[POV: Ezekiel]
She returned at dusk.
The light from the barred window had turned the stone floor to liquid gold. Dust hung in the air like ash from an invisible fire.
Ezekiel sat in silence, spine straight, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the far wall.
He didn't blink when she entered.
Lady Saelin said nothing for a while.
She closed the door behind her.
She looked at him—not like a mother looks at her son.
But like a reader facing the final line of a sacred text, unsure whether to speak it aloud.
---
"I made enemies today," she said.
Ezekiel looked at her.
Not questioning.
Just waiting.
"They asked me what I saw in your eyes," she continued. "I said—reflection."
She walked to the wall. Laid a cloth-wrapped bundle gently on the floor.
A key.
A knife.
A sealed letter, marked with her crest.
And beneath it all: a folded black robe. Travel-worn. One that would make him look like anyone.
---
"Soon," she said softly. "They'll decide what you are."
"And once they do…"
Her eyes met his.
"…they will act."
He lowered his gaze.
To the key.
To the knife.
To the letter.
Then slowly raised one hand, palm outward.
The mirror behind him cracked again.
A single shard slipped to the floor.
But this time, the Concept didn't flare.
It bowed.
---
Saelin crouched before him.
Not mother to child.
But soldier to weapon.
"Amelia will stay," she said. "I told her stories. She believes you're in here learning to cast spells."
Ezekiel almost smiled.
But the Concept clenched in his throat.
He couldn't laugh yet.
She reached out and rested her forehead against his.
"You will leave this place soon. You will walk through blood. Through stone. Through judgment. And they will try to write your story without you."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
> "But law only matters when someone remembers it."
She stood.
Stepped back.
Did not look behind her.
And left him there.
Alone again.
With a future made of silence and shattered mirrors.
---
[POV: Unknown — Elsewhere in the Quinsley Empire]
A dry ink brush scraped across ancient parchment.
A man in a half-mask read aloud from a bone scroll.
"The Vessel has survived the Pale Garden."
Another voice replied from the shadows.
Female. Smooth.
"With Azrael?"
"Confirmed. Sealed. Contained."
"Does the Emperor know?"
"No. But the Empress suspects."
A third voice laughed, soft and wet, like silk dipped in blood.
"So it begins, then," the voice said.
"So we break the sky."