Seraph struck with a relentless, machine-gun barrage of questions. The interrogation was merciless, showing not a flicker of empathy for a child who'd only just crawled out from the suffocating shadow of a ritual sacrifice. To any observer, Seraph's heart appeared to be forged from cold, unyielding stone, polished by years of his own suffering.
"Seraph! How the world can you be so callous?" Marina interjected, her professional mask slipping as her displeasure flared into a visible heat. "Nahreb's only just woken up! His mind's a labyrinth of confusion right now; he can't possibly untangle those memories yet, let alone answer your bloody cross-examination!"
As a healer, her compassion for the young was boundless and fierce; to witness such clinical brutality dealt to her patient was an affront to her very soul. It was as if Seraph were trying to perform surgery with a claymore.
"I remember... nothing," Nahreb replied, his voice curt and hollow, echoing in the ivory-white room.
"You mean to say—!"
"Seraph!!" Marina's voice cut him off with a sharp, vibrating finality.
The young man narrowed his eyes, casting a gaze of profound, jagged mistrust upon the boy. He could smell the lie, but the Infirmary Hall was Marina's sanctum, and within these walls, her word was absolute law. Though suspicion gnawed at his gut like a starved animal, he was forced to bury his inquiries for another time.
As the tension in the hall thickened to a stifling degree, a scarlet-flame letter-plane streaked through the air toward Seraph. It didn't just fly; it hunted him down, unfurling with preternatural smoothness upon arrival. It manifested as a pristine envelope that bore no trace of ever being folded, its edges glowing with a faint, residual heat.
Seraph reached out, breaking the heavy scarlet seal. The wax bore the Grandmaster's sigil—an unmistakable, intricate cipher that announced the sender's identity to both Seraph and Marina before the parchment was even touched.
The young man's eyes swept across the flowing script with predatory speed. In a blur of motion, he secured the envelope within the secret folds of his cloak, his expression unreadable. Though Marina held her tongue, her gaze—bright with a child-like, irrepressible curiosity—betrayed her as she watched the high-level missive vanish.
"The Grandmaster's summoned me. I've gotta go," Seraph stated, turning toward her with a stiff formality.
"Is it serious?" Marina asked, her voice laced with a mounting, sharp concern.
Typically, the Highmasters and the Grandmaster remained aloof and untouchable, drifting through the upper tiers of policy and the guardians of the law. They dwelt in the shadows of high governance, far removed from the daily grind of the common magis. The internal machinery of the Sanctus was usually left to the Masters. For a mere magis to be personally summoned by the Grandmaster was a rare, portentous event—one that usually preceded a promotion or an execution.
"Nothing dire—just questions 'bout the Piperclowns and my ascension. She wants to discuss it in private," Seraph replied, his tone as flat and grey as a tombstone.
"Then go, quickly... don't keep her waiting," Marina urged, her worry eclipsed for a moment by a flicker of fierce, maternal pride.
Marina, like Seraph, was an orphan of a broken world. She'd lived within the Sanctus since her youth, her natural affinity for the restorative arts detected early by the order's scouts. Though she'd joined the Sanctum only two years before him, their shared history had forged an unbreakable, silent bond. They were companions of the cradle; she'd long been the protective elder sister to the boy who'd spent his life bleeding in the training pits.
In the span of a few winters, she'd risen to become the Master of the Healing Department, yet she'd been forced to witness Seraph's enduring plight from the sidelines. For years, he was the boy she had to shield. Now, he stood before her a man grown, on the very cusp of ascension. To witness his evolution and rising rank filled her with a vicarious joy that transcended any simple words.
Seraph offered a final, sharp nod and turned to depart, but after a few heavy strides, he halted. He looked back at the boy, his gaze burning with a sudden, electric luminescence.
"When we meet again... I'll have those answers," Seraph declared, his eyes glowing with an unfiltered, terrifying power.
