The guards silently parted as we approached the castle gates. One of them gave Orpheus a brief nod-it seemed he was quite popular here.
The gates swung open almost silently.
Inside, it was unexpectedly quiet.
First came a huge courtyard.
The stone plaza stretched far ahead, paved with the same smooth dark stone as the ancient platform beneath the castle. Along the edges stood training grounds, armory stands, wells, and long barracks.
Several squads of guards were training with spears.
By the far wall, the Awakened one repeatedly transformed his hand into the scaly paw of some beast, while an instructor watched closely.
But what was felt most strongly was something else.
There was a sense of power here.
A heavy, calm power, as if the entire castle stood upon something that pulsed slowly and constantly beneath the stone.
Orpheus led me further.
We passed through another set of doors and found ourselves inside.
Inside, the castle was even stranger than from the outside.
The first hall was enormous. The ceiling was lost somewhere in the darkness, supported by massive columns.
But the columns didn't look… like ordinary stone.
They were too smooth, with no traces of tools. Thin lines ran across their surface, similar to those I had already seen on the ancient city walls.
Sometimes a faint light flashed through these lines for a moment.
People had clearly finished building this place.
Amid the ancient columns, there were now wooden balconies, long tables and benches, tapestries, and paintings clearly created by human hands.
But the hall's structure was much older.
We walked down a wide corridor where the walls were adorned with old maps of the Spire, drawings of unknown creatures, and trophies-huge fangs, horns, and black crystals.
Finally, the guard stopped in front of a massive door.
He knocked.
A calm voice came from inside:
"Come in."
We entered the throne room.
The room was spacious, but not as enormous as the previous halls.
Large windows let in the cold light of the Spire.
In the center stood a long table made of dark wood, covered with maps, scrolls, and metal tokens.
A man sat at the table.
The ruler of the Citadel.
He didn't look the way I expected.
No crown.
No luxurious robe.
Just plain dark clothes, a cloak draped over the back of his chair.
But there was something heavy in his gaze.
That's how people look who have carried the weight of too much responsibility for too long.
He looked up at us.
First he looked at Orpheus, then shifted his gaze to me.
He simply studied us for a few seconds.
Then he nodded slowly.
"Glad to see you, Orpheus. And…" he smiled slightly, "it looks like the new year has started off on the right foot after all."
He leaned back in his chair.
"Finding new survivors from Earth is always a rarity. And those who have awakened-even more so."
I paused for a moment, then said:
"My name is Oscar."
The ruler raised an eyebrow.
"Oscar?"
He paused for a moment.
Then he smiled quietly.
"It seems I've been waiting for you."
I frowned.
"What?"
He shifted his gaze to one of the maps on the table.
"A week ago, a girl arrived at the Citadel. From Earth. An Awakened One."
He looked up.
"Scarlett."
My heart stopped for a second.
The ruler continued calmly:
"She asked me to tell you that if a certain Oscar were to show up, he should be sent to her."
He tilted his head slightly, looking at me intently.
"I must admit… it was rather presumptuous to hope that a human could survive so easily in the world of Spire."
Orpheus chuckled quietly beside him.
The ruler looked back down at the table, picked up a small pouch, and tossed it to me.
I barely managed to catch it.
Metal clinked softly inside.
"A couple dozen tokens," he said.
"Consider this… your starting capital."
He looked at me again.
"I hope you'll be of use to the Citadel."
His voice was calm, but it carried the weight of a man accustomed to measuring people by their contribution to the city's survival.
Then he turned to Orpheus.
"Take him to Scarlett. To the area for the Awakened."
Orpheus gave a brief nod.
"Understood."
The Ruler lowered his gaze back to the maps.
"And as for you, Oscar…" he said, without looking up, "we'll talk later."
Orpheus was already turning toward the door.
"Let's go," he said to me.
"Looks like you've got an interesting meeting ahead of you."
We left the throne room as quietly as we had entered.
The heavy door closed behind us, muffling the guards' voices and the rustle of cards on the ruler's table.
For a few seconds, we simply walked down the castle's long corridor.
I was still clutching the bag of tokens in my hand. The metal inside jingled softly with every step.
"Scarlett…" I finally said.
Orpheus glanced at me.
"Looks like she knows how to make an impression."
"That's an understatement…" I replied listlessly.
He shrugged.
"And, by the looks of it, she's already managed to make a name for herself."
We stepped out into the castle's inner courtyard. The air here was cooler than in the halls, and the wind carried the scent of the city-smoke from forges, bread, the damp stone of the canals.
Orpheus headed confidently down the wide staircase.
"The Awakened district is on the other side of the central quarter," he said. "About a twenty-minute walk."
The city was gradually coming to life around us.
The farther we moved away from the castle, the more people appeared on the streets.
