The Vex Spire clawed at the violet sky, a needle of polished obsidian and pulsing light that stabbed the heart of Veridia's memory. From their vantage point on a lesser, forgotten rooftop, the spire was not just a building; it was a monument to everything she had lost. Home. A word that tasted like poison and ash on her tongue.
"The approach vector from the service causeway is the most logical," Seraphine whispered, her voice a dry rasp of pure pragmatism. The curse had made her tangible, a constant, irritating reminder of their shared damnation. "Guard patrols are on a seventeen-minute rotation. Predictable."
"Logic didn't build that spire, sister," Veridia countered, her gaze fixed on the familiar silhouette against the Network-polluted sky. "Ego did. The most logical path is the most heavily guarded. We'll go through the gardens."
"Sentimental fool. You want to stroll down memory lane while we're on a suicide mission?"
"I want to use the terrain I know," Veridia snapped, pushing off the ledge and melting into the shadows below with a grace she had relearned in the wilds of Aethelgard.
The first barrier hummed before they could see it, a faint distortion in the air that smelled of ozone and contained power. An outer ward. "Amateur," Veridia scoffed, a familiar arrogance warming her. Her fingers, unbidden, began tracing a complex, remembered pattern in the air. "The disarming sequence is keyed to the resonance of Vex blood. Watch a master at work."
She touched the shimmering field, expecting the soft chime of acceptance. Instead, it flared with a violent shriek of energy, throwing her back onto the cold stone. Alarms blared for a half-second before sputtering into a dead, mocking silence.
"The codes were changed the day after you were exiled, you arrogant relic," Seraphine hissed, pulling Veridia to her feet with grudging strength. "They locked the door behind you. Did you really think they wouldn't?"
The humiliation was a hot flush on Veridia's skin, more painful than the impact. Of course they had. She was a stranger here, a ghost trying to use keys to a house that no longer recognized her. They worked in tense, grudging silence. Veridia knew the ancient architecture of the ward, the foundational runes that couldn't be changed. Seraphine, with her producer's eye for systems, understood the cold logic of the new security overlay. One provided the schematic of the past; the other hacked the code of the present. The ward peeled back, a silent, gaping wound in the estate's defense.
They moved through the gardens, the air thick with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and blood-roses. Veridia froze. Before them sat a bench of woven shadow-silk, gleaming under the alien starlight. A phantom memory ambushed her—the feeling of absolute power, of a trembling poet kneeling at her feet, his Essence a delicate confection of talent and terror. She remembered being able to unmake a lesser lord with a single, silent look of contempt.
"Are you quite finished?" Seraphine's voice was a shard of ice in the warm memory. "Nostalgia is a liability. Focus."
Veridia tore her eyes away, the ghost of her former self mocking her from the empty bench. Ahead, a patrol of House Vex guards rounded a corner, their armor gleaming. Without a word, Veridia kicked a decorative stone brazier, sending it clattering across the pathway. As the guards turned toward the sound, Seraphine dragged her into the deep shadows of a thicket. They slipped past, a clumsy but effective dance of brute distraction and tactical silence, and reached the service entrance to the spire.
***
The spire was a tomb of silence. The cool, recycled air was the same, the polished floors still reflected the ambient light of the Network's ever-present advertisements bleeding through the high windows. It was home, but she was a ghost haunting its halls, a trespasser in her own life.
They passed the great archway of the ballroom, its doors sealed. The memory of the Solstice Gala at House Malakor flared in Seraphine's eyes. "I remember wearing woven starlight in that room," she whispered, a rare note of genuine triumph in her voice. "The night I finally stepped out of your shadow."
"I remember it as the night you proved you were just another piece of furniture," Veridia retorted, the old wound still raw. Their shared past was a fractured mirror, each sister seeing a different, distorted reflection of the same events.
The grand staircase leading down to the vaults was different. The air before it felt thick, heavy with dormant power. "A pressure-sensitive runic grid," Seraphine identified instantly, her producer's mind analyzing the threat. "New. Touch one rune out of sequence, and the entire spire will be filled with Praetorian constructs within seconds."
Veridia saw the pattern. It was a complex circuit, impossible for one person to bypass. It required two points of contact, perfectly synchronized, to create a null-field. "A grounding and a charge," she breathed, the realization dawning with a wave of disgust. "It needs two of us."
The agony of the next few moments was exquisite. They had to move as one. Veridia placed her hand on a glowing sigil, feeling a raw, wild energy surge into her, threatening to arc out of control. The life-link between them hummed, a conduit of shared peril. "Now, sister," she gritted out, her muscles screaming.
Seraphine, her face a mask of concentration, pressed her own palm to a corresponding rune across the stairs. The energy flooding Veridia found its ground, flowing through their cursed bond and into Seraphine, who channeled it safely into the floor. They held the pose, bodies rigid, their shared existence the key to disarming the trap. A single tremor, a moment of mis-timed release, and they were dead. The trap winked out, the pressure in the air vanishing. Shaking and furious, they stood before a reinforced obsidian door. The final barrier.
***
The vault was sealed by a lock of living magic. No keyhole, no combination. Just a smooth, black surface with two hand-shaped indentations. "A blood-pact seal," Veridia realized. "It requires the living, resonant signatures of two of the main bloodline."
Seraphine let out a humorless laugh. "How poetic. The only key is the one thing they never thought would be in the same room again."
With a shared look of profound revulsion, they stepped forward. They pressed their palms into the indentations. The lock flared to life, a deep violet glow spreading from their hands. The silver thread of their life-link became a blazing chain, humming as it resonated with the ancient family magic. The stone itself seemed to recognize their cursed bond as a valid signature. With a low groan of grinding rock, the massive door receded into the wall.
They stepped inside. The air was cold and still, thick with the dormant power of a thousand artifacts and soul-bound contracts. This was the true source of House Vex's power, a library of obligations and forgotten sorceries. As their eyes adjusted to the dim light, they saw it. A high-backed chair in the center of the chamber, its occupant wreathed in shadow.
Before either could react, a voice cut through the silence, as deep and calm as a gravestone. It was a voice that had haunted their entire lives.
"Veridia. Seraphine. I trust you had no trouble with the new security measures."
The figure leaned forward, his face emerging from the shadows into the faint, magical light. It was their father, Duke Vex. His expression held no surprise, no anger. Only the vast, crushing weight of a cold and patient disappointment. He hadn't been alerted. He had been waiting.