The cold was the first thing, as it always was. It wasn't a shiver-inducing cold anymore, the kind that startles you from sleep. Creed had left that kind of sensitivity behind years ago. This was a deeper chill, a patient one that seemed to soak up from the earth itself, through the stone floor all the way through the thin straw mattress until it found his bones. It was a part of waking now, as elemental as the grey light of dawn or the rough gritty scrape of the floor against his bare feet when he finally decided to swing them over the side of the bed.
He just sat there for a while, letting the pre-dawn gloom of the room rest on his shoulders like a heavy cloak. Cell. That was the word for it, the word his mind always supplied. Not a dorm room. It hadn't been a dorm room in a long time. It was a box to keep him in.
High on the far wall, a single narrow window wasn't so much a source of light as it was a begrudging suggestion. The glass was thick with the grime of countless seasons, a cataract of filth that softened the outside world into a weak greyish light. It was just enough light to illuminate the dust motes, making them dance and whirl in the stale air like disturbed, microscopic ghosts.
His gaze drifted downwards, drawn by habit to the floor across his own bed. To the lighter patch of stone, the faint outline where Elian's bed used to be. Elian. He could still picture him, the jumpy kid who always looked like he was one step away from a panic attack, his nose twitching as if he were perpetually sniffing out trouble or just a really bad smell. Elian had practically tripped over himself trying to get a transfer, his eyes wide with a specific, contagious fear that Creed had found insulting at the time. That was when the whispers about Emily had grown from quiet murmurs in the mess hall to something louder, something uglier that echoed in the halls. Good riddance, Creed had told himself back then, and he'd mostly meant it. The kid had been exhausting. But the silence Elian had left in his wake… that was a different kind of presence. It was heavier than any roommate, a constant quiet companion that did nothing but listen to his thoughts.
The room was a testament to monastic minimalism, though not by choice. A rickety wooden desk that wobbled if you so much as touched it, a matching chair with a splintered back, his own narrow cot. And a scarred wardrobe that had probably seen hundreds of boys like him come and go. Above him, on the stained ceiling, a faint water mark, darker than the surrounding stone spread like a disembodied skeletal hand reaching for something it could never grasp. In the long hours before sleep, Creed often found his eyes tracing its spidery fingers, a morbid and silent companion to his thoughts.
And today, like every day for the past month, the thought of the Selection was a physical thing. A cold, hard knot of dread pulled tight in the pit of his stomach. The Selection. The day the spire formally separated the wheat from the chaff, the truly Blessed from… well, the rest. Or, in Creed's case, the day that would hammer the final rusty nail into his coffin. He wasn't deluded enough to think he stood a chance. Not anymore. The rumors had put an end to any flickering hope he might have harbored.
With a sigh, a puff of breath that barely disturbed the dancing motes of dust in the room, Creed pushed himself to his feet. His joints cracked and popped, a dry, percussive report in the quiet room, the sound of a boy feeling old long before his time. He stood up, stretching his arms towards the stained ceiling, his back arching as he tried to work out the knots and cracks of his body. His gaze caught his reflection in the cheap, standing mirror propped against the far wall.
Sixteen years old, five-foot-eleven, and relentlessly plain. That's what the files would probably say. That's what anyone would say. Black eyes, his features were on the rounder side, unremarkable in every way. Except for his hair, a chaotic mess of spiky black hair that seemed to defy gravity, combs, and common sense. It refused to be tamed no matter how much he might (or might not, on principle) try. It was the one thing that stood out. It made him easy to spot in a crowd, he supposed. Easy to point at, easy to blame.
Despite all his shortcomings a small, losing part of Creed still held on to hope, a belief that simply refused to be extinguished. He was meant for more than this. He had to be. He still remembered the day, a full decade ago, a small bewildered six-year-old standing before the colossal gates of the Spire. A church official, a man who smelled distinctly of old incense, melting wax, and even older parchment, had found him. An orphan with nothing to his name but the ragged clothes on his back. This man had seen… something. Potential he'd called it. He'd walked Creed through those gates, a feat that according to the church was impossible for the truly Unblessed. A sign of Verdia's subtle acknowledgment, they'd said.
