Kestrel was there first, moving with the kind of brisk, practical energy that betrayed no panic. "You all came back," he said simply.
Joseph, hair singed at the edges and a burn-scar dark along his palm, kept one hand wrapped around a steaming pot.
He ladled out bitter-smelling broth into tin cups and offered one to Victoria with a crooked, exhausted grin. "Strong enough to wake a dead apprentice," he claimed.
Victoria accepted it with shaking hands and a muttered thanks, the tremor in her fingers said as much as any wound.
Dareth had settled against a toppled crate, a spear across his knees. He pretended to sharpen its edge, but his eyes kept flicking toward the ruined skyline.
He'd been practical on the march, routing, mapping, keeping them steady, and now, quieter, he let himself be human.
He caught Lucien's eye and gave him the spare nod of a man who knows how much danger hides behind bravado.
There were stories to trade, Joseph's hand, Dareth's near-miss with a falling beam, Kestrel's long, litany-like list of anchors they'd checked, but they were told in clipped, overlapping bursts, the way people stitch warmth back into a freed limb.
Laughter sprang up in odd places, Lucien's attempt at a gallant joke about the Spire's hospitality, Calder's gruff, offended retort, but it was short-lived, brittle as fine glass.
Kestrel, who had been fussing with a coil of copper, finally gave voice to what everyone felt. "We rewrote forty anchors in the mechanical district," he announced, "We held. We worked people past what they should have done."
At that, the circle softened. Calder, who had been checking the gauntlet's seal for splinters, muttered, "We're not done." He glanced to the north, then up, and his fingers went still on the metal. "There—"
A pale smear of light hung over the ruined skyline, a glow that didn't belong to any bonfire or lamp.
It pushed the smoke into a veil and throbbed with a slow, steady beat, like a heart taking a new, unfamiliar tempo.
Even from here, it seemed wrong, too focused, too patient.
Everyone stopped. The camp's noises, cups clinking, a child's small cry, the distant shuffle of medics, thinned away until the glow was all that filled the space.
Calder's voice was small. "That's the heart," he said. "It's pulsing differently."
Aurelia rose slowly. The glow made her chest ache as if something inside her had remembered a rhythm it ought not to know. It's answering, she thought, feeling the old shiver of the echoes.
That pulse is the Core picking up the tune we've been changing.
She could see, in the mind's quick cut of the past and the patchwork efforts they'd made, the way the machine learned.
Aurelia met their eyes one by one, and when she spoke, it was neither plea nor command but the plain truth. "It's time," she said. "We rewrite the Core."
Agnes pushed through the little knot of people as if the decision had been the final thing he'd been waiting for.
He looked older in the lamplight, every line at his jaw defined by the day's work, but his voice was steady when he spoke. "Then I'll go with you."
Dareth's face tightened. "Master—" he began, the worry plain.
Agnes cut him off with a small, impatient smile. "I am not a pot of flowers you set on a sill, Dareth. I will not be kept from the work because you're nervous." The scolding softened the edge of the concern, he folded the point into a practical order. "We move at first light. Prepare what you must."
Joseph, who had been listening and ladling more broth than he could eat, set down his cup and spoke up in a tone that had lost whatever lightness he'd carried earlier. "There's another reason to hurry," he said. "As anchors fell, the guardians didn't stray farther, they concentrated. They're moving toward the Heart. That's why the districts were quieter, the guardians pulled inward."
The words landed with a new weight. Serel's fingers found the edge of a crate and bit her nail in tight frustration. "So the Core isn't blind. It can feel when its supports are being changed."
Dareth's reply was a tight, flat thing. "Of course it can. The guardians are not random, they are the Core's sentries. They've shifted to protect the Heart. They're not defending a machine, they're defending an instruction."
Kestrel exhaled, voice rough. "On the bright side, at least civilians have been able to leave danger zones while the guardians repositioned. We bought that with the anchors we rewrote."
