The southern skies were gray and cold as the gates of Vel Orreth came into view.
Even from miles away, Drex could feel it—order. Not peace. Not justice. But the brittle, suffocating order of a city too afraid to remember what freedom felt like.
Vel Orreth was a fortress masquerading as a jewel of the Crownlands. Silver towers stabbed the clouds. Walls gleamed with enchantments. But beneath the marble and gold, shadows moved.
Kaelith watched the banners fluttering above the gatehouses—black with the twin serpents of the Archivium, the empire's sacred order of historians and arcane recorders.
"Veckros Dhal controls the city's memory," she said. "He decides what history survives—and what is erased."
Drex narrowed his eyes. "Then he knows how to lie better than anyone."
They entered through the north gate, cloaked in merchant rags and dust. Kaelith had forged travel papers. Drex hated the lie, but he knew it was necessary. Not yet time to draw blades.
But that time was coming.
Soon.
---
Within the City
Vel Orreth pulsed with life—and silence.
No one spoke too loudly. No one strayed from their path. Enforcers in white-gold armor watched every corner, every step. And above them, black-robed archivists wandered like ghosts, their faces hidden behind porcelain masks.
"The Faceless," Kaelith murmured. "They write history with blood and ink."
Drex stared as a man was dragged through the square, bound in chains. A herald announced his crime: "Unauthorized preservation of forbidden texts."
A masked archivist raised a hand—and fire consumed the man where he knelt.
No one looked away.
No one screamed.
They just… kept walking.
Drex clenched his fists. "This place is a graveyard with a heartbeat."
Kaelith nodded. "And we're here to bury the corpse."
---
The Hall of Echoes
They made contact that night with a rebel cell hidden beneath the ruins of an old theatre—survivors, dissidents, truthkeepers.
Their leader was a sharp-eyed woman named Serin Tal. Former archivist. Exiled for questioning the Emperor's Lineage Edict. She welcomed them with cautious eyes and a blade strapped to her thigh.
"You want Dhal?" she said. "You're not the first. But you may be the last."
Drex met her gaze. "I don't plan to die here."
Serin tossed him a key made of obsidian. "Then use this. Opens the lower catacombs of the Archivium. Dhal keeps his personal sanctum there—behind seven locks, beneath twenty guards, and wrapped in warding spells that can liquefy your bones."
Kaelith raised an eyebrow. "Sounds fun."
---
Into the Deep
That night, they struck.
Through sewer tunnels and forgotten aqueducts, Kaelith unraveled wards while Drex silenced guards with steel and shadow.
They found the catacombs hidden beneath the central spire of the Archivium—a labyrinth of lost tomes, chained scrolls, and caged relics.
The air pulsed with enchantments.
They reached the seventh lock just as the alarms began to rise. Someone had noticed.
Kaelith hissed, "We're out of time."
Drex raised the sword.
It drank the ward in a burst of red light—and the door screamed open.
---
Veckros Dhal
Inside the sanctum, he waited.
Not in robes.
In armor.
Black and silver. Engraved with names.
He held a longstaff of soulsteel, crowned with a shard of mirrored crystal.
"Drex Malven," he said calmly. "You are an echo. A failed experiment. You should not exist."
Drex stepped forward. "You burned my brothers. You fed me to a god."
"You were reborn," Dhal said. "As a weapon. You should thank me."
"No," Drex said coldly. "I should kill you."
And then the chamber exploded into war.
---
The Battle of Memory
Dhal was no mere scribe. He wielded memory like a blade—casting illusions of Drex's past, forcing him to relive every death, every scream, every command he gave that sent good men to graves.
Kaelith dueled Dhal's summoned echoes while Drex fought through the weight of his guilt.
But the sword—his sword—sang louder.
> You are not what they made.
You are what you choose.
And Drex chose.
He drove the blade through Dhal's staff, shattering it.
The Archivist-General staggered.
"You don't know what you've done," he gasped.
"I know exactly," Drex said.
And he ended him.
---
Aftermath
They burned the records.
Every false history. Every black scroll. Every lie Dhal had preserved.
Vel Orreth would no longer be a city of masks.
Kaelith stood beside Drex as the tower collapsed behind them. "That's two."
Drex nodded.
Five remained.
And the King's shadow loomed ever closer.