Chapter 28 · The Gatekeeper's Choice

Silas’s offer hung in the chamber like a blade suspended by a single thread.

“Give me the Primordial Core,” he said, “and I will return every memory the Council took from Evelyn.”

Behind him, the naming core pulsed inside its cage of black glass. Each beat sent a pale fracture of light through the walls. The city answered beyond them. Somewhere far below, bells rang and stopped mid-note. Voices rose in the streets, then dissolved into frightened silence.

Noa stood between Evelyn and the core, one hand pressed against her ribs. Blood had soaked through her shirt and dried in a dark crescent beneath her breast. The wound no longer hurt. That frightened her more than the pain had.

Pain meant the body still belonged to her.

The thing beneath her skin did not.

Silver-black lines crawled from her palm to her throat, slipping beneath the skin like ink poured into veins. Every time the core pulsed, another piece of her name peeled away. She could feel the absence spreading through her mind—small rooms with their doors torn off, shelves emptied, faces reduced to shadows.

Evelyn’s face remained in front of her.

For now.

Silas turned his wrist.