The High Citadel didn't just sit above the city; it sneered. A massive, bloated carcass of white stone and arrogance.
Solarr climbed the Endless Stairs. His boots, caked in the grey, oily mud of the slums, left a trail of filth on the pristine marble. Each step was a wet, heavy slap. A smear of the "real" world on their lie. The air here was thin—too thin. It tasted like filtered ice and expensive, perfumed bullshit. It made his lungs ache, a sharp, stinging reminder of the soot and piss he'd left behind.
"Check your pulse, Solarr," he croaked. His voice was a jagged rasp, a broken sound in a world of silk whispers.
There was no night here. They'd bought the sun. Chained it. Massive, floating crystals of 'Captured Noon' hung over the district like glowing tumors, bleeding a constant, blinding gold onto the streets. It was a slap in the face to the natural order. In the High Citadel, the light was a slave, pinned to the ceiling of the sky just so the rich wouldn't have to face the dark.
Solarr wiped a bead of greasy sweat from his forehead. He felt exposed. Raw. A black smudge on a canvas of stolen gold.
The main gate loomed. It wasn't iron. It was solid, translucent amber, three stories of hardened sap. Inside the stone, thousands of ancient insects were trapped—frozen mid-flight, their tiny, brittle legs twisted for eternity. Just like the bastards living behind these walls. Preserved. Stagnant. Stolen.
The Ledger in Solarr's mind gave a violent, sickening throb. It wasn't a name this time. It was a roar that made his molars ache.
NAME: CASTELLAN THORNE.
DEBT: THE ETERNAL PRINCIPAL.
The amber gates didn't creak. They hissed—a sound like a snake sliding over dry silk.
Two sentinels stood guard. They weren't wearing armor. They were wearing "Time." Their skin shimmered with a pale, silver slime—a protective layer of concentrated years that made them look like ghosts made of moonlight. They had no eyes. Just smooth, glowing pits where the sockets should be. Empty.
"The Auditor," one whispered. The voice didn't come from a throat. It vibrated in the stagnant air, cold and hollow. "You smell of the gutter, little reaper. You smell of death and cheap, rusted copper."
Solarr didn't stop. He walked right between them, the blue coin in his palm pulsing a violent warning. "And you smell like a funeral parlor sprayed with cheap lavender. Out of my way, puppets. Thorne's account is overdrawn."
He didn't wait for a response. He walked into the Throne Room of Hours.
It was a forest of clocks. Thousands of them. Gold, silver, bone, and glass. Ticking. Tocking. A rhythmic, mechanical heartbeat that made Solarr's own heart stutter and skip. Every tick was a stolen second. Every tock was a life being liquidated into a glass of wine.
At the end of the hall, sitting on a chair made of frozen sunlight, was Castellan Thorne.
He looked like a man in his prime, but his eyes were ancient—two pits of cold, calculating vacuum that had seen centuries. He was holding a glass of liquid light, sipping it slowly, as if he were drinking the very essence of a summer afternoon while the rest of the world froze.
"Auditor," Thorne said. His voice was smooth, like a razor blade wrapped in velvet. "I was wondering when the Bank would send its most loyal dog. Tell me, do they pay you in scraps, or do you just enjoy the metallic taste of other people's blood?"
Solarr spat on the pristine floor. A thick, grey glob of phlegm. It sat there on the white marble, a beautiful, ugly insult. Thorne's eyebrow didn't even twitch, but the air in the room turned heavy, like wet wool.
"I don't do this for the pay, Thorne," Solarr hissed. He could feel the blue fire starting to crawl up his neck, itching, burning. "I do it because the Ledger says you're a thief. And I'm here to take back what you swallowed. All of it."
Thorne laughed. A dry, hollow sound, like gold coins clinking inside a skull. "All of it? Auditor, I am the city. If you take what I owe, the sun goes out. The clocks stop. The Citadel falls into the mud."
"Then let it rot," Solarr said.
His hand started to shake. The blue coin was biting into his flesh now, hungrier than it had ever been. It didn't want a year. it wanted an era. Solarr felt a surge of nausea—a wave of other people's memories, faces he didn't know, voices of the dead screaming for their lost seconds.
He didn't slam his palm this time. He didn't have to. The air around him began to warp, the golden light of the room turning a bruised, violent purple. The clocks on the walls began to spin backward, their hands whirring like frantic insect legs.
"You're not just a collector, are you?" Thorne's smile finally slipped. A flicker of something human appeared in his eyes. Fear. "You're a parasite, just like me. You're just drinking from a different vein."
"Maybe," Solarr growled, stepping into the circle of Thorne's stolen light. "But at least I don't pretend my breath doesn't stink of the grave."
He reached out. Not for Thorne's throat, but for the air around him. The "Time" that protected the Castellan began to flake off like dry skin. Brittle. Flaking. The silver glow was being sucked into Solarr's pores.
Thorne tried to stand, but his legs buckled. The "youth" in his face was draining away, the skin turning to parchment, then to dust. He looked like a fruit rotting in high-speed, turning from ripe to black in a heartbeat.
"The Bank... always... collects..." Thorne gasped, his voice now a thin, whistling wheeze.
Solarr stood over him, a dark shadow in the center of the dying gold. He felt the weight of Thorne's centuries slamming into his own soul. It was too much. It was a tidal wave of filth.
He looked at the Ledger. It wasn't satisfied.
STATUS: INCOMPLETE.
REASON: MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS DETECTED.
Solarr looked around the room. The "nobles" in the shadows were screaming now, their own stolen years starting to vibrate, to leak. He wasn't just here for Thorne. He was here for the whole damn Citadel.
"Everything," Solarr whispered to the ticking room. "I'm taking everything."