The chamber of glass and salt was cold.
Not in temperature, but in spirit. The kind of chill woven into holy stone through centuries of prayer, sacrifice, and well-disciplined fear.
High Father Vellor Edaine stood alone at the centre of the sanctum, framed by obsidian pillars etched with the flame-script of the first doctrine. Behind him, twelve statues towered, robed figures with no faces, arms raised high in benediction.
The Twelve Saints of Eramoor.
High Father Vellor moved slowly, hands clasped behind his back, his crimson robes trailing across the gleaming black floor. Before him, a circular dais shimmered with glyph-light. An interface of old magic and new faith. The voice crystal atop it pulsed once.
"Chainward reports silence."
"The Tollborn remain twelve. No signs of further disobedience among the Blade remnants."
He narrowed his eyes. "Then where is the thirteenth?"
The voice hesitated. "General Veyra remains unaccounted for. Her execution transport was... interrupted. The escort captain was found dismembered near the Frozen Spires."
Vellor's breath remained steady. He allowed no tremble, no flicker of visible emotion.
"Have the third Tollborn placed on extended pursuit."
"Confirmed. Orders will be dispatched from Spire-Bastion before dusk."
The crystal dimmed.
And High Father Vellor turned his gaze out the arched window.
Below him stretched the Spire Sanctum, the high heart of Eramoor; capital of the faith, seat of flame-born law, and root of the Sanctum Ecclesia, known to most as the Church. Beyond it, the gleaming continent of Ashkarra spread its limbs across mountain and vale, sea and ruin. Five nations lashed together by war, treaty, and fire.
And above them all, the Church reigned.
The continent of Ashkarra had once been a scattering of warring kingdoms, wild tribes, and cursed ruins. Until the Flame Concord three hundred years ago, a divine event, preached by the Church, when the fire fell from the sky and gave the first High Doctrine to the one who would become the First Father.
From there, the Church rose not simply in prayer or piety, but in discipline, dominion, and doctrine-driven might.
The Church controls five territories: Eramoor, Thalegard, Vel Akra, Kesthryn Vale, and Gavros. The rest of the world remains unconquered or unknown, but the Church sends missionaries... or...
High Father Vellor turned from the window and approached the inner sanctum table. The ancient silver inlay sparked under his fingers as he passed his hands over the ranked symbols of the Church:
The Twelve High Fathers, the ruling conclave. Each oversees a sphere of influence: Doctrine, Flame, Execution, Scripture, and so forth. Vellor was the High Father of Inheritance and Lore, keeper of the sacred relics and forbidden history.
The Blades of Eramoor, the twelve Commanders. Or rather, they had been twelve, now only six remained loyal. Three were confirmed destroyed. Two had gone missing, and one, Veyra, had escaped.
The Tollborn, failed Blades, or high heretics, sanctified through the Toll of Silence and reborn as perfect servants. Thoughtless, voiceless, loyal only to the High Fathers.
The Inquisitor, enforcers and judges. Speakers of the Flame, feared throughout Ashkarra for their execution rites and divining trials.
The Whiteflame Orders are cloistered monastic sects that study, control, or destroy the arcane.
High Father Vellor moved into the Archive Narthex, a sealed chamber beneath the sanctum. Only the Fathers of Inheritance could walk here.
The walls were filled with relics, scrolls too cursed to burn, masks from dead gods, and fragments of unknown metals.
He stood before the oldest vault, laid his palm across the seal, and whispered the key rite:
"By ash made flesh, by flame made mind."
The door opened.
And there, on a stone pedestal, lay a piece of curved obsidian veined with red-gold light --- a shard.
A fallen shard recovered centuries ago, unearthed during the Second Scorching near the Blood Steps. They had studied it, listened to its whisper and then sealed it.
High Father Vellor stood for a long time in silence.
The stars had begun to fall again.
That meant the prophecy, the one the First Father had buried, was beginning to surface.
'Nine fragments, Nine voices, One mind'
If the Crown returned...
If someone gathered the shards...
Then all they had built would burn.