Chapter 14 – Veins of the Hidden City
By day, Shinya gleamed like the crown of civilization. Golden banners fluttered across bridges, bells rang from tall spires, and priests in white robes recited chants that rolled like thunder down cobbled streets. The city looked unshakable, a monument to order and faith.
But night unstitched that illusion.
Moro and Kaya followed Herbet through alleys narrow as veins, where the air stank of incense and rot. The festival lanterns glowed only in the high streets. Here, in the low belly of the city, shadows curled against walls like waiting predators.
Moro felt eyes on them. Unseen, unblinking. Watching from shutter cracks, from doorways half-closed. The silence pressed against his chest like a weight.
"People say Shinya belongs to the Sanctuary," Kaya whispered. She adjusted the hood Herbet had given her. "But this—this feels like another world entirely."
Herbet glanced over his shoulder, a dry smile tugging his lips. "The Sanctuary controls the skin of the city. But skin can hide disease. What lies underneath is older, wilder. Shinya doesn't belong to them—it festers beneath them."
They crossed a sagging bridge where the planks groaned underfoot. Beneath, dark water lapped against the stone banks. At the far end, the glow of torches revealed a hidden marketplace.
Moro slowed, staring.
Dozens of stalls clustered in a cavern hollowed beneath collapsed stone. Here, no priests walked. No guards patrolled. The merchants had eyes sharp as blades and hands stained with ink or blood.
One table displayed cracked relics—a crown missing its jewels, fragments of ivory carved with twisting runes. Another stall offered bundles of yellowed parchment, some burned at the edges, others bound in wire. Men leaned close, haggling in whispers. Vials glimmered faintly with liquid that pulsed as though alive.
"Matrix residue," Herbet said quietly. "Scraped from the bodies of the dead, stolen from the veins of machines. A single vial can buy a man's silence for a year—or his loyalty for a lifetime."
Moro's jaw tightened. The stench of it made his stomach knot. To see the Matrix—something so vast, so alive—reduced to a glowing trinket felt like sacrilege.
As they moved through the market, a woman brushed against Moro. Her hands were cold, her hood drawn low. She pressed something into his palm.
A coin. Heavy.
He lifted it to the torchlight. An eye, etched in fine detail, bled into the coils of a serpent.
"The Forgotten Circle watches," the woman hissed before disappearing into the crowd.
Moro frowned, closing his fist around the coin. Its edges were warm, almost alive.
Kaya leaned close. "What is it?"
"I don't know," Moro said.
Herbet's jaw tightened. His gaze lingered on the coin a moment too long. "A warning. Or an invitation. Both can cut the same way. Keep it hidden."
---
Hours later, they descended into tunnels cut beneath the city like arteries. The air here was damp, thick with the smell of stone and mold. Their footsteps echoed faintly, as if the earth itself listened.
The tunnels opened into a vast chamber. Torches hissed in iron brackets, casting light across walls lined with shelves.
Books. Scrolls. Leather-bound tomes stacked to the ceiling. Some were rotting, others pristine, others wrapped in chains as if even parchment could not be trusted.
Kaya's eyes widened. "The Sanctuary burns books like these. I've seen the pyres myself."
Herbet moved among the shelves, his fingers brushing spines with something like reverence. "And for every book they burn, another is smuggled here. Knowledge is the rebellion's sharpest blade. Steel rusts. Memory does not."
Moro trailed his hand across the cracked leather of one tome. Its title had been scratched away, the letters gouged out. Curiosity gnawed at him. Slowly, he opened it.
The pages shivered beneath his fingers.
The ink crawled.
Symbols twisted into shapes that made his vision blur. The letters shifted like water, rearranging into patterns that pulsed with faint light. For a heartbeat, he thought he heard voices—not with his ears, but in his skull.
Moro.
The Matrix within him stirred. A tremor ran through his body.
Suddenly the chamber was gone. The rebels were gone. Kaya was gone.
He stood before a tower stretching into an endless void. Its stones writhed with the same symbols, climbing higher and higher into darkness. At its peak, a light burned—a cold, blue flame.
The air vibrated.
A voice, vast and hollow, whispered across the void. "The wolf's child must climb. Blood will bind the path. Hunger will seal it."
Moro's chest tightened. He tried to move, but the void held him still. The flame pulsed once, twice—then exploded into a thousand shards that seared into his vision.
He gasped, staggering back into the chamber. The book snapped shut in his hands. Sweat dripped from his brow.
Kaya gripped his arm. "Moro! What happened? You went pale as stone."
He shook his head, chest heaving. "Nothing. Just—just words. Nothing I can name."
Herbet's eyes narrowed. He studied Moro as though the boy were a puzzle whose pieces shifted in ways no one could predict. But he said nothing.
---
Far above, the castle stood like a crown of black marble against the night.
In the throne chamber, King Hanks stood before a great crystal. Its surface rippled with violet light, forming the ghostly outlines of figures cloaked in shadows—the Celtic High Council.
Their voices overlapped in a chorus, neither male nor female.
"The anomaly grows," they intoned. "The boy carries the Matrix spark. He draws eyes. He draws hunger. He will not be ignored."
Hanks' jaw clenched. His hands folded behind his back. "He is no threat to Shinya. He has struck at your storehouses, nothing more. Perhaps you should ask yourselves why he strikes there."
The crystal pulsed sharply, as though angered. The chamber vibrated with their reply.
"You forget your place, Hanks. Your throne is not yours by right. It is ours by gift. You will obey, or the gift will be reclaimed."
His breath came slow and heavy. He felt the weight of years pressing into his shoulders—the choices he had made, the chains wrapped around him, the crown that cut deeper than it shone.
He lowered his head, though bitterness burned his tongue. "What do you command?"
"Fetch him," the Council hissed. "The boy and his companion. Bring them to heel. If you will not deliver, we shall deliver in your stead."
The crystal dimmed. The voices faded. Silence filled the chamber.
Hanks remained still for a long time. His reflection in the crystal looked older than he remembered, his eyes hollower.
Finally, he turned.
In the great hall beyond, ten warriors knelt in rows of black-and-gold armor. Their helms were shaped like lions' fangs, their cloaks trimmed with silver thread.
The Royal Guards.
Each had been trained since childhood, chosen not for bloodline but for strength, loyalty, and silence. They were bound not by law, not by faith, but by oath—to Hanks alone.
"Rise," Hanks said, his voice low, each syllable edged with steel.
The guards rose as one.
"You will find the strangers," he continued. "The boy called Moro, and the girl Kaya. Bring them to me. Unharmed."
Their armor clattered like drums as they bowed, a single unified motion. Then they turned, their footsteps echoing through the marble corridors as they left to begin the hunt.
Hanks remained behind, staring into the shadows of his hall. His heart was a battlefield, torn between defiance and duty.
---
Beneath the city, Moro rolled the serpent coin in his palm. The torchlight flickered across the etched eye, making it seem alive.
The whispers from the book still haunted him, a chill lodged deep in his bones. He thought of the tower, the flame, the voice that spoke of climbing.
Kaya touched his shoulder. "We're not safe here. You feel it too, don't you?"
He nodded slowly. "Shinya isn't a city. It's a labyrinth. Every step takes us deeper into its throat."
Herbet, standing in the torchlight's edge, gave a thin smile. "And the deeper you go, the more it swallows you. Welcome to the veins of the hidden city, Moro. If you want answers, you'll have to bleed for them."
Moro tightened his grip on the coin. Somewhere above, boots were marching. The hunt had already begun.
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