The departure from the Petrified Sea was a somber affair. They were not just leaving a place; they were leaving behind a period of their lives, a brief, fragile chapter of community and recovery. Olivia gave Anya a final set of instructions on how to query the codex, while Silas conferred with Caden, sharing what he knew about defensive positions and rationing. Elara stood before the two rock cairns, her hand resting on the one for Lorcan. She did not speak. She simply stood in silent communion for a long moment, and when she turned to join the others at the Gate, her face was set like stone. She was no longer carrying her grief. She was wearing it as armor.
The refugees watched them go, their faces a mixture of fear for their protectors and terror at being left behind. Olivia met their gazes, her own expression a mask of reassurance she did not feel. "We will be back," she said, a promise that felt more like a prayer.
Echo had located a stable Gate that would connect them to a network leading to the Gilded Cage. The four of them—Olivia, Silas, Elara, and the silent, watchful construct—stepped through the shimmering portal and into the chaotic, violent embrace of the Proving Grounds once more.
The transition was jarring. The absolute silence of the Petrified Sea was replaced by the familiar, cacophonous symphony of Aethelburg: the distant clang of steel, the roar of a manifested Aspect, the faint, high-pitched scream of someone dying their daily death. They had emerged in a crumbling, colosseum-like arena, its stone tiers blasted and broken. A battle was already raging in the arena's center between a pack of hyena-like beastmen and a lone warrior who wielded a whip of pure lightning.
Last time she had seen such a scene, Olivia had been a newcomer, overwhelmed and terrified. Now, she looked at it with the cool, analytical eye of a veteran. The chaos was no longer just a threat; it was a landscape, a complex system of predator and prey that could be navigated.
"The Gate to the Gilded Cage is across the arena floor," Echo stated, its voice cutting through the noise. "The direct path is… occupied."
"We go around," Silas grunted, his eyes already scanning the crumbling tiers for a safer route.
But before they could move, a new group entered the arena. A dozen fighters, clad in matching, rust-colored iron armor, their tabards bearing the sigil of a clenched fist. The Iron Legion. And they were not interested in the fight in the center. Their disciplined, hostile gaze fell upon Olivia's small, un-uniformed group.
"Unaffiliated combatants," their leader, a thick-necked man with a jagged scar on his face, barked. "This is an Iron Legion culling ground. Surrender your gear and accept rebirth, or be purged."
Olivia looked at her team. This was their first test since the Silent Yard, the first measure of how much they had grown. She saw the readiness in Silas's stance, the cold, burning fire in Elara's eyes.
"We're not looking for a fight," Olivia said, her voice calm and clear. "We're just passing through."
"The only way through is on your knees," the Legionnaire sneered. He raised his hand, and his soldiers drew their weapons—heavy, well-made broadswords and tower shields. A wall of disciplined steel.
"So be it," Olivia said quietly.
The fight was over in less than a minute.
The Legionnaires charged, their movements a practiced, synchronized rush. They were a story of overwhelming, unified force. But Olivia's team told a better one.
Elara stepped forward. She did not create a dome. She slammed her hands on the ground, and a flat, thirty-foot-wide wall of her blue shield erupted from the stone, halting the Legion's charge in its tracks. The soldiers crashed into the unexpected barrier, their formation breaking into a stunned, confused cluster.
Before they could recover, Silas slapped his hands on the back of Elara's shield. He was not trying to decay it. He was using it as a conduit. A wave of his dissonance power, the same he had used on the assassins' blades, traveled through the shield and into the Legionnaires' armor. The rust-colored iron did not crumble, but it began to vibrate violently, a deafening, bone-jarring hum that made the soldiers cry out, their own armor turning into a torture device.
In that moment of chaos, Olivia acted. She created a perfect, silent illusion of a second Legion squad charging them from the flank. The real Legionnaires, their senses already assaulted, spun around in a panic, trying to meet a threat that wasn't there.
It was all the opening Olivia needed. She moved through them like a ghost, her sword a precise, surgical instrument. She did not kill. She disarmed. A cut to a wrist here, a jab to an elbow there. She moved with a speed and grace that seemed impossible, her every motion augmented by the cold, predictive logic of the Unspoken Lie.
The Legionnaires, disoriented, disarmed, and demoralized, broke. They turned and fled, their disciplined unity shattered into individual terror. They left their commander, the man with the scar, standing alone, his sword trembling in his hand, his face a mask of disbelief.
Olivia walked up to him and simply took the sword from his grasp. "We're just passing through," she said again. Then she, Silas, and Elara walked past him, leaving him unharmed but utterly defeated.
They reached the Gate and transitioned to the Gilded Cage. The familiar sight of the ornate, gold-leafed buildings and the handless clock tower was a strange homecoming. They ignored the duels and the grand battles in the plaza, sticking to the shadows, their purpose a secret in the midst of the open violence.
Echo guided them into the city's lower levels, the Undercroft. It was a grimy, labyrinthine network of tunnels and sewer-ways beneath the golden city, a place where the forgotten and the desperate scrabbled for existence. Here, the fights were not glorious duels; they were vicious, ugly shivs in the dark.
They found the Shifting Compass in a recessed, easily defended alcove. The sign above the door was a swirling, holographic image that never quite settled, one moment a compass, the next a key, the next a skull. It was a place that did not want to be easily found.
They pushed through the heavy, iron-banded door and stepped inside. The tavern was small, smoky, and filled with a dangerous-looking assortment of veterans and Ancients, their faces scarred and their eyes holding the weary, cynical light of those who had survived for too long. Every conversation stopped. Every eye turned to them, cold and appraising.
Behind the bar, a gnarled, ancient man was wiping a tankard with a dirty rag. He was impossibly old, his skin like a wrinkled parchment, and his eyes, a startlingly bright, intelligent blue, seemed to hold a thousand maps, a thousand shifting paths. He looked up, his gaze passing over Silas and Elara, before settling on Olivia. A slow smile, full of secrets, spread across his face.
"Well now," the Cartographer said, his voice a dry, dusty rasp. "I was beginning to think you'd never get the invitation."