The invitation wasn't paper. It was cardstock, thick and creamy, a relic from an age that could afford such casual extravagance. The wax seal, a stylized lion's head, was a perfect, arrogant crimson. It felt heavier than any piece of scrap Kael had ever salvaged, heavy with the weight of a summons that couldn't be refused.
"He called you 'User Kael, of Enclave 7'," Maya said, her voice a low murmur in the sterile quiet of their domicile. She sat on her cot, meticulously cleaning her kinetic spear, a ritual of focus and control. "Not 'Scion Kael'. Not 'Provisional Kael'. It was a title. A designation. He's already put you in a box."
Kael stopped his pacing. The movement was a frantic, useless bleed-off of the anxiety thrumming through him. "What kind of box?"
"A valuable one," she answered without looking up. "An interesting one. Something to be collected."
He ran a hand through his hair. The three ghosts in his soul were a low, discordant hum. The Hound, Lyra, scented a challenge from a rival alpha pack and wanted to bare its teeth. The Scuttler felt the walls of the city closing in, a tomb with no cracks to hide in. But it was the Stalker that was the loudest. It didn't feel threat; it saw a system. A vast, complex political machine, and they were a foreign piece of code being called for inspection. It was looking for the exploit.
"We can't go," he said, the words feeling thin and foolish even to him.
"We can't refuse," Maya countered, her logic as clean and sharp as the edge of her spear. She finally looked at him, her dark eyes holding a weary pragmatism that made her seem far older than her years. "A direct summons from a House Lord? Refusing isn't a 'no, thank you.' It's an insult. It's a challenge. We're two kids from a frontier fort with a list of secrets a mile long. We can't afford to make an enemy like that."
"He's already an enemy," Kael insisted. "He's a Valerius. They own the hunt for the Adamant Tortoise. They own half the ingredients on this list." He tapped the pouch on his belt where the data slate lay dormant, a cold weight against his hip. "This isn't an invitation, Maya. It's an acquisition."
"Then we let him try to acquire us," she said, her resolve a quiet, unshakeable thing. "We go. We listen. We lie. We do what we've been doing. We survive." She stood, her limp almost unnoticeable now, a testament to her own stubborn, silent endurance. "What's the alternative, Kae? Run? They'd hunt us for sport."
She was right. The technician in him saw the cold, brutal schematic of their situation. They were caught in the gears of a machine far larger than any Chimera. You didn't run from the machine. You learned its operating language, and you prayed it had a flaw you could exploit.
The escort arrived at ten-hundred, two hours before the summons. Another power play. They weren't the same retainers from the market. These two were older, their blue armor showing the faint, almost invisible scars of real combat. Their Aethel Frames were deep, steady rivers of power, disciplined and old. They didn't speak. They didn't need to. Their presence was a command.
The journey was a lesson in social geography. They rode in a silent, gliding transport, a vehicle so smooth Kael felt the lack of vibration as a physical shock. They ascended. Past the Outer Ring's grit and grime, through the bustling, commercial mid-levels, and into the rarefied air of the Core spires. The architecture grew cleaner, more elegant. The recycled air smelled less of people and more of faint, expensive chemicals. The very light seemed different here, filtered and soft. It was a city stratified not just by height, but by proximity to the sins of the world. The higher you went, the easier it was to forget the Scar existed.
The Valerius estate was not a fortress. It was a statement. It occupied the entire top three floors of a central spire, its walls not of ferrocrete but of a dark, polished material that seemed to drink the light. Kael saw gardens behind crystalline walls, filled with impossible, pre-Fall flora and tamed, ornamental Chimeras that glittered like living sculptures. This wasn't a product of the Fall. This was a piece of the world that had caused it, preserved in amber.
They were led not to a throne room or a grand hall, but to a quiet study. The walls were lined with actual books, their spines of leather and paper an impossible, decadent sight. A vast viewport looked out over the sprawling geometry of Enclave 3, a god's-eye view of the world Valerius owned.
A man stood by the viewport, his back to them. He was old, dressed in a simple, dark robe that did nothing to hide the frailty of his frame. Kael felt for his Aethel signature and found… almost nothing. It wasn't the roaring furnace of a warrior like Jax or the chaotic thrum of Zane. It was a quiet so profound, so dense, it was like a black hole in the Aethel-scape. It didn't project power. It possessed it.
The man turned. His face was a web of fine wrinkles, his eyes a pale, watery blue. He looked like someone's grandfather. He smiled, a thin, polite expression that didn't reach his eyes.
"User Kael. User Maya. Welcome." His voice was soft, raspy with age. "I am Lord Valerius. Please, forgive an old man his curiosity. It is not every day we have the pleasure of hosting talent from the outer enclaves."
He gestured to two chairs placed before a large, ornate desk. The invitation was clear. Sit. Be judged.
They sat. Maya was a study in stillness, her hands resting in her lap, her posture relaxed but ready. Kael felt like a collection of loose, rattling parts.
"Your performance in the Gauntlet was… illuminating," Valerius began, taking his seat behind the desk. He steepled his fingers, his gaze resting on Kael. It was not an aggressive look. It was the patient, appraising gaze of a master craftsman examining a strange new material. "The official registry lists two Echoes. A Shard Hound and an Adamant Tortoise. One pure aggression, the other absolute stasis. An engineer would call them incompatible. Yet you have forged them into something… new."
He paused, letting the word hang in the air. New. Dangerous. Desirable.
"Tell me," he said, his voice a silken whisper. "How did you solve the problem of rejection?"
Kael's mouth was dry. This was it. The probe, aimed directly at the heart of his secret. He had a dozen prepared lies, a hundred evasions. They all felt like paper shields.
"It was… a matter of resonance, my Lord," Kael said, the words feeling clumsy, technical, safe. "A unique compatibility between the Echoes. My own Frame's… affinity for Flow seems to act as a bridge. It's not something I fully control. A fluke."
Valerius's smile widened, but it was still just a shape his mouth made. "A fluke. Of course." He looked at Kael, but his next words were for Maya. "And your own ability, User Maya. To create such a precise, sustained illusion in the Shattered Core… that is no simple Glimmer Moth trick. That speaks to a remarkable level of control."
Maya met his gaze without flinching. "I was well-motivated, my Lord."
"Indeed." Valerius turned his attention back to Kael. The grandfatherly mask was gone. In its place was the cold, ancient hunger of the lion on his seal. "Motivation. Flukes. Resonance. These are words for children and mystics. I am a student of power, User Kael. I see a new grammar being written. A language of creation where we have only ever known the vocabulary of destruction. You did not simply wield two Echoes. You composed them."
The air in the room grew thick, heavy. Kael felt the crushing gravity of the old man's Aethel Frame, the silent, absolute pressure of it. He was not just being questioned. He was being dissected. Lord Valerius knew. He might not have the name for it, the science, the forbidden text from a dead man's slate, but he knew the shape of the truth. He had seen the result of the equation, and now he was demanding to see the work.
"You are a new kind of power, Kael of Enclave 7," Valerius said, his voice no longer a whisper, but the quiet, certain rumble of a gathering storm. "And in this city, new power is a thing that must be understood. It must be… cultivated."
The polite welcome was over. The true summons had been given.