Dawn bells shattered the night.
Kimara was already awake. Had been for hours. The sealed book lay cold against her chest where she'd clutched it through restless dreams.
Heavy boots on cobblestones. Getting closer.
She tucked the book beneath her threadbare mattress and stood. Today, she would kneel. Today, she would pretend to be grateful.
Today, she would lie.
The door exploded inward without ceremony. Three Surveillants filled the frame—towering figures in silver armor that hummed with contained energy. Their faces were hidden behind masks of polished metal, but Kimara could feel their contempt radiating through the slots where their eyes should be.
"Phisotian. You will come."
No names. Never names. They were inventory, nothing more.
Kimara walked past them without a word. The silver collar tightened fractionally, a reminder of who held the leash. She kept her expression blank, but inside, something sharp and green burned brighter.
The street beyond her hovel was chaos.
Eighteen-year-olds stumbled from doorways, pushed by Surveillants, pulled by weeping families. The Phisotian quarter had erupted in controlled panic—a harvest of flesh and potential energy.
But it was what lay beyond that made Kimara's breath catch.
For the first time in her life, she could see past the quarter's boundaries.
Towers of living stone thrust into the sky like the bones of sleeping giants. Their surfaces pulsed with veins of silver and gold—Titan architecture that had consumed the native crystal spires and remade them in its own image. Between them, bridges of woven wood and light stretched impossibly far, bearing the organic curves that marked Elven craft.
This had been a Phisotian city once. Now it wore the conquerors' skin.
Vehicles drifted past without sound—Titan fortresses that floated like mountains, Elven pods that moved like living seeds on invisible winds. The air tasted wrong. Thick with energies that didn't belong to this world.
The other eighteen-year-olds clustered together like frightened birds. Jorik pressed close to his mother until a Surveillant shoved him forward. The Korthak twins whispered to each other in voices too low for anyone else to hear.
Kimara walked alone.
The procession moved through streets that had been carved new. The humble cobblestones of her quarter gave way to Titan stone that rang like metal underfoot. Ancient Phisotian crystal-work had been torn down and replaced with structures that spoke of conquest—fortress-temples that squatted like toads, garden-spires that twisted skyward with alien grace.
Native Phisotians swept the perfect streets, their collars glowing with suppressed energy. They didn't look up as the procession passed. Didn't dare.
A few bore the faint light-patterns of Advanced Resonance beneath their feathered skin. They moved differently than the others—more fluid, more aware. But their eyes held the same defeated emptiness.
Kimara's jaw clenched. *Cowards.*
The Awakening Chamber had been carved from a single block of Titan stone—black rock veined with metals that sang when the wind touched them. Elven growths spiraled up its walls like parasitic vines, their leaves pulsing with captured starlight. The entrance gaped wide enough to swallow a hundred Phisotians at once.
What had this place been before? Kimara couldn't tell. The conquerors had scraped away every trace of native design.
Two figures flanked the doorway.
Judges.
They stood motionless, but the air around them *writhed*. Above each of their heads, spectral forms flickered—massive, terrible shapes that existed more as threat than substance. One Judge bore the phantom of a titan made from molten stone. The other commanded what looked like a forest given predatory life.
Their True Resonance. The mark of those who ruled the slaves.
The interior was a cathedral of alien hungers.
The walls rose beyond sight, carved with Titan runes that hurt to read and Elven script that moved when she wasn't looking directly at it. In the center of the vast space sat a pillar of pure crystal—native work, Kimara realized with a jolt. One of the few things they had kept.
But even that had been changed. Silver wire wrapped around its base like chains. The crystal itself had been cut and reshaped until its natural song became a scream.
But it wasn't the size that took Kimara's breath away.
It was the hunger.
The crystal *wanted*. She could feel it pulling at something deep inside her chest, testing, tasting, evaluating. Around her, the other eighteen-year-olds shifted nervously as the same sensation hit them.
In the shadows along the walls, two figures watched in perfect stillness.
The Titan stood like a monument to conquest. Vorthak the Ironbound—even slaves knew his name. His body radiated heat that made the air shimmer, and four spectral entities circled him like captive suns: molten giants that moved with the rhythm of tectonic shifts. He gazed down at the assembled Phisotians with the satisfaction of a god counting his coins.
Beside him, Sylaeth Starweaver embodied a different kind of cruelty. The Elf's beauty was sharp as winter starlight, and her five spectral forms danced around her like living constellations—deer made of aurora, trees that sang with the voices of dying worlds. She studied each young Phisotian with the detached interest of a botanist examining specimens for dissection.
Stellar Resonance.
The Rulers had come to watch their property awaken. Their eyes held no curiosity, no concern for the lives about to be reshaped. Only the lazy contempt of those who had never known hunger, never known chains, never known anything but the intoxicating rush of absolute power over lesser beings.
One of the Judges stepped forward. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of mountains and the heat of forge-fire.
"Present yourselves for evaluation."
The procession formed a circle around the crystal pillar. Kimara found herself standing between a trembling girl named Vess and a boy who looked like he might vomit at any moment.
Across the circle, the Korthak twins stood with their chins raised. They weren't afraid. If anything, they looked *eager*.
Kimara's fists clenched. She knew that look. She'd seen it in reflective surfaces when no one was watching.
The twins thought they were special.
Today, she would find out if she was right to hate them for it.
The crystal's hunger pressed against her mind like a physical weight. Soon, she would place her hand against its surface. Soon, she would kneel before these creatures and beg for the privilege of an Echo.
Soon, she would show them exactly how wrong they were about broken things.