Kael's hand went to his jaw. "They left, but they couldn't leave the kingdom." His eyes darted to the ruined gate, to the sky. "The Core's pushing people outward or keeping them in. We tried to get out, but an invisible shove stopped us."
Agnes's expression grew grave, "Then we face two problems: how to get into the vault without drawing the guardians, and how to do it without a full-scale fight. Realistically, we cannot defeat the guardians in their numbers. Not now."
Aurelia turned to Dareth. "Can we use the Aether Veil again? Hide our approach?"
Dareth closed his eyes for a breath, remembering the last time. "We could try, but the Heart noticed the veil before. The interference burned through our concealment. It can detect a field and counter it, the last veil was damaged trying to cross a certain proximity." He opened his eyes, blunt. "If we attempt the same method, it may not hold. We would be exposed near the vault."
Aurelia ground her teeth. So brute force is not the only way, then what is? she thought. She looked at the ring of faces, at the exhaustion that had not yet come to them all. We need cunning, not a charge.
Lucien stepped forward then, his smirk gone softer, sharper. "We split," he said. "One group draws attention, makes noise, lights, anything that looks like an attack. The guardians answer. Another team goes in while the sentries are busy. If the Heart's attention is divided, we can rewrite it."
Serel nodded, already mapping the idea in her head. "Distraction, infiltration, and a rewrite cell. It's messy, but it's workable. I'll need a quiet place to project from, tools, a sealed field, and someone to keep the immediate area clear while I type in the changes."
Agnes folded his hands together. "We cannot waste lives on a spectacle. The diversion must be controlled. If we're going to draw the guardians, it must be precise, limited, focused, and timed. We do this wrong, and we lose the city altogether."
Aurelia felt the plan settle into shape around them.
A diversion force to pull sentries outward, a strike team to slip into the vault's approach under Serel's protective computations, and a rapid rewrite cell to retune anchors to the single, blunt command they'd chosen.
It's a gamble. But it is the only one left that doesn't ask us to beat steel with flesh.
Agnes met her look and, for the first time that day, allowed himself a small, tired nod of confidence. "Then we prepare tonight. We leave at dusk. Be ready to move at the beating of a bell."
The murmured preparations began, ropes checked, aether coils smoothed, runes re-threaded.
Outside, the faint silver pulse above the city throbbed again, patient and waiting. The plan, however fragile, now had weight.
They all felt it, a single purpose against a machine that had learned how to preserve itself.
Aurelia wrapped her hands together and let the chill settle into her palms. We rewrite the Core. We change its tune, and then we find out what it will answer to.
The two halves of the Council converged like slow-moving tides, each delegation advancing with purpose. The first column marched forward, their heavy leather and brass armor clinking softly with each determined step.
Stern faces set in grim resolve betrayed their skepticism, eyes narrowed as they regarded Aurelia, glancing sideways at one another, whispering doubts that had lingered since the first flickers of her visions.
The other followed with the nervous relief of the faction that had finally been convinced.
Between them walked Verran, shoulders unclenched this time, his stare direct as he approached the circle where the group had been planning.
Verran stopped a few paces off and bowed, the motion stiff with years of ceremony. "On behalf of the Council," he said, voice flat with apology, "we were wrong to rush to judgment. The guardians' behavior, how they concentrated on the Heart, proved you right. I am sorry. We owe you better than suspicion."
Aurelia's reply was steady, measured. "I'll accept it when the Spire is free," she said. Her words were simple, they landed like a promise. Verran inclined his head again, grateful.
A low murmur of whispers rippled through the crowd as the royal column made its somber entrance. The soldiers, once proud and unwavering, stepped aside with heavy hearts, the weight of the kingdom's ruin evident in their downcast eyes.
When the tattered cloth fell back, King Herald and Queen Elara emerged, their expressions a mixture of resolve and sorrow. They stood not in triumph but in mourning, their faces etched with lines of hardship and loss, a testament to the recent devastation that had shattered their realm.
