The lobby of the Tower of Silence was not merely cold, it was a mausoleum of arrested physics.
Dozens of Hollows—the King's soulless soldiers—stood frozen in jagged, unnatural poses, encased in the glacial sculptures Ylaeth had created. The ice wasn't clear; it was hazy, shifting slightly if one looked at it from the corner of their eye, as if the seconds trapped inside were trying to vibrate their way out.
The air was biting cold, mist curling off the ice blocks like dry ice.
Ogdi stepped over a frozen arm. His chest throbbed where the spike had pierced him in the mill—a phantom echo of a death he had Exchanged away.
"Don't touch them," Ylaeth whispered. She was leaning against a pillar, her skin pale, veins of blue light fading from her neck. The massive time-freeze had drained her. "The ice is time-locked. If you break the ice, the time catches up instantly. The kinetic energy of the water impact... they won't just thaw. They'll explode."
"Understood," Ogdi said. He looked at Murik. "Old man, block the door. Use the rebar. If anyone melts, let me know."
Murik grunted, jamming the iron bar into the handles of the main entrance with trembling hands. "I used to paint landscapes," he muttered, wiping sweat and grime from his forehead. "Now I'm a doorman for teenage gods."
"The elevator is dead," Ogdi noted, looking at the dark shaft. "We walk."
The Ascent - Floor 30
The Tower was empty. Disturbingly so. It wasn't just that the guards were gone; it was that the life was gone.
The offices they passed were pristine, sterile environments of chrome and glass. Coffee cups sat on desks, mold growing on the liquid in perfect circular colonies. Screens displayed static that didn't hiss—it just pulsed, a visual rhythm of nothingness.
"Where are the people?" Ogdi asked, his voice sounding too loud in the oppressive quiet. "This is the broadcast hub. There should be technicians. Directors."
"Purged," Ylaeth said. Her voice was hollow. She stopped at a window, looking out at the burning city below. The fires of the East formed a grim necklace around the throat of the slums. "The King doesn't trust people to transmit his silence. He automated it."
She pointed to the center of the room.
A massive, pulsating server rack stood there like a black monolith. It hummed with a low, dissonant frequency that vibrated in Ogdi's teeth. Cables ran from it into the floor like roots drinking poison.
"It's not just broadcasting silence," Ylaeth murmured, tilting her head as if listening to a song no one else could hear. "It's broadcasting a suggestion. A low-wave frequency in the Lattice."
Ogdi approached the server. "What does it say?"
Ylaeth closed her eyes. "Obedience is sleep. Sleep is safety."
Ogdi felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. The King wasn't just burning the slums; he was hypnotizing the survivors. He was lulling the cattle before the slaughter.
"We need a secure line," Ogdi said. "I need to call Eloi. We can't plan a coup from the streets."
He placed his hand on the server. The metal was warm, almost feverish. The black sigil on his palm—the mark of the Dragon—pulsed in response to the massive data flow.
"Edit the Output," Ogdi commanded.
He didn't try to break the encryption. That was math, and math took time. Instead, he edited the destination.
Exchange.
He braced for a cut, a bruise, a fracture.
But the server was a machine of signals. It demanded a sensory toll.
SCREEEECH.
A phantom sound tore through Ogdi's skull—the sound of dial-up static amplified to a scream. His vision inverted for a split second; he saw colors as sounds, the red lights of the server tasting like copper on his tongue. He gasped, staggering back as blood trickled from his ear.
The frequency shifted. The server lights turned from red to green.
"Channel open," Ogdi gasped, spitting the copper taste from his mouth. "Patching into the Prime Minister's private frequency."
Static hissed. Then, a voice. Smooth, calm, and unmistakably dangerous.
"Mr. Num," Eloi Raventhir's voice filled the room. "You've been busy. I see smoke in the East. Was that you?"
"The smoke is the King," Ogdi replied flatly. "The ice is me. We need an extraction. And we need a room where the walls don't have ears."
"The Tower is compromised," Eloi said, his tone shifting from amused to urgent. "Get to the roof. You have three minutes before the aerial drones intercept you."
"Three minutes?" Murik shouted from the stairwell. "My knees need ten!"
"Then we fall," Ogdi said.
He grabbed Ylaeth's hand. He grabbed Murik's collar.
"To the Roof. Now."
They burst onto the rooftop helipad just as the sky screamed.
Three sleek, triangular drones—Hunter-Killers—dropped from the clouds. Their rotors were silent, but their weapon systems whined as they charged.
"Target Lock," a mechanical voice boomed.
"Murik! Smoke!" Ogdi yelled.
Murik didn't hesitate. He slashed the air with his charcoal stick, summoning a thick, billowing cloud of unnatural darkness.
The drones fired blindly. Thwip-thwip-thwip. Bullets chewed up the concrete inches from Ogdi's feet.
Then, a roar.
A heavy transport craft, painted matte black with no markings, surged up from the side of the building like a surfacing whale. The side door slid open.
Inside, a pilot in a full-face helmet gestured frantically.
"Jump!" Ogdi commanded.
"Are you insane?" Murik shrieked.
Ogdi didn't argue. He shoved Murik. The old man flailed, screaming, and landed on the metal deck of the transport. Ylaeth followed, floating gracefully across the gap.
Ogdi turned. A drone was lining up a shot.
"Increase the Distance."
He pushed the concept of the drone away.
Exchange.
