Kynar lies sprawled across the cold cell floor. Above him, pinpricks of vermillion light blink in and out of existence where the invisible ceiling ends. The Balah. He knows this sight, has seen it countless times in his years of service. But never from inside a cage.

  His breath comes unlabored. His pale skin remains unbroken. Yet something festers beneath the surface. A corruption that stains his very essence as an Eidolon with patches of midnight, spreading like frost across glass. The torment presses against his thoughts, a discordant symphony that sets his teeth on edge.

  The pain sings. It speaks of emptiness, of spaces between spaces where something ancient dwells and waits.

  The metallic wall ripples.

  Kynar sits up. His torq rattles against his throat, the sound wrong. Defunct. Bound. Useless.

  The wall dissolves. Geometric patterns fold inward like intricate wings, and Titus Ragnos steps through. His platinum hair catches the flickering light from the Balah above. The air hums faintly, charged.

  "Titus." Kynar's torq rattles again as he stands. His movements quicken, almost eager, before his gaze meets those blue eyes. He stops. Goes still.

  Titus's expression could cut stone. "The Festival of Retrospection. Seventeen dead. Four hundred seventy-three wounded." A pause. "Why?"

  The words land like physical blows.

  Kynar blinks, the words dying before they form. "I do not—"

  "Where are we?" Titus gestures at the walls, the ceiling, the expanse of the Balah beyond, and the weight of his question settles like stone. "Where do we stand?"

  Kynar's gaze follows the sweep of his arm, traveling up the seamless metal to the void above, where understanding waits like a patient executioner.

  The Necropolis.

  The city of ruin beneath Malkiel. Where they hold the most damned criminals. Kynar's feet carry him backward until cold metal meets his spine. His fingers spread against the wall behind him.

  Titus watches. Waits.

  "Why?"

  The single word fills the space between them.

  Kynar tries to focus on Titus's face. His vision blurs at the edges. Something inside him shifts, cracks, and memories surge through the fissure. Clouds tearing apart beneath his Vritraha's passage. Energy cannons charging, their glass muzzles bending light and space. Screams cut short by the splintering of reality itself.

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  His doing. All of it.

  Titus's lips move, forming words Kynar cannot hear.

  The song drowns everything else. That mewling thing rising from the depths of his mind. It has been there all along, whispering, cooing at the edges of consciousness. Now it surges forward, triumphant.

  The melody fills his skull. Impossible harmonies. Notes that should not exist in any universe, yet here they are, here they have always been. His legs buckle. The floor rushes up to meet him. His body convulses, muscles clenching and releasing in rhythms not his own. The corruption spreads beneath his skin. He can feel it, see it when he looks down at his hands. Dark spots stretching across living threads.

  "Forgive me, my Qilin." The words escape before he can stop them. Ragged. Desperate. Kynar blinks back tears, fixes his gaze on the swirling Balah above. "It is only now I understand. Once, you spoke to me about the box. Do you remember?"

  Titus moves closer. His voice reaches through the song. "I remember."

  "You said we are all born and die in a box." Something curves Kynar's lips. The expression belongs to his face but not to him. "For us Malkielites, our box is a cube. A hyper-dimensional cube, but a box nonetheless."

  "What does this have to do with anything?"

  "Tradition. History." Kynar's fingers scrape against the floor, seeking purchase, finding none. "These are our walls. The bars of our gilded cage. Honor. Duty. Merely the locks that keep us confined."

  Titus tilts his head. Studies him like a specimen.

  Kynar's breath hitches. Wetness tracks down his face. He does not remember when the tears began. "You think me mad, do you not, cousin? I see it in your eyes. But you are wrong. Madness is what optimates fear. We are Eidolons. Things even the Hells cannot touch."

  "Is it not madness to repeat truths already known? To drape yourself in riddles as if they are revelations?"

  The song swells. Kynar's vision darkens at the edges, narrows to a tunnel. Black veins pulse beneath his skin. He can see them now, branching across his hands, his arms, visible through pale flesh. His torq begins to vibrate against his throat. The sound it makes is low, distorted, wrong.

  "You do not understand, Titus." The words come from somewhere deep. Somewhere that tastes like void. "I stand outside. Outside the box." Kynar pushes to his feet. Takes a step toward his old friend. His movements feel strange, disconnected. Joints bending at angles that should not be possible. "You once asked me to fathom what that would mean." Another step. "And now I am your answer, made flesh."

  Titus's breath catches. Kynar hears it, that small betrayal of control. Then Titus turns. Puts his back to the corrupted thing Kynar has become. His shoulders go rigid.

  The corruption flares white-hot through Kynar's veins. His pupils dilate. He knows without seeing that the outer rings bleed pure black now. His mouth opens. What emerges is his voice layered over something else. Something vast and patient and utterly alien.

  "I am the Autarch!" The words tear from his throat, shredding it. "I am the Nihil!"

  Titus does not turn. But his steps falter. Just for a moment. Just long enough for Kynar to see the crack in his composure before he reaches the dissolving doorway.

  The Balah's hum grows louder. Wild. Murderous. It fills the cell with its bizarre rhythm, drowning thought, drowning meaning.

  Kynar stands trembling. His body convulses again, but this time the sensation is different. Pleasure and agony intertwined so thoroughly he cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. The dark veins recede slightly. Leave him gasping.

  The walls begin to ripple closed behind Titus.

  Kynar's voice cuts through the rising hum. Broken. Canticle-like. Not entirely his own.

  "Prepare yourself, my Qilin. Doom approaches."

  The cell seals. The pinprick lights continue their endless cycle above him.

  Kynar sinks to his knees.

  The song remains.