"It isn't a monument," he murmured, understanding settling over him with cold clarity. "It's an anchor."
Every rewritten future in the region passed through that bell. If it fell, if its silence was ever broken by the wrong hand, the academy's true history would disappear forever, buried beneath whatever the Editor chose to write in its place.
Kael rose slowly to his feet, his expression hardening with resolve.
"I'll reach it first," he said quietly, and disappeared into the shadows without another word.