But then… nothing. The divine acknowledgment, if it had ever existed, had gone silent. Years of study, grueling physical training, and mind numbing theological lessons and yet he'd remained stubbornly average. He never quite reached the effortless grace of the others, the golden children of the Spire who seemed to be born to its refined ways. But his confidence, or his ego as some of his less charitable instructors had called it, had never truly buckled. Deep down, in a place he protected from everyone, he still believed he was special. The world just hadn't been smart enough to catch on yet.
Returning from his thoughts, Creed pulled on his Kiron House uniform, its fabric stiff and unbending, a bland gray that felt like a second skin of conformity. Over his heart, the Eye of Veridia was embroidered in a distinct silver thread. An unblinking gaze that seemed to judge his every action. It felt heavier than usual today, like a brand searing into his skin. He tightened the belt on his trousers, the leather creaking softly in the quiet of his room. Emily's face flashed in his mind, unbidden and painful. Her stupid, happy smile that he had now come to resent. He thought of the way she trusted everyone as if the Spire wasn't a snake pit with vaulted ceilings. Then Iris's face, a ghost layered over Emily's. Her easy laughter, the deep friendship they once shared. The knot in his stomach tightened, cold and vicious. He shoved the thoughts down. Wallowing wouldn't change a damn thing, it wouldn't clear his name, and it sure as heck wouldn't bring them back.
There was another feeling too, an undercurrent to his unease that always pricked at him in the Spire. A faint, almost imperceptible nausea. A deep discomfort in his very bones whenever he was near objects or locations of overt holiness. It was a bizarre affliction, one he'd learned to keep carefully hidden, another flaw in a long list of them. Unluckily for Creed, this was a flaw that was deciding to act up today.
…
The walk to the Grand Hall of House Kiron was long enough to feel like a pilgrimage. The spire wasn't a building in the conventional sense, it was a city carved into the heart of a mountain. A dizzying labyrinth with endless hallways, soaring arches that rose to an unseen roof, and vast chambers. Here, deeper within the territory designated to House Kiron, the ceilings were painted with fake stars. Constellations painted in fading gilt paint, but the light was dimmer, the grandeur subdued compared to the Spire's main thoroughfares. Large colorful tapestries hung on the cold stone walls depicting Veridia's supposed great deeds. The Weaver goddess created order from the primordial chaos, her serene, maddeningly calm face gazing down upon mortals. The vibrant threads were stark, almost a mocking contrast to the prevailing grey of the architecture and the student uniforms.
The usual sounds of life in the Spire, the distant, musical chime of instructional bells, the low murmur of hushed conversations, and the endless scrape and scuff of leather shoes on stone felt muted in Creed's section of the Spire. This was the wing that housed the outcasts and failures of House Kiron. As he moved into the populated corridors, the atmosphere shifted instantly. He felt it like a change in air pressure. Heads turned. Conversations died completely, replaced by a chorus of whispers that followed him like a trail of garbage.
"...that's him…"
"...I heard he actually…"
"...poor Emily…"
"...Kiron's shame…"
Creed kept his gaze fixed directly ahead, his face a careful mask of neutrality. But the words were like tiny venomous insects, pricking at his skin. He'd grown used to it. That's what he told himself. But "used to it" was just another way of saying "enduring it" because you have no other choice.
…
Stern-faced statues of old Archons lined the corridors, their stone features carved into permanent expressions of judgment. Their empty eyes almost seemed to follow Creed with a silent condemnation. He passed a small, recessed alcove where an eternally lit flame flickered before a miniature statue of Veriadia. As he drew near a wave of his usual sickness washed over him, a faint dizziness and a quick roll of his gut. His hand instinctively went to his stomach where his fingers found the outlines of a sphere hidden in an inner pocket of his uniform. HERO's gift. A Holy weapon.
