The Great Aqueduct Hub felt different after the purge. The screaming had been replaced by a low, rhythmic hum—the sound of water moving through pipes that had finally been cleared of a predatory parasite. But as we packed our gear into the skiff, I couldn't shake the sensation that we hadn't just fixed a leak; we had tripped a silent alarm. The mark I'd seen—the Property of the Architect—burned in my mind like a corrupted sector on a hard drive that refused to be wiped.
We were summoned to the Royal Archives an hour after the water turned clear. This wasn't the Grand Gala or a public celebration. This was the King's Council meeting in the dark, and the atmosphere was thick with a new, sharper kind of tension. They didn't look like people who had just been saved from a drought; they looked like people who had realized the man holding the wrench now held the keys to the kingdom.
