The meeting had ended but Runner did not return upstairs right away.
She stayed on the Basement Floor, the level beneath the first floor that Vastarael had created before he left. It was darker here than anywhere else in the ORS. The walls were lined with dim runes that acted as the only light. In the center of the room sat the giant sapphire sphere that had become the heart of the entire structure. It was the Divine Artifact Vastarael had made and named the ORS Power Source. It was built to absorb any form of energy and convert it into the fuel that kept the Obsidian Runic Spire functioning.
Runner had spent so much of her life here that the place had stopped feeling like a chamber and started feeling like a second body.
That was what being made into a Royal Aeterium meant in practice. It was not a glamorous responsibility and it had kept her from wandering the realm the way the others could. While Shimmer hunted wars and while Ervadelle and the others explored across the Timeless Realm, Runner stayed here because someone had to. That someone was her. She had accepted it long ago but acceptance did not make it less lonely.
She stood before the sphere with her Ten Thousand Petal Crystal Lotus resting above her palm. Two hundred and forty million souls were inside it, compressed into the crystalline petals, waiting to be used. The weapon itself glimmered with a cold blue brilliance. Runner held it for a long moment, then lifted her free hand and touched the air.
"Move."
Her Speech Manipulation initiated the command. The petals shifted at once, obeying her intent as if they had always been waiting for that order. The lotus unfolded and glided forward towards the sphere. The weapon slid into the center of the sphere, suspended within the sapphire mass like a flower set inside an ocean of light.
Runner's eyes remained fixed on it.
"Release them."
The lotus obeyed again.
The petals opened wider and the two hundred and forty million souls poured out in a sudden, violent rush. They were invisible to ordinary sight but Runner could see then using Soul Vision. The release made the entire chamber tremble. The souls slammed into the inside of the sphere and immediately began thrashing against one another, colliding in waves of force so dense that the sapphire shell looked as though it had become a prison packed too tightly to breathe.
The ORS Power Source was indestructible, thanks to her father's [Indestructible] enchantment, but indestructible did not mean spacious. It simply meant that no matter how hard the souls pushed, screamed, collided or tore at each other in their struggle to settle, the sphere would not break. So they squeezed against one another and kept writhing.
Runner did not look away.
She lifted her hand again and took out a single sapphire shard. It was small compared to the sphere but it carried weight that had nothing to do with size. Inside it was fifty years of Soul Energy. She held the shard between her fingers, then looked up at the sphere and spoke again with the same calm precision.
"Enter."
The shard moved at once, floating into the sphere and settling among the souls already trapped inside. Runner then placed her palm over the air and began pouring Soul Energy into it. Her Aeterium Soul Energy was not ordinary. It was a hundred times denser and stronger than the Soul Energy of most beings. As it spread, the souls inside the sphere began changing.
The souls themselves began to glow more clearly. Low-grade soul residue was stripped away. Weakness was burned out of them. The scattered, unstable parts were folded into coherence. What came out of the process were high-quality souls. If they had been mortals before, the density of Runner's energy would have made them effectively immortal.
The energy climbed through the ORS like blood through veins. It moved from the Hall on the First Floor all the way to the Obsidian Throne on the Fiftieth Floor, flooding every layer of the structure with renewed Soul Energy. The walls lit up. The runes burned brighter. The entire Spire answered the surge like a massive living machine waking up all at once. Floors that had been dim felt suddenly saturated with power. The agricultural sections hummed. The afterlife floors stabilized. The testing floors received the energy cleanly. Even the higher chambers felt the surge as it traveled upwards.
For a moment, the entire ORS felt like it inhaled. Shimmer's voice drifted down from behind her after the power pulse settled.
"I thought that would take longer."
"It didn't need to. Dad is always meticulous about his creations you know."
Shimmer stepped into the basement's dim light and looked at the glowing sphere with open admiration, then at Runner with a more careful expression.
"The souls are stable now?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Runner lifted one hand again and spoke once more, this time not to the weapon but to the souls themselves.
"Sleep."
The command settled over the sphere like a blanket. One by one, the millions inside obeyed. The thrashing stopped. The pressure eased. The souls sank into a dormant state as the Aeterium energy settled through them and stabilized their existence. The chamber lost some of its tension at once and the sphere returned to a steady, radiant hum.
Runner stood for only a second longer before the backlash hit her.
Her vision blurred. Her chest lurched. She bent forward and puked blood violently. The force of commanding millions of souls at once had struck back through her body and for a brief moment the pain was so severe it nearly made her dizzy. She braced one hand against the ground, breathing hard, her shoulders shaking once.
Shimmer moved immediately. "Runner!"
Runner lifted her head slightly with golden blood still at the corner of her mouth.
"I'm fine."
