Elara froze midstep. Truth's nudge was light, but his focus had shifted. That alone set her off balance.
She followed his gaze.
She stopped. His hand barely brushed her, but the sudden silence—where his voice had given white noise—pulled her out of step.
The walkway curved toward an awkward structure. Pale stone swelled outward in broad, gentle arcs, each surface swallowing the daylight. Angles faded into curves.
Truth lingered at the edge, just as he said he would. She remembered his words—this was the line for him. Annoying as he was, he'd meant it.
She almost asked why, at first. But the urge faded quickly.
She moved on alone.
Each step landed quiet, the floor soft beneath her boots. Even warmer air met her skin as it felt– dry, clean, and controlled. The longer she stayed in the Inner Circle, the more comfortable her lungs felt, the less sick she felt. The corridor curved in a U shape, its walls folding seamlessly into the ground, unsettling in how it bent her sense of space.
Light seeped from the stone itself, soft and source-less, guiding her into a broad chamber while the white walls curled together above her head, meeting in a soft arch. A pale yellow carpet stretched along the center, hemmed in green.
Elara followed the carpet to its center.
Glass lined the far wall. Behind each pane, images moved in silence—each display held the same careful balance.
Children in uniform filled the first panel. Elara's attention snagged on one face—a boy caught mid-rage, surrounded by bodies. He was clutching another child, whose skull was split wide at the corner, as if a spear had punched clean through. The caption scrolled beneath:
Sectors 1–5: 1250 TE.
1250 TE…
Elara was caught on that specific date.
The first Eclipse. I actually know this story. They told it early at the Foundation—always as a warning, as if teaching us to avoid friendship before it could start.
Anger clawed its way up her chest. The story ran parallel to her own, almost too closely.
That boy must be Cormac Yamamoto. They called him Mac. He won the first Eclipse. Twenty years old, he had water powers, but they were more like ice. The first unique conjuring of takton. They say he fought side by side with a friend—two against maybe fifteen. Somehow, they survived.
But once it ended, the friend turned on him. Only one could go back to Aonis. Mac fought to calm him, begged him to stop, even after an hour stepping over corpses. In the end, Mac broke. He refused to die for such a betrayal. That's where the first Eclipse ended.
I used to cling to that story with Hikari—let it guide my plans. Until my emotions got tied.
The next panel cycled through portraits—faces staring straight ahead, halos painted above their heads. Early records stayed blurry, but the paintings carried all the until most recent. Five centuries. One hundred twenty eclipses in the future 1730. Text named them, paired with a phrase.
"Purified through burden."
"Strength by attrition."
"Refined by sacrifice."
Dates marched in a line. Elara wasn't surprised that the stories remained, but she was disgusted that every single one was hung here for all to witness.
Heat flushed across Elara's face, a tight line that traveled from jaw to fist.
These weren't records. This was a shrine.
Celaris celebrated every death. Nothing here hid behind apology or regret. The Foundation's harvest fed a system centuries in the making, proud of its precision.
Elara stepped back from the glass. Her hand drifted to her overcoat, thumb brushing a hidden edge.
Truth had offered the idea that Celaris performed instead of lying. Yet here, performance rose to worship—children lifted up and carried away, transformed into fuel for as far as she knew, entertainment—nothing more. And Elara never thought to consider that she may've narrowly avoided the same fate.
A pulse in her chest told her she'd lingered too long. This room, the images, the quiet reverence—they were just a preamble, a polite threshold. Her real reason for coming had nothing to do with history.
She turned from the wall, scanning the chamber. There was no clear exit ahead, only a wide reception desk recessed into a shallow alcove. Behind it, a woman sat—back straight, eyes unreadable, hands folded with exactness.
Elara crossed the room, footsteps softened by the carpet. The woman's gaze swept over her, then away, as if Elara's presence required nothing but acknowledgment. A check on a list, nothing more.
She kept her stride casual, pulse steady. Every inch of the lobby radiated permission. Yet she knew—the permission had limits.
A corridor broke off from behind the desk, set off by a gentle bend. Beyond that, a narrow band of yellow light ran along the floor. Two guards stood at the far end. Their uniforms matched the room—elegant, sharp, unsmiling. Neither spoke. Their eyes barely moved.
Arrogant pricks. Are they actually so prideful that they don't even fear an assassination? Is that not a feasible possibility?
She followed the angle of the light. Security scanners, embedded flush with the walls, glimmered at her wrist. Her badge would pass here—barely. Anything further, she'd have to improvise.
She angled away from the guards and ducked down a side hallway marked for staff. Shoulders tight, she let her steps fall in time with a distant cleaning drone humming behind her. One door—unlabeled, just a faint imprint in the stone—stood slightly open.
She slipped through.
On the other side, footsteps echoed—measured, deliberate, each one landing with weight. The corridor bent sharply ahead, and Elara pressed herself flat against the wall as two staff passed by. They were only technicians, heads down with eyes locked on tablet screens, oblivious.
Every sign, every fixture, every inch of carpet was meant to funnel outsiders into the safe, visible places. But the deeper she moved, the fewer distractions the space allowed.
The first real checkpoint loomed ahead: a glass turnstile, unmanned but alert, with a faint shimmer of Takton-activated defense. Past that, she had no clue where she was.
She drew a breath, squared her shoulders, and watched the guards.
Time to find out how close she could get before someone cared.
The glass turnstile tracked her approach, a faint pulse of light passing over her badge. For a half-second, her reflection shimmered in the curved barrier—pale, tired, anonymous. The scanner blinked green.
She moved through, letting the barrier cycle shut behind her.
The corridor beyond sharpened. Every detail—carpet edge, chrome vent, pale geometric artwork—looked deliberate, arranged to soothe, but each step wound her tighter. Cameras drifted along the ceiling, smooth as eyes behind glass.
Another checkpoint loomed—this one manned. Two guards in gray-and-green watched her without speaking. One tapped a tablet as she passed, scanning her credentials, but gave no sign of interest. She barely felt her own exhale.
Left turn. Up a ramp. The layout shifted from open curve to a series of tight, triangular corners. Doors grew heavier. Murals vanished. Every footstep grew louder. She realized she had left the curated world behind.
Elara checked a wall-mounted map—sterile, colorless, full of blank spaces and "authorized only" zones.
If i had to guess, they would have to be here, right?