The panda beastman growled low. "That's unfair."
"It is," Mahir Ken said. "You were a leader because you wanted something better."
The Custodian laughed, but it sounded like stone collapsing. "Better, worse—mere directions on a map. I am beyond such labels. I am entropy's shepherd, if you will. I kept the worst sealed because someone had to. But the sealing is a conversation, not a cage. It expected reciprocity—a tending, a remembering, a vigilance. Years of silence corrode even the strongest wards."
Elara felt a cold prickle at the base of her skull. "If your wards corroded, why not call for help? You could have awakened keepers, mages—anyone."
"Because I was bound," the Custodian said. "Because I was told to be still. Because those who made the seals called them mercy. Because I was made to believe that silence would become salvation. But silence has its own hunger."
