stories say someone imposed it. Long ago. When qi was wild and realms devoured each other."
Huo Tan's expression tightened — not fear, exactly, but the wariness of a man who knew some truths were dangerous even to speak.
"Before the Ladder," he continued, voice low, "there was no order. Qi storms tore continents. False gods rose from the void and fell just as fast. Mortals lived short, brutal lives; cultivators burned bright and died faster. Then came the sovereign. No one knows his face, his origin, only that he arrived from beyond Aetherion's skies. He fought the primordials — beings older than stars — across voids and shattered realms. When the war ended, he planted a blade into the heart of this world. The Mandate. A sword so vast its hilt crowns the eastern mountains. From that blade the Ladder grew realms measurable, breakthroughs predictable, power earned through discipline rather than madness."
He gestured vaguely eastward.
"Most dismiss the Mandate as myth. A star that never sets on the horizon. But those of us who reach Realm 9 or higher… we feel it. A pressure in the qi, a weight in the laws. The sects grew arrogant over millennia, thinking the sovereign sleeps or faded. They hoard resources, wage shadow wars over spirit veins, forget the Ladder was not always theirs to climb."
Eveline's throat tightened. "And last night?"
"Last night," Huo Tan said, "something tested the seams. A tear from outside. Whispers carrying old hatred. And when a fool spoke the forbidden name… the answer came. Thunder without storm. A reminder."
He straightened.
"The sects will pretend it never happened. The kingdoms will whisper. But the frontier outposts like ours — we see the cracks first."
Eveline looked east again. The distant gleam was faint in daylight, but unmistakable a silver-white point that refused to fade.
"The Mandate," she whispered.
Huo Tan nodded once.
"If it ever moves… pray you are far away."
He tucked the tube into his sleeve.
"I leave for Dawnspire at dusk. You remain here. No one leaves until we have word from higher up."
"Understood."
The door closed.
Eveline stood motionless for a long time.
Then she crossed to the window slit and pressed her forehead to the cool stone.
For the first time in centuries, she allowed herself to feel truly small.
Far to the east, in halls where silence was law, Lucian Thaloryn sat on the adamant throne.
The chamber stretched into golden haze. Pillars rose like frozen lightning. At his side sat Valeria, close enough that their sleeves brushed.
She had come without words. She always did when the name was spoken.
Lucian's hand rested on the throne arm. Steady. Unmarked by time.
"The boy was young," he said. Frank. Calm. No anger — only fact.
"Sixteen mortal years," Valeria replied. "Ember Vein. Desperate. Frightened. The tear carried voices. Not one mind. Many."
Lucian inclined his head once.
His gaze stayed on the open arch overlooking the Mandate below — hilt rising like a crown, runes quiet now.
"I felt the thread," he said.
Valeria shifted closer. Her shoulder touched his.
"You always do."
Silence followed — comfortable, worn smooth by millennia.
Then she reached over and laid her hand over his.
No words. Just warmth.
Lucian turned his palm up. Their fingers laced naturally.
He exhaled — soft, almost inaudible.
"I have not moved in so long," he murmured. "The children gather. Kaelith hears things no one else does. The silence speaks."
Valeria squeezed once.
"You will know when."
He looked at her — truly looked. Obsidian meeting obsidian.
"I do not wish to frighten them," he said quietly. "Not yet."
"They are Thaloryn," she answered, voice gentle but certain. "They carry your name. They will stand."
Lucian lifted their joined hands. He pressed the back of hers to his lips — brief, deliberate, tender.
"Thank you," he said. Simple. Honest. No titles between them.
Valeria smiled — small, rare, only for him.
"Always."
He held on a moment longer.
Outside, the Mandate's runes pulsed once — slow, approving.
The probe had been answered.
The next would come.
But for now, in the heart of the Palace, there was quiet.
And two who had carried eternity together.