"You're literally bleeding."
"I know."
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and let out a rough breath. The backlash was ugly but familiar. She had dealt with worse. Still, no matter how prepared she was, the strain always left its mark before healing kicked in.
She gave a strained laugh that was more relief than humor.
"Good thing I've got Body Reconstruction."
"Yeah. You probably would've died long ago without it."
Runner nodded once, the truth of that not needing embellishment. Her Body Reconstruction healed the body almost as fast as it had ruptured. The blood vanished from her lips and the floor. Runner rose slowly to her feet and looked up at the glowing sphere one more time. The millions of souls inside it rested now. Shimmer crossed her arms and gave her a sideways look.
"You really do all the hardest work from the basement."
"Someone has to. Want to take a walk? I know a floor we can go to."
------
The beach on the nineteenth floor was quiet except for the waves.
The sand was pale and cold beneath their feet. The ocean was moving in long, slow bands under a sky that wasn't real and didn't care whether they minded or not. The fake stars above them drifted in patterns too perfect to be natural. Runner and Shimmer walked side by side along the shoreline without saying much at firs. Their footsteps left shallow marks that the tide kept trying to erase.
Shimmer eventually glanced over at her sister and broke the silence.
"You good?"
Runner gave her a sideways look and kept walking.
"I'm fine."
"That's usually what people say right before they start becoming dramatic. Also, that's Dad's signature sentence."
Runner let out a faint breath that was almost a laugh.
"I'm not becoming dramatic. I'm okay, really."
"Mm. Debatable."
Runner looked out at the water for a moment.
"Remember when we first came here? We were both seventeen."
Shimmer's expression changed a little at that, not because she had forgotten but because hearing it out loud always made the number feel distant.
"I was just a teenager when Dad brought me into the Timeless Realm. I thought time would feel normal. I thought I'd still notice it the way mortals do. I thought four hundred years would feel like four hundred years."
"Yeah, that was never happening."
"No. It really wasn't. Time doesn't work the same for us. I went to the Deux Cities once just to walk around, and I thought I'd only been there for a few days. It turned out I'd spent an entire year inside it."
Shimmer stopped walking for a second and stared at her.
"A year?"
"I didn't even realize it at the time. I hid my identity so nobody would notice. I was just wandering, looking at the city, getting a feel for how people lived there. Then I found out a year had passed."
"That's not comforting."
Runner's mouth twitched. "I wasn't trying to comfort you."
"I know. You never do."
They started walking again. A little farther out, the ocean shimmered under the fake moonlight and the horizon kept moving in a way that made distance feel decorative. The world on this floor looked peaceful enough to fool people who didn't know better, but here it was.
"Immortals handle time in different ways, Shimmer. Some sleep through it. Some travel. Some keep themselves busy until they forget what waiting even feels like. We're all at the Seventh Enlightenment now. We understand our Divinities completely. We know what we are, what we can do, what our power costs, what it needs and what it means. That should make things feel clearer."
"Does it?"
Runner was quiet for a second. "Not really."
That got a short laugh out of Shimmer.
"Yeah, sounds about right."
"It's strange. By now, everyone back in the Hidden Citadel probably thinks we're dead."
Shimmer's laugh faded a little after that.
"Probably."
Runner didn't push the thought any further. The Hidden Citadel had been a lifetime ago and somehow still sat in the back of their minds like a room they'd never stopped waiting to reenter. Everyone there would have gone on believing them gone, lost to time, taken away or erased. That was the sort of thing the Timeless Realm did. It didn't just separate people from existence. It rewrote the feeling of whether they had ever belonged to the same world in the first place.
It was similar to Letian Diamond. They would know they exist but they wouldn't remember their face at all. Soon, even their memory of them would be gone.
Shimmer kicked a little sand out from under her foot and exhaled.
"Dad's beloveds were definitely heartbroken when he died. If it wasn't for the ORS and his Time Fragments, none of us would've made it."
"No. We wouldn't have."
Shimmer looked out at the ocean for a while after that. When she spoke again, her tone was lighter, but only because she was trying to make it lighter.
"Still, we're heading to the Immortal Anchor. That means we're probably going to fight a few kingdoms on the way."
Runner gave her a dry look. "Probably?"
"Fine. Definitely."
That earned her a proper huff of amusement from Runner. It was enough to make the conversation feel less heavy again. Shimmer glanced at her sister more carefully after that, because there was something else she'd been circling around for a while now and didn't feel like pretending to ignore anymore.
"You know, you carry a stupid amount of responsibility."
"That's not new information."
"I'm being serious."
"So am I."
Shimmer stopped walking and turned fully at her.
"Dad never even really gave that responsibility to you. You insisted on it."
Runner didn't answer right away.