Without waiting for a rebuttal, the young man vanished into the shadowed corridor. Nahreb remained silent, his unblinking, violet gaze following Seraph until the magis was swallowed by the dark.
✧ . ✶ . ✡ . ✶ . ✧
Seraph emerged from the Infirmary's sterile embrace. Within the Stormcloud Citadel, the healing ward was sequestered in the Eastern Sub-Basilica, a place of quiet recovery and the private quarters for Marina and her staff.
The Sanctus Council Chamber, however, sat within the Central Basilica, while the Grandmaster's personal sanctum occupied the very apex of the Sentry Tower. The Central Basilica loomed seven stories high, serviced by shimmering mageia lifts for the convenience of the elite. Yet, the Central Basilica served primarily as the residence for High Warlocks and elite magis; access was strictly forbidden without a mandate. The Grandmaster's missive was Seraph's only key to breach that sacred threshold.
The winding stairwells and high galleries were flanked by ancient artefacts and knight-golems. These suits of armour were complex mageia constructs, some carved into the terrifying likeness of beasts or giant birds of prey. To a cursory glance, they mirrored the sparring golems of the pits, yet their latent power was manifold more formidable.
The young magis could sense the raw, humming energy within the circuitry etched into the marble floors surrounding them. Even a fleeting proximity revealed the lethal potency of these silent sentinels.
Seraph stepped out from the mageia lift and into a vast, silent void. The seventh floor of the Central Basilica was a panoramic spire, its walls punctuated by airy terraces and expansive windows that looked out over the clouds. At the tower's core stood a monolithic, seamless wall without a single visible portal. Guarding the expanse were two titan-class knight-golems, their massive blades levelled directly at Seraph's throat the moment he stepped forward. These were the Sentinels of the Grandmaster.
Though he'd lived within the Sanctus for a decade—and in his soul, called this fortress home—he'd never once crossed this threshold. He surveyed the long corridor with a steady, searching gaze, the true purpose of his summons still a shrouded mystery.
Suddenly, the heart of the seamless wall stirred. Between the Sentinels, a gate manifested from the bare, unyielding masonry. A circular portal appeared, emblazoned with a seven-pointed star at its centre and flanked by tens of thousands of etched, glowing ancient glyphs. It was a gateway fortified by layer upon layer of defensive mageia.
A brilliance flared as the gate began to rotate with a heavy, metallic groan. The moment it activated, the roar of grinding gears and clockwork echoed forth—a masterwork of energia engineering and arcane craft. Interlocking teeth turned, and the gate slid wide with a sharp hiss of escaping air. Simultaneously, the two guardians sheathed their steel in a perfect, clattering unison and stood down, granting him passage.
The moment Seraph crossed the threshold, the portal sealed behind him with a heavy thud. Looking forward, he felt as though he'd stepped into the very heart of the macrocosmic.
Above his head, stellar suns and planetary spheres drifted in a velvet void. In the distance, clusters of stars glimmered like diamond dust, orbiting in a silent, eternal dance. It was as if he stood within the true architecture of the universe, far above the petty squabbles of men.
Beneath his boots lay no ordinary rug, but a Chronos-Tapestry woven with preternatural precision. The fabric itself served as a functional horologe, its threads ticking in synchronicity with every passing second; it was a relic forged from the marvels of Ancient Arcanus. To stand in this chamber was to reside at the nexus of time and the cosmos—the true seat of the Grandmaster.
"Does the room please you?" a voice of absolute, bone-deep authority resonated through the void.
Seraph turned to find a woman of commanding presence standing at the room's centre. This was Grandmaster Eldra, the sovereign of this celestial sanctum. Eldra possessed the visage of a woman in her thirtieth winter, yet such youthful elegance was a calculated lie; in truth, she'd seen eighty years pass from this tower. She was a living relic of the Demon War, a survivor of an era defined by ash and blood.
"Grandmaster Eldra," Seraph greeted, inclining his head in a gesture of profound respect.
"Sit," Eldra commanded, her voice brook no argument.