The city fell away behind him like a fever dream — all rotted neon, roiling smoke, and synthetic beauty fading into distance.

  The hovercar whispered up the winding private routes of the Emerald Spire’s lower grounds, away from the glittering decay of the Subvielle.

  Back to marble and manicured silence.

  Malik leaned back in his seat, staring at his own reflection in the dark glass.

  A man caught between two skins.

  His underworld garb — simple, grimy fabrics and muted weapon belts — clung to him like the memory of another life.

  The Malik who had once walked the Harvest Worlds barefoot, who had bartered for bread with hollow-eyed orphans and drunk with smugglers under poisoned skies.

  "Still there," he thought, studying the grim line of his mouth.

  "Still breathing beneath the silk."

  But now, it was time to wear the mask again.

  The car eased into one of the hidden side entrances of the Spire — no ceremony, no witness.

  He stepped out into the familiar sterility of the inner halls, his two shadow operatives dispersing without a word into side corridors.

  Malik moved quickly to his private quarters, known only to a few.

  Inside:

  Cold marble. Velvet hangings. A single, living tree grown through the ceiling, its silvered leaves whispering in engineered breezes.

  The life of a Steward, meticulously constructed.

  Malik stripped away the leathers and linens of the underworld without hesitation.

  He stepped under a quick sterilizing mist — scrubbing away the scents of sweat, oil, and smoke —

  then donned the emerald robes of House Verlone, their fabric woven with threads of gold so fine they shimmered with his movements.

  His signet ring — the white stag crest of Verlone — slid onto his finger like a manacle.

  A Steward’s sash was knotted precisely at his waist, swordless, but no less dangerous.

  In the polished obsidian mirror above his dressing stand, Malik studied the man he had rebuilt:

  Tanned skin, weathered but clean.

  Dark hair combed back with diplomatic precision.

  Amber eyes clear, sharp, and unyielding.

  The underworld Malik was hidden again.

  A perfect servant of the House.

  He smoothed a single wrinkle from his sleeve.

  Time was wasting.

  The true war — the one fought in memory, not blood — awaited.

  He turned, fastening his Steward’s cloak at his throat, and walked briskly toward the private courtyards.

  Beyond them, his official car awaited, ready to take him to the Circle of Faiths.

  And to the Temple of the Scribe, where Memory itself would demand a price.

  "Let them test me," he thought coldly.

  "I have already traded away everything that mattered."

  The hovercar door hissed open as he approached.

  Malik stepped inside, and the Spire fell away behind him once more.

  This time — toward the black halls of truth.

  The Emerald Spire loomed behind him — a walled garden of illusions, veiled in perfection and marble silence.

  Malik’s hovercar drifted down the winding roads that led from the Vale to the Circle of Faiths, where the great Temples clustered just outside the Verlone’s sacred ground. Close enough to be used. Distant enough to be disavowed.

  The hovercar hissed low as it moved, cloaked in official colors. Malik sat rigid, dressed now in the full emerald-and-gold regalia of a Verlone Steward — clean, polished, unassailable.

  A mask he wore better than most.

  He watched the temples rise into view through the tinted glass, each one a monument to a different god —

  and a different war, hidden beneath incense and prayer.

  The hovercar slipped from the manicured roads of the Spire into the Circle —

  a place where faith wore flesh, stone, and glass.

  Temples loomed around him in a great broken ring, clustered like ancient gods bickering in silence.

  Malik leaned forward slightly in his seat, arms crossed, gaze like a scalpel.

  Each Temple was a piece on the board —

  a faction, a faith, a game within the game.

  He studied them with neither reverence nor disgust —

  only calculation.

  The hovercar slipped from the manicured roads of the Spire into the Circle —

  a place where faith wore flesh, stone, and glass.

  Temples loomed around him in a great broken ring, clustered like ancient gods bickering in silence.

  Malik leaned forward slightly in his seat, arms crossed, gaze like a scalpel.

  Each Temple was a piece on the board —

  a faction, a faith, a game within the game.

  He studied them with neither reverence nor disgust —

  only calculation.

  First, the Temple of Mnemolysia, The Scribe of Infinity.

  The Temple he would soon enter.

  A vast, obsidian pyramid whose walls shifted with faint silver glyphs — endless names, histories, betrayals, births and deaths.

  A library pretending to be a tomb.

  No flags. No celebrations.

  Only the terrible dignity of memory, carved into every inch.