Messengers hurried about on their business.
Guards were changing shifts.
Several Awakened were training right in the square-one of them raised his hand, and a small swirling cloud of dust formed above his palm.
But even among them, the district of the Awakened was special.
We could sense it even before we got there.
First, symbols began to appear.
On the walls of houses.
On metal plaques.
On the cloaks of people passing by.
A circle crossed by several lines-the symbol of the Circle of the Awakened. So said Orpheus.
"We're almost there," said Orpheus.
When the street turned, the space in front of us suddenly opened up.
The district of the Awakened was built around a huge ancient tower.
It rose from the ground like a black stone spear reaching into the sky. The tower's surface was smooth, covered with the same strange lines as the ancient fortress walls.
Occasionally, faint flashes of light ran along these lines.
An entire district stretched out around the tower.
But it was different from the rest of the city.
There was more space here.
Wide training grounds.
Open courtyards.
Low stone buildings.
Some houses looked almost like barracks, others like small mansions.
You could feel the energy in the air.
A stone crashed somewhere-one of the awakened had struck a huge slab and split it in two.
A little further away, a girl stood in the middle of a circle, with small fireballs slowly spinning around her.
No one even looked at it.
Here, it was a common occurrence.
"Newcomers are housed closer to the eastern courtyard," Orpheus said. "It's easier to keep an eye on them there, so they don't accidentally destroy half the neighborhood."
We walked past the training grounds and turned onto a quieter street.
The buildings here were lower. They were made of stone, with simple wooden doors and narrow windows.
It looked like some kind of dormitory for newly awakened people.
Orpheus stopped in front of one of the houses.
A two-story building, its walls resting on an ancient foundation of smooth black stone.
He knocked.
A few seconds later, footsteps could be heard from inside.
The door opened.
A girl with long red hair stood in the doorway.
She stared at me for a few seconds. Her white eyes seemed capable of burning a hole right through me.
Then her eyes widened.
"...Oscar?"
Orpheus snorted quietly.
"Well, there you go. Looks like we guessed right."
I froze too.
"Hi…" I said and waved my hand playfully.
She looked at me as if checking to see if I was real.
Then she stepped forward abruptly and hugged me tightly.
Which was extremely unexpected. But no less pleasant for that.
"You're an idiot," she muttered. "How could you fall out of the carriage when that thing was chasing us?"
Orpheus leaned his shoulder against the wall and folded his arms.
"Very touching," he said. "But can I go now?"
"Thanks for bringing him."
"Do you two know each other?" I asked in surprise.
"By reputation," Scarlett replied. "He's pretty popular around here."
"Well, not exactly, but maybe a little," Orpheus replied, clearly pleased with himself.
"Well, I guess I'll be going."
With that, Orpheus hurried to leave. But I stopped him by grabbing his arm.
"I understand everything, of course, but where am I going to live?"
He looked at me with obvious confusion.
"What do you mean, where? 'With her,'" he said, pointing at Scarlett standing in the doorway.
Scarlett and I were clearly used to being in close contact; after all, we'd been traveling together for the past six months. But I still held out hope for some personal space. Well, hope dies last.
"I see. In that case, see you later."
"Get some rest today, Oscar."
He smiled. And patted me on the shoulder.
"Tomorrow, real life at the Citadel begins."
And, without waiting for an answer, he disappeared around the corner.
Scarlett and I were left alone.
For a few seconds, neither of us said a word.
She was still standing in the doorway, her shoulder resting lightly against the doorframe. The evening light from the Spire fell from the street, making her silhouette appear slightly darker.
The same red hair.
The same attentive gaze.
Only she looked… different.
More composed.
"Well?" she finally said. "Are you just going to stand out there on the street?"
I blinked.
"Yeah… exactly."
I stepped inside.
The house turned out to be simple.
The ground floor consisted of a small common room. Stone walls, a rough wooden table, a few chairs, and a long bench against the wall. A stove stood in the corner, and a pile of firewood lay nearby.
But the strangest thing was the floor.
It was made of that same ancient black stone. Perfectly smooth, as if polished. Thin lines ran across the surface, resembling diagrams.
Scarlett noticed me looking at it.
"It's like that in almost all the houses here," she said.
She closed the door and walked over to the table.
"Sit down."
I sat down.
She just stared at me for a moment.
Then she let out a heavy sigh.
"Damn… I even started to think you were dead."
I couldn't help but smile.
"Me too."
She snorted.
"No, seriously. When you fell out of the wagon and that thing almost caught up to us…"
She fell silent for a second.
"I was sure that was it."
The room fell silent again.
I took out the pouch of tokens and placed it on the table.
The metal clinked softly.
Scarlett raised an eyebrow.
"Wow."
"A gift from the ruler."
She picked up a token and twirled it between her fingers.