They moved among their people with a gravity that hushed the camp.
Ardent's hand shot up. He dropped to his knees when he saw his parents step from the royal advisors, tears cutting tracks through soot on their faces.
The reunion was brief and fierce, the rest of the camp watched as family found itself again among ruin.
Most of those present bowed, old protocol, respect, or genuine relief at the sight of crown and command returning to the field.
The Arcane students stood awkwardly, unfamiliar with local ceremonies, and so did not bow, their foreignness made them visible in a different, quieter way.
Headmaster Agnes moved forward first, throat tight with something like gratitude. "Your Majesties," he said, voice cracked but formal. "We are honored—"
King Herald's look cut him off. He did not soften.
"Honored?" the king asked, tone brittle with self-reproach. "I am not worthy of that title if I let this befall my people."
There was no theatrics in the rebuke—only the heavy truth of a ruler who believed he had failed his city.
Agnes squared his shoulders. "No one could have predicted this," he said. "But we will fix it. Together."
Queen Elara touched the king's sleeve once, steadying him in a quiet way only she could. "Then we will lend you the Spire's forces," she said, voice low but resolute. "Engineers, wardens, magi, whatever is needed. We will reclaim what this Heart has taken."
A brief, fragile silence followed.
Then Agnes exhaled and asked, carefully but firmly, "Your Majesties… where have you been? The royal forces vanished the moment the kingdom fell into chaos."
King Herald's expression tightened with something like shame. "There is a bunker beneath the palace," he said. "An emergency and containment shelter built generations ago, meant for disasters far beyond our imagining. When the guardians turned violent, it was the only place we could evacuate civilians quickly."
Queen Elara stepped forward, her hands clasped before her. "We had no means to fight the guardians," she admitted. "Every attempt to confront them ended in immediate loss. So we withdrew our surviving soldiers and focused on gathering every citizen we could reach. We sealed the bunker and waited, rationing food, water, and light." Her voice wavered just slightly. "There was… nothing else we could do."
Herald nodded grimly. "Only when the guardians abandoned the districts and marched toward the Heart did we risk emerging. Our scouts found the city nearly emptied, its people scattered, its streets unguarded. One of them returned breathless, saying you and your party were still alive… and fighting."
A faint, strained smile tugged at the queen's mouth. "So we came. At once."
The king straightened, resolve hardening through the fatigue. "We will stand with you now. Whatever remains of our kingdom will fight for its future."
And for the first time since the Spire had fallen into ruin, soldiers, students, engineers, council members, and royalty stood together, not divided, not arguing, aligned by one shared, terrifying, necessary purpose:
To reach the Heart.
To rewrite it.
To reclaim their home.
With royal backing came new faces, soldiers pouring into the ragged camp, royal engineers with soot-stained sleeves, veteran magi in cloak-armor stamped with old campaigns, wardens with gauntleted fists gleaming like iron promises.
Ardent's parents stayed only long enough to press a steadying hand to his shoulder before stepping into the war council. Even their presence felt like another pillar bracing the collapsing world.
The planning did not begin with shouting or urgency, it started with quiet, the kind that acknowledged the battlefield outside their tents and the hundreds of lives resting on their decisions.
Agnes folded his hands behind his back, meeting every eye in the circle before he spoke, "More hands and arms do not mean fewer risks," he warned. "There will be deaths. This machine has spent centuries learning to preserve itself. When cornered, it will lash out."
The truth landed like iron. No one looked away.
Kael's jaw set.
Lysandra's hand slipped around Aurelia's sleeve.
Lucien's usual ease melted into something harder, sharper.
Victoria straightened her glasses, expression firm despite the tremor in her fingers.
One by one, the nods came, grim, steady, resolved.
We know.
We will do what must be done.
The planning stretched across three tense days.
Maps of the Spire, half-burned, half-redrawn, were pinned to walls.
Engineers crawled through ruins, marking guardian migration paths.
