The silence in Sector Seven wasn’t emptiness—it was a heavy, tangible weight. Deep within the tunnels beneath the Order’s main base, the walls were lined with null-stone—a matte, porous mineral that greedily absorbed any magical vibration. In this chamber, there was no echo. Even the sound of my own breathing felt flat and dead, as if it had been snipped off at the lips.

  I lay on the floor, pressing my cheek against the cold stone slab. After the Dead Quarter, my body had become one continuous map of pain. My left shoulder burned—the joint had been dislocated and barely set in the cart; my ribs ached with every breath, and the forearm sliced by the Shade throbbed with a dark, viscous pain.

  [Will to Live] was silent. In this place, stripped of magical background, my only trump card had become a burden. The skill tried to activate, sensing the tissue damage, but, finding no energy outside, it began to devour my own reserves. It felt like a cold drill boring into the back of my skull. Every minute I felt myself growing weaker—not from the wounds, but from my own body trying to “save” itself by burning through the last of my strength.

  “Enough…” I rasped into the void. “Ease up, bastard.”

  The skill didn’t respond. It just vibrated somewhere at the edge of my consciousness, like a broken engine.

  The chamber door—a massive slab of black oak, sheathed in lead—opened with a dry, short click. A shaft of light from the corridor struck my eyes, making them water. I didn’t move. There was no point.

  Valt stepped in. The old man looked immaculate. His robe, embroidered with silver thread, had not a speck of dust, even though we had just returned from the breach zone. He stopped three paces away, eyeing my filthy boots with disgust.

  “You’ve disappointed me, subject,” he said. His voice was void of emotion, as if reading an inventory list. “We invested heavily in your adaptation. Your skill is a unique interface between flesh and mana. But your mind… it’s too cluttered with old concepts.”

  “Glad I messed up your statistics,” I exhaled without opening my eyes.

  Valt leaned in. I smelled expensive tobacco and some kind of sterile chemical.

  “You don’t understand the scale of the problem. A tool that starts choosing which part to tighten is trash. And the Order doesn’t keep trash. Tomorrow morning, you’ll be transferred to the Central Block. The best specialists… in calibration work there.”

  I forced myself to sit, fighting nausea.

  “Calibration? That’s what you’re calling a lobotomy now?”

  “We call it the ‘Will Suppression Seal,’” Valt straightened, and something resembling genuine scientific curiosity flickered in his eyes. “We won’t touch your skills. [Will to Live] will remain with you. Your body will function perfectly. But you will stop wasting energy on doubt. You will execute orders before you even realize them. This is the highest form of service, Iron. You will become truly efficient.”

  “I’ll be a puppet on strings.”

  “Puppets don’t feel pain,” the mage replied softly. “Isn’t that what you want? No more agony. No more fear. Only pure action. By the day after tomorrow, you won’t even remember why you resisted.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He turned and left. The door closed, and I was left in absolute silence again. But now it smelled different—like a grave. I pictured myself: a walking corpse, eating, sleeping, killing at the command of a crystal. My hands would move on their own, my mind trapped somewhere deep inside, watching, unable to scream.

  A shiver ran through me. My teeth chattered.

  Hours passed. In Sector Seven, time was measured only by the pulsing of the wound on my arm. I drifted into a heavy oblivion where the Shade’s bony fingers reached for me over and over, and Valt stood nearby, taking notes in his journal.

  The lock’s scrape was different this time. Careful. Quiet.

  I opened my eyes and saw Zeno. He entered the chamber carrying a clay cup of water. In the dim light of the magical crystal, his face looked chiseled from gray granite. He squatted beside me and extended the cup.

  “Drink,” he said curtly.

  I took the rim. The water was icy, tasting of rust, but it cleared some of the fog in my mind.

  “They want to place the Seal, Zeno.”

  “I know. The order is already in the office. Tomorrow at six, the escort will take you. Through the surface, to the Central Block. Kyle volunteered for the convoy. He wants to make sure you’re ‘fixed’ personally.”

  Zeno fell silent, staring at his hands. His fingers bore old callouses and scars—the marks of a life lived fulfilling others’ will.

  “Listen carefully,” he whispered so quietly I barely caught the words. “The Order thinks itself omnipotent, but it relies on artifacts. You’ll have cold-iron shackles. They block mana, creating a resonant field. Under normal circumstances, they can’t be broken, not even with a sledgehammer.”

  He reached under his cloak and produced a small piece of steel. It wasn’t a magical key. Just a roughly forged lockpick, handmade.

  “The road to the Block passes through the Whispering Cliffs. There are deposits of anomalous ore. For ten to fifteen seconds, as the cart crosses the rift, the shackles’ magical field will flicker. It conflicts with the mountains’ background. That’s your only chance to manipulate the mechanism.”

  Zeno placed the metal in my hand. His palm was hot and hard as stone.

  “If you miss that moment, it’s over. In the Block, they’ll open you before you can even say ‘no.’”

  I clenched the steel in my fist.

  “Why are you helping me? They’ll execute you if they find out.”

  Zeno stood. His shadow on the wall loomed enormous and ominous.

  “Years ago, I watched them place such a Seal on my partner. He was the best of us. And he became… a thing. He didn’t recognize me the next day. I don’t want to see that again. Consider it me paying a debt to myself.”

  “Zeno…”

  “Shut up. Hide the key. In the cart, Kyle won’t take his eyes off you. He’ll watch for any move. You’ll have to provoke him, or wait until he loses it himself. Fear makes him stupid. Use it.”

  He headed for the exit but paused at the door.

  “If you get out—head for the river. And don’t come back. To the Order, you’re a defective part now. And defective parts—they destroy with particular diligence.”

  The door closed. Darkness again. But now, in my hand, there was not just a piece of iron, but a tiny, almost impossible chance to stay human.

  I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I trained my fingers, which barely obeyed me. I learned to transfer the key from hand to hand without a sound. [Will to Live] inside me went silent, as if listening to my new plan. It no longer devoured my energy—it stored it. Deep inside, beneath layers of pain and fatigue, a cold, angry spark began to burn.

  By five a.m., when the heavy steps of the convoy sounded outside, I was ready. I didn’t resist as two masked guards hauled me to my feet. I didn’t scream when cold-iron shackles clicked around my wrists, and the icy wave of mana suppression paralyzed my veins.

  I let them drag me through the corridors. I let them throw me into the cart on the filthy straw.

  Kyle sat across from me, gripping his sword so hard his knuckles whitened. Fear masked as disdain flickered in his eyes. He looked at me like a venomous snake with its fangs removed, still afraid of the bite.

  “Well, freak,” he hissed as the cart lurched forward, heading for the Citadel exit. “Enjoy your last hours of will. Soon, you’ll smile on command.”

  I looked at him through my matted hair. My hand, hidden in the straw, slowly found the keyhole. Zeno’s key was in place. Blood from the cut on my palm began to dry, fusing the steel to my skin.

  We passed the gates. Over the Dead Quarter, the rotten gray sun rose. Ahead lay the Whispering Cliffs.

  “Let’s see, Kyle,” I whispered, feeling the cart enter the shadow of the canyon. “Let’s see who’s smiling in the end.”