Soren had just finished his third lap of the bastion when the message came: Inspection at Vault, bring secondary. The sender was the quartermaster, but the tone, weaponized indifference, reeked of Cirel. Instead of grabbing Cassian, Soren cut through the back halls for Kale, who was less likely to ask questions about unexplained orders.

The Vault still bore the scar of its previous purpose, a frigid, sub-basement gallery stacked with obsolete weapons and, allegedly, with the half-exorcised memories of every prior regime. The checkpoint was unmanned, so Soren keyed in the override himself, ignoring the whine of disapproval from the old security system. Inside, the air bit colder, carrying a faint note of scorched parchment.

Seren waited near the first row of lockboxes, hands jammed awkwardly into her coat. She jerked her chin at a battered trunk on the inspection table. The crest of the Academy, faded but unmistakable, spanned the lid.

"Found it while reorganizing the ledger shelf," Seren said, voice low and precise. "The lock's tampered, but intact. I figured you'd want to open it yourself."

Soren studied the trunk. The lock cylinder had been picked and repacked, the kind of hack only someone with ceremonial clearance would risk. He ran a finger along the lid, feeling the old, grooved scars from previous forced entries. With a flick, he reset the mechanism and popped the catch.

Inside: a brick of ledgers, bound in dragonhide, the edges singed and corners warped by water damage. He lifted the topmost book; a flake of ash drifted from the spine. Seren watched, silent.

Soren cracked it open to the first page, hoping for routine inventory, supplies, munitions, the usual. Instead, the ledger was a log of disciplinary actions, each entry signed and counter-signed by instructors long since dead or vanished. Page after page: names, infractions, small betrayals. He thumbed ahead to a section marked with a blue tab, the color used in the old days for serious infractions. His squad's intake year was written at the header.

The names started familiar, then got stranger down the page. Lira, twice. Liane, once, but with a note absolved by "collective merit." Kale, three times, the last entry marked "Rehabilitated, pending." And then, in a different hand, the name that set Soren's teeth on edge:

Jannek Tavor, Status: Terminated, field exercise. Cause: Voluntary Sacrifice.

Soren didn't remember signing that page. He checked the handwriting; it mimicked his own, but not perfectly. Below the summary, in lighter ink, a second line had been added and then violently scratched out, the residual letters ghosting beneath the carbon:

Commandant Vale, interference, investigation sealed.

He closed the book. Seren said nothing at first, but the edge around her eyes told Soren she'd read upside-down as well as he had.

"You didn't write that," she said.

Soren shook his head. "Not the real record."

"Who did?" Seren asked.

He shrugged, staring at the dragonhide. "Someone who wants me to remember the price of failure."

Kale, who had remained conveniently out of the blast radius of sentiment, hovered by the exit, pretending interest in a wall-mounted display of broken blades.

Soren tucked the ledger under his arm and turned to Seren. "Seal this back up. Don't log it yet."

She nodded.

He left, the weight of the book a new fracture in his side.

The spire's upper corridors never slept. At any hour, staff and wardens shuffled through, each moving with the blank inertia of someone who'd already lost the argument with whatever version of fate ran the city. Soren rode the elevator to the top, swiped through three security plates, and rapped twice on Magister Cirel's office door.

The office was more shrine than workspace: walls lined with alloyed swords, a desk made of petrified bonewood, the whole place scented with burnt sage and cold stone. Cirel waited behind her desk, glasses perched mid-nose, as if the illusion of paperwork could explain away the hour.

He set the ledger on the desk, opened to the marked page.

Cirel's eyes scanned the text, then fixed on the scratched-out line. She did not blink.

"You've been given a reminder," she said. "They want to see if you'll flinch."

Soren leaned forward, not bothering to hide the question in his voice. "They want to see if I'll obey."

Cirel closed the ledger, fingers resting on the dragonhide as if debating whether to burn or bury it. "The Division exists to prevent rebellion, not to reward loyalty. But every chain you forge is another you carry. Don't forget that."

Soren said nothing.

Cirel finally looked up, eyes sharp and unflinching. "Is there anything else?"

He almost asked who had doctored the record, but realized, too late, that the question would only be another test. Instead, he said, "No, Magister."

She nodded, and that was the end of it.

On the way out, Soren watched the shadow of his own reflection warp in the black-glass panels of the hall.

That night, Soren ran wall rotation himself. He traced the perimeter, noting every shift in the lighting, every small defect in the containment sigils. The city's wind whistled through the gaps in the plates, and for a second, he thought he heard Jannek's strained, hollow laugh from the day they'd all been first conscripted.

He stopped, breathing the night, and let the memory pass.

In the morning, he'd have to brief the squad on the new intake. He'd have to look Cassian in the eye and decide whether to trust him with the next secret. Maybe he'd even have to decide what kind of warden he was supposed to be.

But for now, there was only the cold, the city, and the line he would walk until one of them finally broke.The lower archives were a rumor even among the ghosts of Meridian. Soren waited until the Spire's bells had twice tolled the hour of no return, then took the lantern and the sword and the ledger wrapped twice in blackout cloth.

The stairwell behind the Division's receiving office sloped like the throat of an old god, steps slick with resin dust and the memory of shoes that had never bothered to come back up. Three codes and a palmprint got him to the first sublevel; after that, the door was a matte slab of runed steel, so heavy it could have been holding in centuries of mistakes.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.