…
As Creed continued his walk he saw Lyra, a girl from his year. In the early days, right after the accusations had started to fly, she had been one of the very few to offer him a fleeting, kind smile. It had felt like a miracle at the time. Now, her eyes met his across the crowded hall, widened for a split second in recognition, and then slid away as if she'd touched a hot stove. She practically dove into a nearby classroom, her dark braid swinging behind her like a pendulum marking his disgrace. Creed's jaw tightened until it ached. Even the kind ones eventually learned to fear the plague.
A group of younger students, first years judging by their nervous energy and uniforms that were still a little too stiff hurried past. One of them audibly gasping and yanking her friend back, her eyes huge and scared as if he might actually contaminate them by mere proximity. He was a pariah. A rat scuttling through the grandeur of the Spire.
…
The antechamber to Kiron's Grand Hall was a cavernous space in its own right.The ceiling was lost in shadows so far above they seemed to belong to a different sky. The walls were decorated with more tapestries, these ones depicting Kiron's most celebrated Achrons and their legendary, probably exaggerated, feats. Today, the space was buzzing with students, a restless sea of grey uniforms creating a nervous buzz that vibrated in the air. The Selection. The air was thick with it, with anticipation, with choking anxiety, and with the desperate hope of the unchosen. Creed scanned the crowd, his heart starting to beat harder against his ribs. And then he saw her. Iris.
Even from across the chamber, her long black curly hair was unmistakable, a wild waterfall of black silk tumbling down her back. She was laughing. Her head was thrown back, and the sound of it, a bright chime, somehow carried over the crowd and hit him like a physical blow. It was a sound he hadn't heard directed at him, or even in his vicinity, in what felt like a lifetime. She was surrounded by a small clique of girls, her usual friends. He hadn't bothered to remember their faces but Elra, with her perpetual know-it-all smirk, he could easily point out.
Creed's feet moved before his brain had a chance to veto the terrible idea. A desperate, foolish compulsion. This was it. This was his last chance to fix everything. Before what came next.
"Iris!" His voice was rough, louder and more raw than he'd intended.
Her laughter cut off as if severed with a knife. The entire group turned as one, a flock of birds startled by a loud noise. Elra's smirk changed into a protective scowl, her face turning ugly as she stepped slightly in front of iris. A self appointed bodyguard. Iris herself turned slowly, her dark eyes, once so warm and familiar they'd felt like an extension of his own, were now cool and distant. The fine, silvery scar that ran down her left cheek, a mark he'd once relentlessly teased her about, now only seemed to accentuate the hard, closed off line of her expression.
"What do you want, Creed?" Her voice was flat. Utterly devoid of inflection, or history, or any sort of warmth that had once defined her for him. It was the voice you'd use for a stranger asking for directions.
He could feel a hundred pairs of eyes on them, the nervous chatter around them dying into an expectant silence. Creed's mouth was suddenly bone dry. "I… I just wanted to talk. To you. About Emily. About… what actually happened." He stumbled over the words, the carefully constructed speeches he'd rehearsed in the lonely hours of the night abandoning him completely.
Iris's expression remained unchanged, a mask of indifference. She made a small almost unnoticeable gesture with her hand, a flick of her wrist that was a clear, sharp dismissal.
"There's nothing to talk about, Creed. Honestly. I don't care what you have to say. It doesn't matter anymore."
"But it's not true," he insisted. The words felt pathetic and small in the giant room. His voice was pleading now, and he hated the weak, desperate sound of it. "You know me. You know me."
"I knew you" she corrected him, and each word was like a knife, driven deep. "Now if you'll excuse us."
Elara sensing the moment, stepped forward more assertively. "You heard her. Go away." Her eyes were small and full of nasty disdain. "No one wants you here."
A hot flush of shame crept up Creed's neck. He felt it burn his ears. The faces in the crowd around him were a blur of morbid curiosity and contempt. Defeated and humiliated on a scale of epic proportions, he gave a short, curt nod, turned on his heel, and walked away without another work. The buzz of normal conversion resumed behind him instantly, now louder, and laced with fresh speculation and amusement. He could feel the brand of "Kiron's Shame" burning hotter on his soul.