Royal scouts and Arcane Academy students cross-checked anchor stability in the districts they had reclaimed.
Conservators from the libraries searched for any lost notes about Halvane's original configuration.
Every night, more people arrived from old hiding places, families, artisans, apprentices, and farmers. Breathless but alive now that the guardians had shifted toward the Heart.
And that night, as scouts led another group through the barricades, Aurelia's breath caught.
"Professor Marlec…?" Lysandra whispered.
The Professor stepped into the lantern glow, armor dented, robes torn. Beside him bounced Seris, slightly limping, hair a mess, but very much alive.
And behind them emerged a number of students, half from the Imperial Spire Academy, half from Arcane Academy.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then chaos.
Lysandra barreled into Seris, sobbing, then breaking into hysterical laughter. Kael, who rarely touched anyone, pulled two of his younger classmates into a quiet, shaking embrace.
Victoria threw her arms around a stunned apprentice with ink still staining her sleeves. Cassian clapped Seris on the back until she yelped.
Aurelia stepped forward, and Marlec froze.
Then his face broke.
The stoic, steel-spined instructor, who had never once raised his voice nor shed a tear in front of them, crumpled as though the weight of the last weeks finally snapped free.
He grabbed Aurelia, Kael, and Lysandra into a crushing embrace.
"You're alive," he rasped, voice cracking. "By the Aether, you're alive…"
Seris laughed through her tears, hugging whoever came close, Lucien, Mirielle, Cassian, Arthur, mumbling, "I knew it, I knew you'd all survive, even if the whole kingdom fell on top of you!"
When the wave of hugs calmed, Marlec wiped his face, straightened, tried to reclaim his usual stern composure…and failed miserably.
He looked around at the barricades, the weapons, the strained soldiers.
"…What exactly is going on?" he asked.
Lucien clapped a hand on the man's shoulder. "A war," he said simply.
Marlec blinked once. Twice.
Expression blank. Voice flat.
"…Huh?"
Seris burst out laughing so hard she accidentally fell into a crate.
Around them, despite the looming battle, a small pocket of warmth bloomed, relief, reunion, and the fragile joy of surviving long enough to fight again.
At last, after what felt like a lifetime of maps, arguments, and revisions, the plan crystallized.
Serel traced a finger around the drawn model of the Heart.
"I'll go to the Core chamber," she said. "I have the precision for the stabilizer knots and the rewrite grid. But I'll need a memory reference. The Heart is layered with historical directives. If one snaps back mid-process—"
"I'll see it," Aurelia said, stepping forward. "My Aspect can catch its old configurations before they reassert. I'll guide you."
Her voice didn't shake. That scared her more than it would have.
Dareth and Agnes exchanged a look, old student and older master, and stepped to the edge of the table.
"We will guard them," Agnes declared. "The two of us can hold off whatever the Core throws from the inner ring."
Dareth smirked faintly. "And if you tire, old man, I'll drag you back on my shoulders."
Agnes shot him a glare that nearly hid the pride behind it.
The outer perimeter came next.
Royal wardens and Council mage-knights would anchor the first ring to intercept the first wave of guardians. They would not attempt to destroy them, only delay, divert, and survive.
Engineers and rune-savants would operate in the second ring, managing emergency stabilizers, seal-kits, and shunts to hold the tunnel open long enough for the rewrite.
It took hours to stitch every name into place, every group into a role, every weakness into a reinforcement.
When the last piece fit, silence fell over the tent.
Aurelia stood there, staring down at the plan, the rings, the contingencies, the list of volunteers the size of a city, and felt the responsibility condense into something sharp inside her chest.
I am not the hero, she told herself.
I am a thread.
If I hold, it may hold the rest.
Agnes snapped the final clasp on the map case.
"We begin in one hour," he said quietly.
No cheers followed.
Just movement, steady, disciplined, heavy with meaning.
The hour before the end of the Spire.