The great hall of the Arcane Core had never felt so cold.

  Pag stood alone beneath the council dome, his breath fogging in the chill that radiated from the stone and the judgement pressing down around him.

  Before him sat the Draggor High Command — seven figures draped in lacquered armor and ceremonial crimson, seated behind a long blackstone crescent etched with blood-gold script.

  Behind them, runes shimmered with truth-binding wards.

  Beside Pag stood Meowtimer, arms folded, tail still, eyes unreadable.

  And beyond, in the shadows, Aviva leaned against a column with crossed arms and an expression that promised daggers.

  The voice that broke the silence belonged to Commander Velkhar, the highest of the seven — silver-bearded, war-scarred, and dangerous even in stillness.

  “You retrieved the relic fragment,” he said. “And brought it back to us. That is... commendable.”

  Pag didn’t move. “It wasn’t brought back for you.”

  That drew a twitch from one of the council members. But Velkhar only smiled.

  “Of course,” he said smoothly. “You recovered it as part of a joint initiative under Core authority. But the fact remains — the relic is of strategic value. And should be secured properly.”

  Pag’s jaw tightened. “You mean locked away. Or turned into a weapon.”

  Velkhar’s smile never faded. “If necessary.”

  A long pause.

  Then:

  “The Emberborn legacy is not yours to keep, Emberkin.”

  Meowtimer stirred.

  Aviva pushed off the column.

  Pag stepped forward, voice sharp.

  “I didn’t claim it. I recovered it. Fought for it. Bled for it. That shard recognizes me. Not a flag. Not a throne.”

  Silence stretched.

  Then Velkhar leaned forward slightly.

  “That’s what concerns us.”

  After the meeting, Pag stalked down the upper hall, flame crackling faintly along his fingertips.

  Aviva caught up, matching his pace.

  “They’re sending us out,” she said. “To the frontier near the Eadrin pass. ‘Rising instability.’ A ‘delicate mission.’ Sounds like a sidelining maneuver.”

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  Pag snorted. “Of course they are. Can’t take the relic from me outright, so they’ll send me somewhere I can’t affect the outcome.”

  “They’re not wrong to be afraid,” Aviva said, tone careful.

  Pag paused, turned toward her.

  “You agree with them?”

  “I said they’re not wrong to fear what you are,” she said. “But they’re fools for thinking shoving you into the corner of a war zone will help.”

  Pag looked ahead again.

  “What’s in Eadrin?”

  Aviva’s face darkened.

  “Whatever it is… the Core sent me too. Which means it’s not just politics. It’s a problem.”

  Pag nodded once, the ember inside him pulsing with restrained heat.

  “Then let’s fix it fast. And get back before they try to use the relic without me.”

  Meanwhile… Elsewhere

  In a hidden chamber beneath the capital of the Lunar Empire, Caedemon stood before a vault of gleaming ice.

  Inside it, an incomplete relic pulsed slowly — not gold, not red.

  But white.

  Pure. Dangerous.

  “Pag has left the board,” one of his agents whispered.

  Caedemon smiled.

  “Good,” he said. “Then it’s time we claimed the next piece.”

  The reliquary beneath the Lunar capital whispered like a tomb. Its walls shimmered with refracted moonlight that never touched the sky, glancing off polished basalt, etched sigils, and vault-steel ribs driven into the bones of the earth.

  There, at the center, hovered a shard of cold fire — a relic encased in ritual ice, its pulse slow, pure, and aching.

  Caedemon stood before it in silence.

  He was tall and still, robed in layers of veined obsidian and blood-dark silk that curled faintly in the manaflow. Faint tracings of silver gleamed at his gill-lines and down his neck — old rites, burned into place. His hands, clasped behind his back, were scaled like polished armor, nails lacquered black.

  He was Quang, born of the Empire’s depth and dusk, shaped not by conquest, but by ritual.

  The relic pulsed again — and so did his thoughts.

  "Still unworthy," he murmured. "But no longer inert."

  And then the scent arrived.

  Sharp spice. Storm-wet stone. The quiet tension before a question with too many answers.

  Caedemon did not turn. He didn’t need to.

  “You’re late, Consul.”

  From behind came a soft laugh, layered in amusement and something unreadable — ancient and amused.

  “Time is a sandbox, dear Caedemon, and I play with it freely.”

  PillowHorror emerged from the vault’s haze — a ripple in the frost-lit gloom. Their ebony robes whispered like the sea through bone towers, silver trim catching the iceglow in fluid patterns. Gills fluttered delicately at their throat, releasing a fresh wave of that mineral-sweet aroma — part priest, part predator.

  Their yellow eyes gleamed — sharp, gleeful, predatory.

  They circled the relic slowly, claws laced behind their back, tail swaying in thoughtful arcs.

  “White,” they said at last. “How… sterile. It has forgotten even pain.”

  “It is controlled,” Caedemon replied.

  “It is chained,” PillowHorror corrected, their voice dropping to a low purr. “Sterilized and severed. This is not how our god breathes.”

  Caedemon’s eyes narrowed.

  “You play dangerous games, Consul.”

  “I am a dangerous game,” PillowHorror said, smiling wide enough to show the edges of their teeth. “The Eclipsed One stirs. The Pale Tide breathes beneath the surface again. And yet your precious Ministry of Silence still binds ice around fire.”

  Caedemon turned slowly to face them. Their visors locked.

  “The Empire must hold balance. Not birth rebellion.”

  “You mean obedience,” PillowHorror said. “To the tame gods. To the sundrowned law. And yet we both know who wrote the first language of balance.”

  They looked again at the shard.

  “It wasn’t Mahena. It wasn’t Lidos.”

  They stepped closer.

  “It was Dedisco.”

  Caedemon said nothing for a long time. The frost around them ticked and creaked — old wards adjusting to presence that bent reality like tide bends reed.

  “You claim to honor him,” he said. “But you sow chaos, destabilize operatives, and toy with those outside your caste.”

  “I remember him,” PillowHorror whispered. “And I see reflections of him in the child you chase. The little Emberkin. Pag.”

  They turned back, tail flicking with dark anticipation.

  “You will not catch him.”

  “I do not need to,” Caedemon replied coldly. “He is being led — and when the fire is gathered, I will be there when it burns itself out.”

  “You think that’s your choice?” PillowHorror asked, and now their voice was velvet over steel. “You think we decide when fire ends?”

  They smiled again.

  “Be careful, Caedemon. Even chains can melt.”

  They vanished then — no sound, no flare — only the scent of tide-wind and spice lingering behind.

  Caedemon stood unmoved.

  He stared at the white relic.

  And for the first time in years… he wondered if it was cold enough.