…
As Creed moved towards the massive, black archway leading into the Grand Hall, his shoulders hunched with the fresh weight of Iris's rejection. Just then the murmur of the crowd shifted again. It was a subtle change at first, a different tone of whispers, and then a more noticeable phenomenon. A parting of the sea of grey uniforms. A ripple of something else – awe, esteem, and a touch of fear – spread through the antechamber.
Alta Crestmore had arrived.
She moved with a regal, almost unconscious presence that commanded attention, even as she herself seemed oblivious to the path that cleared before her or the hushed admiration that followed in her wake. Her shoulder length crimson hair seemed to catch and amplify the scant light, glowing like a halo of slow burning fire. Her face was a study in sharp aristocratic features, her features were flawlessly defined, her skin like porcelain. She radiated an aura of competence and barely contained energy. Wearing the same grey uniform as the rest, she looked closer to an angel then a student.
Creed found himself pausing, an unwilling observer caught in her gravitational pull. He registered her beauty, of course it was impossible not to. But more than that, he saw the unshakable confidence in her stride, the aristocratic tilt of her chin, the completely uninterested sweep of her gaze as she passed by the lesser students. She was the daughter of two sitting Archons, Elna and Marcus Crestmore. Her path hadn't just been paved with gold, it had been blasted through the mountain for her. She was brilliance personified, the living embodiment of Spire success, destined for a greatness that was simply her birthright. And he… he was Creed. The orphan. The charity case. The pariah.
The whispers swirling around him confirmed what everyone knew
"The Archon's daughter…"
"Can you feel that? So powerful…"
"She'll definitely be a High Cleric, at least…"
It was a stark contrast to the whispers that followed his own steps. Alta, in her effortless, unthinking superiority, was a living monument to everything he was not. Everything the Spire valued and everything he so lacked. There was no real envy in his observation, not anymore. That had been burned out of him, Now there was just a detached acknowledgment of the vast chasm that separated their realities. Their perceived worth. She didn't even glance his way as she swept past, flanked by an entourage of similarly aspiring students and fawning admirers who looked like a royal guard. He was beneath her notice. He finally turned and walked through the archway disappearing into the shadows of the Grand hall.
…
The Grand Hall of House Kiron was an immense, awe inspiring chamber designed to make one feel small. The ceiling soared to such impossible heights that it was lost in perpetual shadow. Supported by giant pillars carved into the likeness of long dead prophets and High Archons. Their stone faces were ancient and seemed to look down on the proceedings with eternal disapproval. Thousands of students, dressed in drab grey stood in quiet, meticulously organized lines, separated by year and then sorted alphabetically. A wide central aisle, carpeted in a faded Kiron gray, stretched from the towering entrance doors all the way to a raised stage with a dias in the middle at the far end of the hall where the house leadership would soon appear. The silence was thick, heavy, and charged with the electric potential of the Selection ceremony.
Creed found his assigned spot, wedged near the back of the third year contingent. He shuffled into place, and the student standing next to him, a boy named Fendrel, pointedly took a small but very deliberate step away. Creed didn't need to see his face to know the expression it held.
Then, a final, cruel twist of the knife, courtesy of either a bureaucratic oversight or a meticulously planned detail by HERO, they had after all detailed the student formations with an almost supernatural accuracy.
Iris was standing right next to him.
She must have slipped into her spot just moments before he did. She stood straight, her gaze locked on the distant dais, her profile on him a perfect study in icy, unforgiving indifference. The silence between them was a screaming void.
He could smell the faint scent of the soap she used, a simple scent that brought with it a fresh wave of unwelcome memories of a time when standing this close was the most natural thing in the world. He could have reached out and brushed his fingers against her arm. The proximity was a unique form of torment.
