The Spire shook as if the world itself disliked what had just happened.
Stone walls cracked. The floor glowed faintly where the vow had rooted itself.
Ashling stood at the center, blade in hand, vow burning through her veins like molten iron.
It wasn't just Keiran's promise anymore.
It was hers.
The air tore open.
From the rift stepped the Concordium's answer.
Not Echo-Redactors.
Not Archivists.
Not even the usual enforcers of memory-law.
But her.
The Libramancer known only as The Ninth Seal.
A woman draped in scrolls of silver light, her eyes glowing with written runes. Every step she took rewrote the ground behind her, erasing its own cracks as though reality itself bowed to her will.
Nyrelle froze. "They sent a Seal-bearer… this is worse than I thought."
Lys' hand went to his blade but trembled before he even unsheathed it.
The Ninth Seal spoke in a voice like a page being turned:
"The First Vow has awakened. You have trespassed beyond forgiveness. Return it—or the Convergence ends here."
Ashling tightened her grip. "I can't return it. It's bound now. To him. To me."
The Libramancer raised one glowing hand.
Words—actual words—peeled off her palm like molten ink, forming a circle in the air.
A Severance Glyph.
The same kind once used on Keiran himself.
Nyrelle gasped. "She means to tear the vow back out of you."
The Spire's walls flickered again. Images of Keiran's youth rippled across the stone—moments of defiance, laughter, rage.
The vow responded, flaring through Ashling's body, blade, and anchor at once.
Two forces now filled the Spire:
The Libramancer's erasure, absolute, cold, perfect.
The vow's defiance, raw, human, unyielding.
When the two collided, the chamber screamed.
The Libramancer advanced. "You think vows matter? Memory is a river we control. We decide what survives."
The blade in Ashling's hand throbbed like a living thing. Keiran's voice burst through the anchor, shouting over the chaos:
"Then drown them."
Ashling swung the blade downward.
Not at the Libramancer—at the floor.
The vow carved through the Spire itself, splitting stone and memory alike. The chamber erupted with remembrance—names, faces, years the Concordium had erased came flooding back, written in light across the collapsing walls.
The Libramancer staggered as the vow's power fought her erasure.
Lys dragged Nyrelle toward the exit as debris rained down.
"Ashling! The Spire's breaking apart!"
But Ashling couldn't stop now. The vow wasn't done.
Through her, Keiran's promise screamed its final line into the Libramancer's face:
"If you erase me, I will return louder."
The Ninth Seal unleashed her glyph.
Ashling unleashed the vow.
The collision wasn't fire or light.
It was memory itself tearing in two.
When the dust settled, half the Spire was gone—simply gone, erased by the Libramancer's power. The other half blazed with memories written back into existence by the vow.
Neither side had won.
But the Convergence thread in Ashling's chest now blazed:
Thread alignment: 81%.
Vow anchored. Severance countermeasures failing.
The Libramancer retreated through her rift, face unreadable. "So be it. The Concordium will answer in full."
The rift sealed behind her.
Ashling collapsed to one knee, the vow still burning through her bones.
Nyrelle ran to her side. "Ashling… what have you done?"
Ashling looked at the blade in her hand, still pulsing with Keiran's vow.
"Started a war," she whispered.