Verek blinked, still reeling from the fall. The impact kept ringing through his ribs, each breath dragging across bone like sandpaper. The world hadn't settled around him yet—his mind scattered, flickering between here and before, like candlelight in wind. Even the air in this place felt off. Not just old. Judgmental. Like it'd been breathing without him and didn't trust the interruption.
The Spire didn't feel like the one he remembered. The grand, echoing quiet had thickened into something tighter, something that watched. He didn't know if the place had changed, or if the change had started in him.
His voice rasped up out of him, brittle. "The Council... they're waiting?"
Ezreal didn't bother turning. He was already draped against a carved arch like he belonged to it. His arms were folded, blindfold snug across his brow. That flicker of gold lit up beneath it for just a second, catching torchlight and then slipping away like a thought you weren't meant to finish.
"An hour late, mage," Ezreal said, his tone carrying that usual blend of dry and detached. "We may never punctual, but we do have flair for entrances." His smile twitched. It looked practiced.
There was something extra in his voice though. A tightness behind the usual calm, tucked under his words like a knife under a napkin. His tail gave a short flick.
filing in behind him, Dax exhaled a sound that could've been a chuckle or a warning. Hard to tell with Dax. He looked the same as ever—broad-shouldered and built like someone who made a habit of ending fights with one step. His coat hung off one shoulder, rain-stained and ragged like it'd lost an argument with a storm.
"Better hope they're in a generous mood," Dax said. His voice landed with a low thud. "They don't like being kept waiting. Especially not by people they didn't really like in the first place."
Caylen came last, trailing behind like he'd wandered in by mistake. He was twirling a silver pendant around one finger, the chain looped and tangled. His smile tilted just a little off-center, like it had forgotten where it was going.
"Mhm, yes very alive," Caylen said brightly, stepping up beside them. "And I didn't have to finish writing your death song. That's a victory, right? Tragedy left unwritten. The world owes me for that."
His tone played light, but he lingered a half-second too long on Verek's face. Like he was taking stock.
Verek gave a small nod. It felt like lifting an anchor. The hallway ahead stretched like it was daring him to walk it. The walls seemed to lean in slightly, their angles not quite right, like a room drawn from memory.
Their steps sounded too loud against the stone, echoing in the wrong directions. Runes along the floor sparked to life under their boots, glowing with sluggish light. The murals on the walls shifted as they passed—once showing a coronation, History couldn't hold its shape here.
A whisper pulled close to his ear, just breath, no sound.
"You wanted control," said the voice. Familiar. A bit too amused. "So take it. They're all watching now. Time to earn your title, little anchor."
Verek didn't flinch. Thimblewick didn't announce himself. The little trickster had a habit of folding into the seams of rooms and waiting until people forgot he was real.
The hallway spat them into something bigger. Not just a room—something older than the walls it lived inside.
The High Chamber opened like a wound in the architecture. The ceiling didn't start anywhere he could see. Pillars reached upward until they vanished into a churn of syrupy gold light. That glow didn't shine. It spilled slow, heavy, curling down like smoke made of thought.
Magic sat thick in the air. Not humming. Breathing. The kind of power that makes you forget your own name if you breathe it too deep.
At the center of it all, thrones hovered over a floor of black glass. Obsidian polished to mirror brightness. There were no chains. No anchors. Just the thrones, floating, watching.
Kaelith Serpantwind stood like she'd never moved. Her armor looked forged from oath and consequence, script crawling along the plates like it didn't trust stillness. Her braids were wound so tight they looked like wire, streaked through with silver and something older.
"You picked a fine time to return," she said. Her voice didn't lift or lower. It just landed. Solid as stone.
To her right, Vargus Ironcrag sat wide and immovable, like a boulder someone forgot to move out of the throne. His armor was battered and unpolished, his beard full of coins, bones, and things that might once have been charms. His eyes tracked Kaelith, not with obedience, but the dull weight of an old soldier done waiting.
Loren Vinescar stood beside a creeping tangle of green, roots curling around his boots like they missed him. His expression held something close to kindness, though it sagged around the edges. He dipped his chin to Verek—soft, slow, like he was greeting a ghost.
Aelwryn shimmered at the edge of things. Her presence was half fabric, half joke. She flickered like something between memory and mischief, never quite where you looked.
Tarrin Greystone didn't move. His armor was immaculate, matte gray without shine, and his fingers laced over his knees with locked patience. His eyes, though, stayed fixed. Ice behind a lens.
Zytherion's throne sat empty. A ribbon of steam curled from the seat, whispering into nothing.
Kaelith scanned the room with that calm that felt more like a threat than silence.
"You're not here to fight dragons, or start wars" she said. "You're here to find what started rotting, and pull it up by the roots."
Nobody answered at first. The quiet held like stone dust.
Then Tarrin stood, crisp and sure. "We need people who feel the shift before the world notices it cracked. Not swords. Not sermons."
Aelwryn's voice coasted through the air like silk over glass. "The fey whisper to me the wrong doors are opening. And no one's guarding the locks."
Loren's voice followed, a breath slower. "Torvald's gone. Not missing—just... nothing. No birds. No runners. Nothing."
Kaelith nodded once. "Kings Port isn't moving. Not even the tides near it. Traders vanish. Ships go out. No one comes back."
Vargus leaned forward. "Or he's hiding something. Cowards are quiet, too."
Tarrin didn't blink. "Or dead. Either way, the silence is our problem now."
Then Kaelith's eyes landed on Verek. And stayed there.
"You noticed the fractures before we even knew the floor was cracked. Don't play forgetful now."
It hit something in Verek. Not quite memory. More like an itch in his spine. A knowing he'd buried.
She turned to the room again.
"All of you. Go to Kings Port. Don't come back with guesses. Bring us the truth, in whatever condition it's in."
From deep below, a bell tolled.
Once.
Then again.
The sound was wrong. Off-key. Not the council bell. Lower somehow. Older.
Caylen stopped spinning his pendant. "That's... not one of ours," he said, voice thinner than before.
Verek's wrist flared. A subtle glow, there and gone. The mark had woken. He didn't like what that meant.
A shadow moved along the far wall. No source. No light to cast it. It just... walked.
Dax stepped forward, shoulders tight, voice low. "And if the king won't come?"
Kaelith didn't turn, a brief pause before she responded.