She gave no sign, not the slightest flicker of an eyelid, to acknowledge his presence. It was as if he were truly invisible, a phantom at her side. The vastness of the hall, the sea of grey uniforms, the silent lines. They all conspired to amplify his isolation. Making him feel utterly alone even with his former best friend less than an arm's length away from him. He focused on the rhythm of his breathing in an attempt to calm the turmoil in his chest.
The silence stretched on, drawn thin and punctuated by the occasional cough or scuff of shoes. Then, a sound impossibly loud in the stillness was heard. The deep groaning of the heavy bronze hinges as the towering doors at the far end of the central aisle swung inward. A collective unified intake of breath rippled through thousands of students.
First came the house administrator, their formal robes a deeper shade of grey, embroidered with the silver insignia of their rank. They moved with a practiced solemnity, fanning out and taking their places to the sides of the stage.
Then, he appeared.
Archon Valerius.
He moved with an unnatural, fluid grace, seeming to glide rather than walk. His slender frame was draped in the dark gold robes of a full Archon, intricately detailed with silver embroidery that seemed to shimmer in the dim light. His hair an almost luminous white, falling down his back, a stark contrast to the colors of his attire. His features, Creed noted with a sense of unease, were exceptionally fine, almost delicate and woman-like. Yet his presence radiated an undeniable ancient power that contradicted any hint of fragility.
As Valerius passed, students tensed. Heads bowed almost uncontrollably, eyes respectfully downcast. The energy in the hall shifted to a mixture of awe and fear. Valerius's eyes, black and unsettling, swept across the students missing nothing. They were terrifyingly intelligent with those eyes, yet utterly devoid of any warmth or conventional human emotion. It felt as though he could see straight into the marrow of your bones, seeing every flaw and weakness.
Creed's heart began to pound frantically against his ribs. His right hand hidden from view beneath the stiff fabric of his uniform, tightened its grip on the smooth cool sphere hidden there. The Eye.
"He is a rot, Creed," HERO's voice echoed in his memory, the smooth persuasive words they had spoken to him. "The embodiment of this corrupt system. They speak of Veridia's divine order, yet they only nurture chaos and injustice in their hearts. He, above all, must be shown the truth. He, above all, must pay for what they've allowed to happen. For what they have done to you."
Valerius's gaze in its slow, deliberate scan of the thousands of faces, paused. For a fraction of a second, his eyes met Creed's. There was no recognition in them, no discernible expression at all, just an ancient void. And then he moved on, continuing his silent procession towards the dais. But Creed felt that fleeting connection like a physical brand, a spark ignited the volatile tinder of manipulated resolve and gut deep terror that was inside him. The moment was coming. It was here.
Archon Valerius reached the foot of the stage, he stood mere arm's lengths from where Creed was rooted. The Archon's presence was a physical weight, a pressure on the air that silenced everyone. For Creed, it was the culmination of weeks of HEROs whispers, of his own festering resentment, of a misguided belief that a single act of defiance could unravel the entire rotten tapestry of fate. This was it. Now or never.
With a chocked, inarticulate cry that was more of an animal sound than a word, Creed broke from the line. The disciplined formation shattered around him as if he were a stone thrown into still water.
"This is for what you let happen!" he shouted, his voice cracking "For all of us! This is for–!"
His heroic charge, the righteous lunge he pictured, lasted for a single, solitary step. His own feet, clumsy with adrenaline, had betrayed him. His ankle rolled and with a grunt he went down. Hard. There was no stumble, no chance to recover his balance, just a sudden and humiliating fall to the marble floor. The impact jarred his teeth and sent a sharp pain through his palms as he tried, too late to break his fall.
The black sphere – the eye, the Holy Weapon given to him by HERO–flew from his slackened, sweaty hand. Time seemed to stretch, pulling like a taffy. He saw the Eye arc through the air, a dark comet against the gray backdrop of shocked faces and stone pillars. It didn't just land, it hit the polished floor with a sickening crack that echoed in the vast hall. It wasn't the sound of breaking stone, but of something ancient and contained finally giving way.
For a single, silent heartbeat, nothing happened.