  Malik’s lip twitched slightly.

  Memory, they called it.

  Conveniently arranged. Painfully edited.

  Just another kingdom built on what people chose to remember — and chose to forget.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Next was the Shrine of Lysithea, The First Blade.

  The warrior’s fortress:

  sharp pale stone spires, armored statues in eternal combat, crimson and gold banners snapping in the dry night air.

  The scent of oiled steel and bloodless combat wafted from the open-air training yards where initiates fought even in darkness.

  Malik’s eyes lingered a fraction longer.

  Strength.

  Honor.

  Righteous slaughter.

  All useful lies — and dangerously seductive ones.

  Then, the Sanctum of Myreotelia called the Voice of Desire.

  The temple of beauty:

  a living garden of glass and silk, lit from within by drifting petals and soft, golden lights.

  Music floated out in whispered crescendos — the sound of hearts breaking, seducing, surrendering.

  Malik’s mouth tightened.

  Beauty weaponized.

  Love sold by the ounce.

  Peace bought by the kiss of a dagger.

  He had seen what "peace" cost, in Harvest Worlds drowned in corpses.

  Oura’s Oratory followed the temple. She was known The Keeper of Time

  The stark, marble ziggurat, built from black and white stone cut into sharp, geometric layers.

  The only door: three interlocked circles, polished until they gleamed like a mirror trapping the future inside.

  Malik felt a chill even from the car.

  The future is not woven.

  It is seized.

  It is ripped from the hands of those too slow to hold it.

  He would not be counted among the slow.

  Then, the Reliquary of the Cadence of Crows — The Grave-Singer

  The nightmare temple:

  twisted, blackened spire-stones, and statues of crows carved from bone.

  From the cracks in the stones, smoke and whispered laments oozed, smelling of ash and bitter endings.

  Malik didn’t flinch — but deep inside, something old stirred.

  Death was not to be feared.

  Only forgotten.

  And Malik would not allow himself to be forgotten.

  The Sanctuary of Ménea, Mother of Life stood next to her counterpart.

  A vast, overgrown sanctuary of living marble, vines and roots bursting through carved arches.

  Bioluminescent flowers glowed faintly along the walls; streams ran through cracked, luminous stone.

  The air smelled of earth, rain, and uncoiled life.

  Malik watched it with clinical disdain.

  Creation without purpose.

  Growth without direction.

  A garden left untended becomes a graveyard.

  The Temple of Aromandus known as the Helmsman of the Vast Sea stood next.

  The temple seemed barely tethered to the ground —

  a massive, floating celestial ship of silver metal, anchored by glowing chains to great marble pillars.

  Lights pulsed along its hull like a sleeping heartbeat, guiding lost travelers.

  Malik snorted quietly.

  Travel, freedom, exploration.

  Another name for running away.

  He had stopped believing in escape a long time ago.

  Finally, The Tower of Kaptalius, Guardian of Aster was blindingly white, painfully symmetrical —

  a geometric tower etched with the perfect movements of stars, planets, and constellations.

  Golden lines ran across every stone, mapping celestial movements in breathtaking precision.

  Malik’s gaze sharpened.

  Order.

  Law.

  Structure in a universe that mocks all three.

  He could almost respect it.

  Almost.

  *“Temples of life, war, love, time, death, travel, order, and memory.

  All desperate to cage the void.

  And all failing, in the end.”*

  He leaned back in his seat as the hovercar began to slow.

  The Temple of Mnemolysia loomed ahead —

  silent, black, waiting.

  Ready to judge him.

  Ready to record him.

  But Malik Atan did not fear judgment.

  He would trade what was needed.

  Pass their tests.

  Weave new lies into old memories.

  Because in the end, the only faith he held —

  was in himself.

  “So many promises," Malik thought coldly. "Strength. Beauty. Wisdom. Love. Destiny.

  And all of it rotting the galaxy from the inside out.”*

  The gods were real, perhaps.

  Or perhaps they were simply masks mankind had painted on the stars, desperate to give meaning to their decay.

  Either way, their temples loomed — not as shelters, but as monuments to powers Malik neither loved nor feared.

  His hovercar drifted to a stop before the Temple of Mnemolysia.

  The gates of memory awaited.

  As the hovercar coasted to a final halt outside the great obsidian steps of the Temple, Malik remained seated for a moment longer — eyes half-lidded, calculating.

