Chapter Eighteen: The Eyes of the Eclipse

The chamber stank of ash and blood.

Crimson robes lay scorched and shredded on the floor of the inner sanctum. Thirteen cultists stood in a circle of fire, their masks cracked, their expressions barely concealed behind trembling rage.

At the center stood the High Shadow, his cloak burned at the edges, his voice a low growl.

 “They knew.”

The silence was suffocating.

“The twins,” he continued. “They sabotaged the God-Kiln. The lattice is gone. The vessel is damaged. The divine convergence is delayed.”

From the shadows stepped the crone, her ravens unusually still.

“Not delayed,” she said. “Jeopardized. The vessel was meant to be perfected during the Trial. It was meant to consume their soul at the moment of greatest grief.”

A younger cultist hissed, “Who betrayed us? The Seers did not report tampering.”

Another voice answered. “The fox.”

Sora’s name fell like a dagger.

“She was never loyal,” the crone spat. “We should have carved her soul out when we had the chance.”

The High Shadow raised a hand. “No. Her betrayal was calculated. Purposeful. And now… it’s war.”

He turned to the altar no longer glowing.

The cracked god-vessel floated in the air, chained by glyphs, its hollow eyes twitching, unstable.

“She has cost us our precision,” he said. “So we will respond with chaos.”

 “No more Trials. No more subtlety.”

He slammed a black sigil onto the altar. It bled smoke and sound.

“All remaining cultists within the city will be activated. Let the Emperor tremble. Let the Seers fall blind.”

A murmur of dark assent rippled through the cult.

The crone raised her arms, black feathers swirling. “We will strike the palace on the night of the fifth moon. When the Fifth Trial begins.”

“And the twins?” asked a masked acolyte.

The High Shadow smiled beneath his hood.

“We will take them alive.”

 “One to bleed. One to ascend.”

Elsewhere… deep underground

In a forgotten crypt beneath the palace, a single cultist knelt in isolation.

He was older than the rest, his mask etched with real gold, his spine bent but unbroken.

He whispered into a shallow pool of shadow.

“They know, my lord. The twins have broken the ritual.”

From the pool, something answered.

Not in words.

But in pulse.

In hunger.

And the old man smiled.

 “Then the vessel will feed the old way.”