And then the bomb didn't hiss. It didn't leak. It just went. A silent swelling bloom of pure chaos, a perfect sphere of black and red fire erupted from the bomb's broken body, expanding outward with impossible speed to incinerate everything.
In the exact same fraction of a second that the bomb went off, the world stopped.
The eruption of black and red fire froze. The screams of a thousand students died in their throats. The ensuing stampede never came. The explosion itself hung in the air, a monstrous flower of destruction caught in mid-bloom, its petals made of solidified shockwaves. It was maybe ten feet across, a most terrifying sight. Its edge was just inches from the nearest frozen students. Inches from Valerius.
Only the Archon moved.
He let out a soft sigh, a sound that seemed to hold the weariness of centuries. A sound that Creed, still frozen on the floor with his face inches from the cold marble, felt in his bones rather than heard with his ears. The Archon looked at the silent, blossoming sphere of annihilation, not with panic, but with a weary disappointment.
Then he reached out. His movements were slow and deliberate. He placed his open palm against the edge of the frozen explosion.
And he pushed.
It was like watching a man try to force a storm back into a bottle. For a second, nothing happened. Then, the sphere of dark fire trembled. With a slow relentless certainty, he began to compress the explosion. He forced the chaos inward, crushing the petals of fire back down, smaller and smaller, until it was all being crammed back into the single point from which it had been born.
The sphere reformed around the monstrous energy he'd contained, the material knitted itself back together. It glowed a blinding red light, before slowly fading back to a simple, inert black.
It hit Creed then, a truth so big and terrifying it almost blanked out his mind. This man hadn't just disarmed a bomb. He'd let it explode, caught the blast in his hand, and then calmly told it to get back in its box. The gap between Creed and someone like Valerius wasn't just a matter of power or skill. It was everything. Creed was a bug, and Valerius was the boot, the sky, and the whole damn universe.
Valerius straightened up, the now harmless bomb held in his hand. Then, he turned and walked away. He walked down the grey carpet, his brilliant white hair flowing like a flag in the dead still hall. He passed right through the great bronze doors at the entrance, and then he was gone.
Minutes passed. Or maybe it was an eternity. Creed lay there, a prisoner in his own aching body. What now? What was the punishment for a screw up this massive? Was this it? To be left as a conscious statue forever, a permanent monument to his own stupidity?
He tried to scream, to beg, to apologize, but no sound could get past his frozen throat. Despair, black and suffocating started to close in. The silence was the worst part. It was so complete it felt like a physical pressure crushing him from every side. He was alone. Totally alone. In a world that had just stopped existing for what seemed like everyone but him and the god-like Archon who had just left. He squeezed his eyes shut, then forced them open again, afraid that if he kept them closed for too long, he might never see again, that he might just dissolve into the silent, timeless void.
Just as he felt his mind truly start to crumble, just as a real, animal scream was building up in his frozen lungs, he heard it.
Soft footsteps.
Impossible. But they were there. Valerius.
The Archon came back into the Grand hall, moving just as smoothly as before. His hands were empty now, the bomb was gone. He walked back through the grey carpet, his eyes fixed on Creed. He stopped right over him, a tall silhouette against the distant, frozen light.
Creed stared up, his eyes the only thing capable of movement. His heart, a trapped bird beating its wings bloody against the cage of his ribs. Valerius's beautiful ageless face seemed to soften. Or something like it. It was a layered mask of what Creed could only process as pity, profound disappointment, and a deep sorrowful weariness. It was the look you might give a priceless instrument that had been broken through sheer clumsiness. It wasn't the rage he'd expected. This was worse. It was the quiet sadness of a god looking at a flawed, failed creation.
Valerius didn't speak. No big words of condemnation. No epic pronouncements of his doom. Instead, with a startling speed that didn't fit his calm, sad look at all, he moved.
He delivered a swift, sharp kick to the side of Creed's head.
Stars exploded behind Creed's eyes. A single instant of white searing pain flooded him, and then… nothing.
Just his luck.