The bells shattered her already broken sleep.
Kimara's eyes snapped open. Still dark. Still alone. The book pressed cold against her chest where she'd clutched it through restless dreams.
Today.
Heavy boots on cobblestones. Getting closer.
She tucked the book inside her worn shirt, against her spine where the fabric was thickest. The leather binding pressed into her skin—a secret weight she'd carry into whatever came next.
The door exploded inward.
Three Surveillants filled the frame—towering figures in silver armor that hummed with barely contained violence. Their faces hid behind polished masks, but she could feel their contempt bleeding through the metal.
"Phisotian. You will come."
No name. Never names. They were inventory, nothing more.
Kimara walked past them without acknowledging their words. The silver collar tightened—a fraction, just enough to remind her who held the leash.
The street writhed with controlled chaos.
Eighteen-year-olds stumbled from doorways across the quarter. Some dragged by Surveillants. Others pushed forward by weeping families. Mrs. Kelyn clutched Jorik's arm until a guard backhanded her away.
"My boy—"
"Move."
The Surveillant's boot found her ribs. She crumpled. Jorik tried to turn back but another guard shoved him forward.
This was mercy in their world. At least she got to say goodbye.
But it was what lay beyond the quarter that stole Kimara's breath.
For the first time in eighteen years, she could see past the boundaries.
Towers of living stone thrust into the sky like the bones of dead gods. Their surfaces pulsed with veins of silver and gold—Titan architecture that had devoured the native crystal spires and rebuilt them as monuments to conquest. Between them, bridges of woven wood and light stretched impossibly far, bearing the organic curves of Elven craft.
This had been a Phisotian city once.
Now it wore the skins of its conquerors like a corpse dressed for viewing.
Vehicles drifted past in silence—Titan fortresses that floated like moving mountains, Elven pods that danced on invisible winds like living seeds. The air itself tasted wrong. Too thick with energies that didn't belong to this world.
"Keep moving, freak."
A Surveillant shoved her forward. He'd noticed her staring. Noticed her emerald-gold eyes taking in more than she should.
The procession moved through streets that had been carved new. Humble cobblestones gave way to Titan metal that rang like bells under their feet. Ancient Phisotian crystal-work lay in ruins, replaced with structures that screamed dominance—fortress-temples squatting like toads, garden-spires twisted skyward with alien hunger.
Native Phisotians swept the perfect streets, collars glowing with suppressed power. A woman with violet feathers and Advanced Resonance markings scrubbed blood from stone. Three organs pulsed beneath her feathers—liver, lungs, left kidney. The maximum any slave achieved before the poison killed them.
Twenty years of survival. For this.
She didn't look up as they passed.
None of them did.
The Awakening Chamber loomed ahead like an open mouth.
Carved from a single block of Titan stone so black it seemed to eat light. Elven growths spiraled up its walls—parasitic vines pulsing with stolen starlight. The entrance gaped wide enough to swallow them all at once.
And it would.
Two figures flanked the doorway.
Judges.
The air around them writhed with power that made her collar burn. Above their heads, spectral forms flickered—massive phantoms existing more as threat than substance. One Judge commanded a titan of molten stone. The other wielded what looked like a forest given predatory form.
True Resonance.
The mark of those who ruled the slaves.
Inside, the chamber stretched beyond sight.
Walls rose into darkness, carved with Titan runes that hurt to read and Elven script that moved when she wasn't watching. At the center sat a pillar of pure crystal—native work, she realized with a sick jolt. One of the few things they'd kept.
But changed.
Silver wire wrapped around its base like chains. The crystal had been cut, reshaped, tortured until its natural song became a scream.
The hunger hit her immediately.
The crystal wanted. She could feel it pulling at something deep inside her chest, testing, tasting, evaluating. Around her, the other eighteen-year-olds gasped and stumbled as the same sensation crashed into them.
"Pretty, isn't it?"
The voice came from shadows.
Vorthak the Ironbound stepped into view like a mountain deciding to walk. His body radiated heat that made the air shimmer. Four spectral entities circled him—molten giants moving with the rhythm of continents breaking. He looked down at the assembled Phisotians with the satisfaction of ownership.
Beside him, Sylaeth Starweaver manifested like winter given form.
Beautiful in the way avalanches were beautiful—brilliant, terrible, inevitable. Her five spectral forms danced around her: deer made of aurora, trees singing with the voices of dying worlds, flowers blooming with captured starlight.
Stellar Resonance.
The Rulers had come to watch their property awaken.
"Fascinating specimens this year." Sylaeth's voice carried the music of crystalline wind chimes. Her gaze swept across them, pausing on Kimara for a heartbeat longer than the others. "Such variety in suffering."
Vorthak laughed. The sound was tectonic plates grinding.
"Place your bets, Starweaver. How many die today?"
"Oh, at least a dozen. Look at them shake." She smiled, and it was worse than his laughter. "Though sometimes the frightened ones surprise us."
One of the Judges stepped forward. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of mountains and the heat of forge-fire.
"Present yourselves for evaluation."
They formed a circle around the crystal pillar. Kimara found herself between a trembling girl with pale feathers—Vess, she'd heard someone call her—and a boy who reeked of vomit and fear.
Across the circle, the Korthak twins stood with their chins raised.
Raex and Mira. Perfect blue feathers. Perfect blue eyes. Perfect confidence that made her teeth ache.
They weren't afraid.
They knew something.
Kimara's fists clenched. She'd grown up hating those smiles, those voices that had called her broken since childhood. Always performing. Always positioning themselves above everyone else.
Today, she would watch them burn or rise.
Either way, she would remember.
The crystal's hunger pressed against her mind like fingers through her skull.
Soon, she would place her hand on its surface. Soon, she would kneel before these creatures and accept whatever Echo deigned to claim her.
Or she would die.
The Judge's voice cracked like a whip: "The Awakening begins."
Around her, several eighteen-year-olds fell to their knees.
Already broken.
Already beaten.
Kimara remained standing, emerald-gold eyes fixed on the crystal.
Come on then, she thought. Let's see what you think I'm worth.