  The robe he wore — deep green with silver embroidery, the mark of a Steward and a follower of the Scribe — was immaculate.

  His face, perfectly neutral.

  But inside, his mind whirred like a clockwork device built in the dark.

  "The Temples are not just faith.

  They are networks."

  "Where House Verlone’s spies cannot go, the Temple’s scribes can.

  Where House Verlone’s reach falters, faith flows unchallenged."

  Their true strength wasn't their sermons or relics.

  It was their silent scribes tucked away in ports and archives.

  Their priests installed among merchant houses and minor courts.

  Their memory-keepers who watched the Inner Ring itself — watched even the Emperor’s world, through veils of ritual and prayer.

  *"Even in the Emperor’s core, where no Ducal House can tread openly…

  Mnemolysia’s records still turn their invisible wheels."*

  That was why Malik came.

  Not for guidance.

  Not for peace.

  But for access.

  The Scribe’s children hoarded truths like dragons hoarded gold.

  And Malik intended to pry loose whatever shards he could —

  no matter the cost.

  Malik stepped out alone.

  The stone beneath his boots pulsed faintly, lines of faint silver threading outward — recording his entrance.

  Memory was sacred here. No step was forgotten. No word unnoted.

  Two archivists — robed in deep grey and silver — awaited him at the threshold.

  Their faces were visible but distant, marked with inked glyphs at their throats and wrists: oaths of silence, of service to Memory.

  “Third Steward Malik Atan,” one intoned softly. “You seek the Chamber of Record?”

  “I do,” Malik answered, voice even.

  The archivists inclined their heads and moved aside, robes whispering across the cold floor.

  No armed guards. No need.

  The Temple itself was a labyrinth of oaths and traps far deadlier than any soldier.

  Malik passed through the great obsidian doors, into the mouth of the past.

  He was led into a long corridor of whispering scrolls and blinking crystal terminals.

  At the end, a single figure awaited him — a woman clad in deep grey, face marked with a spiraling glyph that seemed to move when one wasn’t looking.

  The Recordmistress.

  “Steward Malik,” she said without bowing.

  “Knowledge has a price here. And memory guards its own.”

  She gestured to a small black plinth between them.

  It pulsed with faint silver light.

  The Test of Recall:

  Malik was shown a rapid sequence of images — ancient banners, shattered planets, fallen noble seals — some real, some fabricated.

  He had to name them. Contextualize them. Separate true history from the falsehoods inserted to confuse him.

  It was brutal.

  Designed not to measure what he knew —

  but how well he understood the truth buried under lies.

  Each image brought memories unbidden:

  The starving faces on Harvest Worlds.

  The poisoned treaties of Outer Ring Houses.

  The charred corpses after "honorable" wars.

  He sorted them ruthlessly, stripping away emotion.

  Truth mattered.

  Not sentiment.

  Not loyalty.

  Only memory preserved.

  He answered each challenge with precision — sometimes curt, sometimes explanatory — until finally the Recordmistress nodded.

  “You see more than most.”

  It was not praise.

  It was classification.

  Then came the second price:

  Malik had to give knowledge.

  "Offer your coin," the Recordmistress said, tone neither cruel nor kind.

  Malik did not hesitate.

  He offered up:

  A secret ledger from a side branch of House Verlone, detailing illegal Stardust trade routes.

  The names of two minor House agents in Pelegeion, secretly siphoning weapon contracts to outside rivals.

  Not because he cared about House Verlone.

  Because this was leverage, and he had already moved against those agents elsewhere.

  Giving them up cost him nothing — and made him appear generous.

  The Recordmistress touched the plinth, accepting the offering.

  The light dimmed.

  Memory stored.

  In return, the Recordmistress spoke five words:

  “The Garden has already cracked.”

  A warning.

  A prophecy.

  The Temple had seen it too:

  The Emerald Spire, House Verlone itself — already beginning to rot at its roots, though the leaves still shone in emerald splendor.

  "I already knew that," Malik thought. "I came for more."

  The Recordmistress offered him a sealed glyphstone — a physical memory crystal — containing further intelligence.

  Not spoken. Not written.

  Something Malik would have to unlock himself, once he was safe.

  He left the Temple alone.

  The night was deep and violet.

  Above him, the temples loomed —

  monuments to gods who no longer listened, if they ever had.

  But Malik had listened.

  And soon, others would bleed for what he had learned.

  Not enough to win yet.

  But enough to make the first cuts.