"You're basically his splitting image. You're calm all the time, self-sacrificial to a ridiculous degree, stronger than all of us in the ways that count and a Royal Aeterium, just like him. And you look like him too, just with bright blue eyes instead of gold and straight silky hair instead of curls."
"You're analyzing my hair now?"
"I'm appreciating your hair."
"That's not the same thing."
"It can be if I want."
Runner shook her head, but she was smiling a little now. Shimmer stepped closer and squinted at her with a dramatic seriousness that didn't actually hide the worry underneath it.
"You're beautiful, by the way."
"That came out of nowhere."
"No, it didn't. I've been thinking it for centuries."
Runner stared at her for a second, then looked away with the faintest hint of embarrassment.
"You're being weird."
"I'm being honest."
"You're also beautiful. That doesn't seem to have improved your life much."
Shimmer gave an immediate, flat answer.
"Exactly. That's the point."
Runner looked back at her. Shimmer folded her arms and tipped her head toward the sea.
"What's the use of being pretty if you don't have a beloved?"
That got Runner to laugh. This time it was real enough that Shimmer knew she'd hit the right nerve.
"There it is. Now we're getting somewhere."
Runner shook her head.
"You really do love starting problems."
"I love starting conversations."
"They're the same thing with you."
"Not always."
"Yes, always."
Shimmer let that slide and leaned into the subject with obvious interest.
"So. Beloveds. Relationships. Let's talk about the actual issue."
Runner sighed. "There's an actual issue?"
"Yes. Dad ruined romance standards for all of us."
"That's your complaint?"
"Yes."
"You have a strange definition of complaint."
"Think about it. He was kind, powerful, patient, terrifying when needed, protective without being controlling and somehow still had enough emotional intelligence to pull off polyamory without making it weird."
Runner's expression went more amused than offended.
"That's one way to put it. He also raised the bar so high that anyone trying to court any of us now has to compete with an impossible reference point."
Shimmer nodded vigorously.
"Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Normal men are ruined for us, even the good ones."
Runner gave her a skeptical look. "That sounds less like a tragedy and more like a brag."
"It's both. My preference for beloveds is higher now."
"He did make love look different, though."
Shimmer's teasing eased slightly into something more sincere.
"Yeah."
"He never treated affection like weakness. He never treated trust like something to be earned once and then kept forever. He made room for people. That's why it's hard to look at anyone else now and not compare them to him."
Shimmer let that sit for a moment before answering.
"That's why polyamory even feels normal to us. He didn't act like love was a scarce resource. He acted like some people just deserve more than one place to belong. Which is convenient, because honestly I'd rather share a beloved than deal with someone possessive and insecure."
Runner glanced at her with a dry expression.
"That's because you'd win every argument and get bored."
"Obviously."
"You say that like it's a good dating strategy."
"It is, if the right person is involved."
That made Runner laugh again. Shimmer grinned at the sound like she had won something small but satisfying. They both sat down on the sand after that. The beach remained calm around them and for a while they just listened to the ocean. Then Shimmer leaned back on her hands and looked over at her sister with one of those rare expressions that wasn't mocking at all.
"So, you think you'll ever want a beloved?"
Runner was quiet for a little too long. Shimmer watched her closely, not pushing this time.
"Maybe. I don't know. Dad also didn't expect to have five beloveds, right? So, I don't know."
"That's fair."
Runner looked down at the sand.
"I think I'd want someone steady. Someone who understands what I am without trying to make it smaller or who can stand next to me without needing to feel insecure about my own personality."
"That's a good standard."
"Coming from you, that's almost a miracle."
"I'm capable of wisdom when I'm not being a menace."
"You're never not being a menace."
"Still counts."
Runner laughed under her breath and looked back out at the sea. Her shoulders loosened a little and for the first time since the meeting ended, she looked less like the keeper of half the Spire and more like a woman sitting beside her sister at the edge of an endless shore. Shimmer noticed it and felt the guilt in her chest ease for a fraction. Runner carried too much. Everyone knew it. Veneri had never asked her to become the load-bearing wall of the family but she'd done it anyway. And maybe that was why it was so easy to forget she was also just her sister who had spent four centuries becoming stronger than she ever needed to be.
Shimmer nudged her shoulder lightly.
"You know, if you ever do get a beloved, they're gonna have to be seriously impressive."
Runner gave her a small sidelong look.
"Because of Dad."
"Because of Dad, yes. He raised the standard so high that the poor fool will probably need divine clearance just to ask you out."
"That's ridiculous."
"It's true."
Runner smiled at the ocean for a moment, then said:
"Then they'd better be worth it."
Shimmer leaned back again and looked up at the fake sky.
"Yeah. At this point, that's the only acceptable answer."