"So you've already been to see him."
"Yes. Orpheus took me."
She nodded.
"Makes sense."
I looked at her more closely.
"Have you been here a week already?"
"Almost,"
"So?"
She leaned back in her chair.
"Strange,"
I waited for her to continue.
"This city…" She gestured toward the wall, as if pointing to the entire Citadel. "It's as if it's built on something ancient. People have been here for a long time, but no one fully understands what kind of place this is."
"I've noticed."
She nodded.
"There are a lot of Awakened here. But newcomers like us are usually kept in this area at first."
"Why?"
"Because sometimes people lose control of their Essences. You can move on once you've earned their trust."
I remembered the training ground we'd passed by.
"I see."
Scarlett looked at me again.
"And there's something else. The thing that bothers me the most. This city-and all these people, really-don't look like they're trying to get back to Earth."
She paused briefly.
"Okay, let's not talk about the bad stuff today. Maybe you can tell me what's been going on with you-this past week, anyway."
Settling more comfortably into my chair, I began telling Scarlett about my experience inside the ancient temple of Eliar, about the labyrinth of essences, and about the last surviving member of their species. I also shared with her my fears that here, in the world of the Spire, it might not even be safe to look at anything. As I spoke, she asked questions, and I calmly answered everything I could. So I got to the point where I managed to escape and was thrown out into an unknown place. After that, I used my Essence to find my way to the Citadel, where I met Orpheus.
"And here I am, right in front of you," I concluded my story awkwardly.
"You're just crazy, Oscar," she chuckled. "You know, at the academy, you didn't look like the type who'd go through all this. Before you told me, I thought all the dangers we'd faced were because of me. But now I think you would've gotten into all this trouble even without me."
"What do you mean when you say it was all because of you?"
She looked at me, and then, apparently realizing something, began to speak.
"You definitely haven't gone through calibration yet. As soon as our senior comrades and I arrived in the city, I was taken to the ruler, and after speaking with him, I was sent for calibration."
"Calibration?" I asked in surprise.
"Yes, that's what they call the process here. There's a mysterious device in the main castle. If you spill your blood on it, it will affect your Bond-it will, so to speak, reveal more information. For example, about your Essence's special abilities and its description. And also a description of your epithets."
"That's… pretty useful," I noted.
"Yes. And anyway, as soon as I entered the Spire, I received the epithet 'hard fate,' and at the time I didn't understand what it meant. But over time, I obviously began to guess. And as soon as I passed the calibration, my guesses were confirmed."
"So what does it mean?"
"This epithet makes the path of life harder for me and my loved ones, but those who go through more difficult trials receive a better reward. Something like that."
"That's pretty cruel."
I hesitated for a moment, but then asked.
"What about your essence?"
"My essence. It's an Ice Singularity. It gives me power over gravity and ice. That's what it gives me passively, even if I don't manifest it. If I manifest my essence, the temperature around me starts to drop, and those weaker than me constantly feel increased gravitational pressure." And my body naturally ignores part of the inertia and gravitational pull.
"Sounds… um, cool?" "Actually, it's just incredible; the scope of her abilities is truly vast."
She chuckled.
"Yeah, pretty cool, considering I trained with the other Awakened ones here." "None of them could compete with me. The others had decent abilities too, and we weren't fighting to the death, but still, when they fought against me, they didn't stand a chance," Scarlett said boastfully.
"I don't doubt it," I replied mockingly.
A dull thud came from outside-it sounded like someone was practicing on the court again.
I glanced toward the window.
"It's noisy in here."
"You'll get used to it."
She stood up from her chair.
"Come on, I'll show you your room."
"A room?"
"Well… sort of."
We climbed the narrow staircase to the second floor.
There was a long hallway and several doors.
Scarlett opened one.
The room was small.
One double bed.
A wardrobe.
A narrow window.
I looked at her.
She shrugged innocently.
"Well, we're used to it."
I chuckled quietly.
"Well… anything's better than sleeping in sleeping bags in the middle of snowy wastelands."
She walked over to the window and looked out.
I stood next to her.
From this spot, we could see most of the Awakened district.
Training grounds.
The ancient tower in the center.
And far beyond the houses-the walls of the Citadel.
And even higher…
A construct hung motionless in the sky.
Scarlett was looking at it, too.
"You know…" she said quietly. "I still can't believe we're here."
"Me neither."
She turned to face me.
A familiar, slightly mischievous smile appeared on her face.
"But, you know… we've always wanted adventure."
I chuckled.
"Personally, I didn't."
The roar of training echoed from the street again.
The city was alive.
"But it looks like we got them anyway."
She nodded.
"And tomorrow…"
Scarlett looked at me with a hint of excitement.
"Tomorrow we'll start figuring out how to get out of this damn world."