Devansh did not take Ira to a hall.
He took her beneath one.
They descended through a narrow passage that curved like something grown rather than built. The stone was warmer here, threaded with faint lines of dark metal that pulsed slowly, like veins remembering a heart.
"This place is older than Vayukshi," Devansh said. "It existed before the city learned how to hold itself."
Ira walked carefully, every step echoing softly. The heaviness in her chest reacted the deeper they went—not violently, but attentively, like something being brought closer to its source.
"What am I opening?" she asked.
Devansh did not answer immediately.
"At the beginning," he said, "those who sought immortality believed emotion was the weakness that made life unbearable. So they tried to remove it."
His voice was steady, but Ira sensed something strained beneath it.
"They failed," he continued. "Emotion could not be erased. So it was reorganized. Structured. Contained."
They reached a wide chamber shaped like a hollowed sphere. Symbols were etched into every surface, spiraling inward toward a low circular platform at its center.
Devansh stopped at its edge.
"This is where the first bindings were tested," he said. "Where the heart was taught to obey law."
Ira stepped onto the platform.
The moment she did, the heaviness in her chest flared—not painfully, but vividly. The air thickened. The symbols dimmed, then brightened in response.
"What should I do?" she asked quietly.
Devansh studied her.
"For centuries," he said, "we learned control by resisting feeling."
He met her eyes.
"You will do the opposite."
She inhaled slowly.
And let go.
Not of the heaviness.
Of her defense against it.
Emotion rose—not Devansh's, not the city's, but her own. Confusion. Fear. A fragile, stubborn will to understand.
The platform warmed.
The symbols shifted.
Ira's breath trembled.
She felt something unlock—not like a door opening, but like a hand unclenching after a very long time.
Her vision blurred.
And suddenly she was not alone inside herself.
She felt layers.
Old impressions.
Buried designs.
Something that had once been deliberate… and then erased.
She gasped softly.
"There's something here," she whispered. "Something I've been circling my whole life."
Devansh watched the markings respond to her pulse.
"Yes," he said. "What was hidden from you."