A capillary burst in his eye, blurring his vision red. The drone jerked backward mid-air, as if hit by an invisible hammer, its aim ruined.
Ogdi leaped. He hit the deck of the transport, rolling.
"Go! Go! Go!"
The transport banked hard, diving toward the street just as the rooftop exploded in a ball of drone fire.
The Ashed Chamber (Physical)
Now, they stood deep underground.
This was the Ashed Chamber, the room Ogdi had only heard rumors of—a place beneath Tirvan Hall where the State's darkest secrets were kept.
The walls were curved obsidian, absorbing the hum of the ventilation. The table was a void that swallowed light, a perfect circle of negation.
Eloi Raventhir stood at the head of the table. He looked impeccable, despite the civil war brewing above. Beside him sat Solathe, the Empath, her eyes closed as she scanned Ogdi's group for deceit. Her presence felt like a physical weight in the room, a pressure on the temples.
And Kai, the exile, sat spinning a dagger on the table. The blade moved with a hypnotic rhythm.
"You brought strays," Kai noted, looking at Murik. "The old man smells like regret."
"The old man can turn you into a doodle," Murik snapped, clutching his rebar. He looked terrified, trembling in the presence of such power, but his pride was holding him upright.
"He's with me," Ogdi said, stepping forward. "He understands the Lattice in ways you don't."
Eloi raised a hand. Silence fell. It was heavier than the silence in the Tower.
"We are past introductions," Eloi said. "The King has initiated Protocol Zero. He is burning the outer districts to condense the population. He wants them herded into the central zones."
"Why?" Ylaeth asked. She was staring at the obsidian table, fascinated by how it dampened her own hum.
"Because he is building a Sacrificial Array," Ogdi realized. The pieces clicked. "The 'Filth' he talks about... he isn't just killing them. He's using their deaths to fuel something."
"Correct," Eloi said. He tapped the table. A holographic map of the country appeared, rising from the black surface in lines of red light. "He plans to separate the Lattice of our nation from the higher plane's. To do that, he needs a massive release of soul energy. He wants to ascend."
"He wants to be a god," Ogdi said, disgusted. "How unoriginal."
"We can't stop the army," Solathe spoke softly, her voice like velvet wrapped around a knife. "We don't have the numbers. The Hollows are almost infinite."
"We don't need to fight the army," Ogdi said. He looked at the map. He looked at the borders.
"We lock him in," Ogdi said.
The room went still.
"Explain," Eloi commanded.
"My first wish," Ogdi said. "I have the power to shape reality, but I leak chaos. Ylaeth has the power to manipulate time and space, but she lacks the raw energy to hold it. Murik... Murik understands the architecture of nightmares."
Ogdi placed his black-stained hand on the map.
"We infiltrate the Castle. We go to the Throne Room—the heart of the national Lattice. We use the King's own array against him."
"We invert it," Ylaeth whispered, her eyes widening as she traced the lines of the hologram. "Instead of ascending... we isolate. We create a closed loop. A space-time-lock around the entire country."
"No one gets in," Ogdi said. "No one gets out. We trap the King in a cage with us. And then we hunt him down without his army being able to reinforce him from the outer garrisons."
Eloi looked at the map. He looked at Ogdi. For the first time, the Prime Minister looked impressed.
"An Isolation Field," Eloi mused. "It would starve his ritual. He needs external connection to ascend."
"It's a prison," Kai grinned, stabbing his dagger into the table. "I like it."
"It's madness," Murik muttered. "Walking into the Castle? It's a meat grinder."
"It is," Ogdi agreed. "That's why we don't knock."
He looked at Eloi.
"I need your access codes for the servant tunnels. I need Solathe to mask our emotional signatures. And I need Kai to create a diversion loud enough to wake the dead."
Eloi nodded slowly. "We can do this. But Ogdi... once we lock the country, we are alone. If we fail to kill the King... we are trapped in hell with the Devil."
Ogdi touched the phantom wound on his chest.
"I've already been to hell," Ogdi said. "The devil owes me money."
Later – The Safehouse Dormitory
The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion.
Murik sat on a cot, sketching on a scrap of paper. He wasn't drawing dragons. He was drawing Ylaeth.
She sat nearby, cross-legged, floating an apple in the air with gravity ripples.
"You have sad eyes for a god," Murik mumbled, shading the drawing.
"I'm not a god," Ylaeth said. "I'm more of a variable."
"We're all variables," Ogdi said, walking in. He handed Murik a bottle of water. "Drink. You did good today, old man."
Murik took the bottle. His hands were shaking.
"That man... Raventhir," Murik whispered. "He has eyes like a shark. He will use us, Ogdi. And when we break, he will replace us."
"I know," Ogdi said softly. He sat down between them. "That's why we don't trust him. We use him as well."
He looked at Ylaeth. He looked at Murik.
"We are the Trinity," Ogdi said. "The Editor. The Weaver. The Artist. We protect each other. If the Isolation Field goes up... we make sure we are the ones holding the key."
Ylaeth stopped the apple mid-air. She looked at Ogdi.
"The math is dangerous, Ogdi. The probability of success is low."
"Then we cheat," Ogdi said, a small, genuine smile touching his lips.
For a moment, in the dim light of the underground bunker, they weren't soldiers or gods. They were just three broken people trying to keep their world from burning.
And for the first time, Ogdi felt something heavier than the Lattice.
He felt something to lose.