"I'm going to die in a palace wearing borrowed shoes," Kia whispered, her fingers trembling as she helped me pack the final scraps of lace. "And it's going to be your fault, Gloria. I hope you know that. I'm going to haunt your sewing machine."
"Noted," I said, though my own heart was hammering so hard I was surprised the entire room couldn't hear it.
We were being escorted toward the Great Hall. The path was lined with the King's personal guard—men whose Resonance was so thick the air felt like it was humming with a low-grade fever.
In the center of the hall stood the Selection Pillar.
It was a jagged monolith of obsidian, etched with silver runes that glowed with a rhythmic, pulsing light. It looked less like a stone and more like a beating heart made of shadow. Around it, a crowd of palace staff and minor nobles were being funneled through a narrow walkway. As each person passed, the Pillar would glow a soft, steady blue—the "All Clear."
"It's just a scan," I whispered to Kia, though I was mostly saying it for myself. "The Essence-thread is in my hem. It's glowing. The Pillar will see the thread and think it's me."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then run," I said. "Don't look back for me. Just get to the lift and get home."
We reached the front of the line. A Silencer—one of the King's elite inquisitors—stood by the Pillar, his eyes obscured by a silver blindfold. He didn't need sight; he could feel the magic.
"Next," he droned.
Kia went first. She practically levitated with anxiety. As she stepped past the stone, the runes pulsed a muddy, flickering orange.
The Silencer paused. "A Spark. Unstable. Low yield." He waved her through. "Next."
It was my turn.
I took a breath, clutching my sewing kit to my chest. I made sure my thumb was pressed firmly against the hidden seam where the stolen Essence-thread was thickest. Think like a mage, I told myself. Believe you have a soul that sings.
I stepped into the Pillar's shadow.
The air went dead. The humming of the guards, the chatter of the crowd, the very sound of my own breath—it all vanished.
The Pillar didn't glow blue. It didn't glow orange.
The silver runes on the obsidian surface began to spin. They moved faster and faster, a whirlwind of light that seemed to be trying to find something to latch onto. The stone groaned, a deep, tectonic sound that vibrated through the soles of my shoes.
"What is this?" the Silencer demanded, his head whipping toward me. He reached out, his hand grasping the air as if trying to catch a frequency. "Why is it... empty?"
"I... I'm just a tailor," I gasped, the pressure in the air making it hard to breathe.
Suddenly, I saw a flash of black and silver in the balcony above. Stephen.
He was leaning over the railing, his eyes locked on mine. Beside him, Kyle was grinning, looking like he had just won a bet. Stephen wasn't grinning. He looked horrified.
The Pillar's light turned from silver to a blinding, violent white.
It's not sensing the thread, I realized with a jolt of terror. It's sensing the vacuum. The stone wasn't seeing me as a person; it was seeing me as a leak in the world. A drain. The wind began to howl inside the hall, swirling around me, pulling at my hair, my apron, my very skin.
"She's a Void!" someone screamed. "A Mute in the Palace!"
The guards drew their swords. The Silencer lunged for me, his fingers glowing with the purple light of a "Neural-Shock."
"Stop!"
The voice didn't come from the guards. It came from the Pillar.
The stone let out a final, deafening crack. A beam of white light shot upward, hitting the vaulted ceiling and illuminating the entire palace like a second sun.
The spinning runes slowed. They reorganized themselves.
The crowd went silent.
High on the obsidian surface, a single name appeared in letters of fire. It wasn't the name of a Prince or a High Elite.
GLORIA OF THE FOUNDRY.
The Wildcard.
I stood frozen, the wind dying down as quickly as it had started. The Silencer's hand stopped inches from my throat.
"No," I whispered. "No, there's been a mistake."
"The Pillar does not make mistakes," the Silencer said, his voice now filled with a strange, terrifying reverence. He dropped to one knee.
Behind him, the entire hall followed suit. Hundreds of people—nobles, guards, and even the "Twin Terrors" in the distance—bowed their heads.
I looked up at the balcony.
Kyle was no longer laughing. He looked like he had seen a ghost.
Stephen, however, was staring at me with an expression I couldn't decipher. He didn't bow. He gripped the stone railing so hard I heard the marble crack under his hand.
He had warned me to leave. He had tried to give me a head start. And now, by some cruel twist of the stars, he was going to have to watch me die in his father's games.
"Gloria of the Foundry," a new voice boomed.
The King stepped out from the shadows of the balcony, a man with a crown of jagged glass and eyes that held no mercy.
"You have been chosen by the city itself," the King said, his voice echoing through the hall. "You will represent the Mutes. You will show the world the glory of Orizon. Or you will die trying."
I felt Kia's hand grab mine in the chaos. She was shaking so hard she could barely stand.
"Gloria," she whispered. "What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything," I said, my voice trembling.
I looked back at Stephen. For a split second, our eyes met.
Run, his eyes said.
But it was too late. The Golden Echo had begun.