Chapter 9: The Name Beneath the Card
The Iron Shrine wasn't on any map. People in Whispersteel called it Sector H-Nine now, if they bothered to speak of it at all. Most didn't. That part of the city was a blind spot, buried under generations of Arc interference and industrial collapse. There were rumors of ghosts there, but they were the polite kind. The other rumors about memory slippage, melted gloves, and people who screamed in languages no one knew were harder to ignore.
Aleister went anyway.
He had not forgotten the Watcher's words. "The shrine remembers things your blood has forgotten." He had repeated it to himself all night. It sounded like prophecy. It also sounded like madness. And still, when dawn came, he found his feet walking.
Whispersteel's lower levels weren't built for walking. The air smelled like boiled copper and rotting plast. Arc condensers spat blue mist from rusted vents, and the walkways groaned like they were protesting each step. Still, he pressed forward, clutching his cloak tighter around him. His card pulsed faintly against his chest, not with heat, but with presence. Like it was leading him.
He passed the old market ruins first. The metal stalls were collapsed, half-eaten by rootrot and Arc fungus. A flicker of motion caught his eye, a girl in grey robes ducked behind a broken column. He paused, watching. She stared back. Then vanished into the dark.
He moved on.
Sector H-Nine sat at the edge of the city's industrial graveyard. Great iron cranes lay toppled like bones. Arc pylons still blinked with dying runes, though none had power anymore. Aleister slowed as he reached the barrier: a thin ribbon of chain draped between two cracked posts, warning of Arc instability ahead. It didn't stop him. Nothing could.
The Iron Shrine rose like a blister from the earth. Not a tower, but a dome, half-collapsed, its metal skin warped by age and heat. It was not sacred in any way he understood. There were no symbols, no idols, no offerings. Just burnt metal. Silence. And something underneath it all. Watching.
He stepped inside.
Immediately, the air changed. Heavy. Electric. The kind of pressure that made your joints ache and your teeth itch. His card responded again. It lifted slightly from his chest, not glowing, but alive.
He walked deeper.
The walls of the shrine were covered in old circuit traces, long dead. Each line felt like a sentence he could almost read, but not quite. They curved into spirals, crosshatched with strange etchings. It was less a machine, more a mausoleum. A place that had once been full of meaning, now forgotten even by the ground it sat on.
In the center of the shrine was a dais. It was nothing special. A square of cold metal, ringed by broken cables. But when Aleister stepped onto it, the air around him rippled.
His card floated higher.
And for the first time, it flipped itself.
The rune on the front, normally empty, began to shift. Not glow, not burn, but transform. Lines appeared. Not in white, but in shadow. As if the absence of light was being carved into it by something unseen.
Then he heard it.
A name. Not spoken aloud, but whispered into the hollow behind his heart.
It wasn't in any language he knew. Not Old Earth, not Alcrayan Dialect, not even Arcscript. But he understood it.
Because it was his.
He stumbled back, breath catching in his throat. The card dropped into his palm, heavier than it should have been. And something clicked inside his head. Like a lock that had been rusted shut for years had finally shifted.
Behind him, a voice spoke.
"You heard it, didn't you?"
He spun around.
The girl in grey stood at the edge of the dais. Pale, quiet, her hair bound in simple cords. She didn't carry a weapon. Didn't wear an Arcglove. And yet, her presence made the room feel colder.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"A listener. Like you." She pointed to his card. "What did it show you?"
He hesitated. "A name."
"Good. That means it's begun."
Aleister narrowed his eyes. "What is this place?"
"The Iron Shrine was built before the cards. Before the gloves. Before the lie."
"What lie?"
She tilted her head. "That power comes from runes. That you need permission to awaken. That you need their tools to be real."
His hand closed around the card.
"You're saying I'm not the only one?"
She smiled. Not kindly. Almost sadly.
"There are others. But none like you."
"Why me?"
"Because your card isn't empty," she said. "It's full of something they were afraid of. Something they buried. And now, it's remembering."
He didn't know what to say. The truth of her words felt heavy in his bones.
"I need answers," he said.
"You'll get them," she replied, turning toward the broken archway behind her. "But not here. This was only the door."
She stepped into the dark, her figure vanishing into shadow.
"Where are we going?"
She paused just once.
"To meet the others who remember."
Then she was gone.
Aleister stood alone in the Iron Shrine, the name still echoing in his skull, the card in his hand warm with something more than energy.
Memory.
And beneath his skin, something ancient stirred. Not a beast. Not a rune.
A truth that was finally ready to be known.