Chapter 2: The Tribunal of Broken Minds
The Ivory Tower loomed ahead, its pale spires cutting into the sky like frozen lightning. Kael—no, Elias—kept his steps measured as the silver-robed enforcers led him forward. His sleeve weighed heavy with the torn equation, its presence humming against his skin like a second heartbeat.
This isn't just paper. This is a key.
But to what, he didn't yet know.
The Hall of Whispers
The Tribunal chamber was a cavernous rotunda, its domed ceiling etched with glowing equations that shifted like living things. At its center stood three figures clad in white, their faces obscured by featureless masks.
Grand Magister Orthen. The tallest of them spoke without moving his lips, his voice reverberating through the chamber. "Kael Arvandor. You stand accused of intellectual deviance. How do you plead?"
Elias almost laughed. Deviance. In his world, they'd called it genius.
"Pleading implies I understand the charges," he said, tilting his head. "What exactly am I accused of?"
A murmur rippled through the observers—lesser mages robed in gray, their eyes alight with hunger. Vultures, he thought. Waiting to see if I'll stumble.
Magister Orthen gestured. A slate tablet floated toward Elias, etched with a problem:
[Solve for X: Mana-Conversion Efficiency in Third-Circle Pyrolysis]
A test. A simple one, for this world's standards. Kael's memories supplied the approved solution—a rigid, six-step proof.
But Elias saw something else.
A flaw.
The Forbidden Solution
He reached for the chalk. Then—
—the whisper again, slithering through his mind—
"They build cages of numbers and call it truth."
His hand moved on its own.
Instead of the sanctioned equations, he wrote his answer. A single, elegant line of symbols that should not exist.
The moment the chalk lifted, the tablet screamed.
A hairline crack split its surface, black ichor seeping from the fissure. The mages recoiled. One of the gray-robes vomited.
"Heresy!" Orthen's mask cracked down the middle, revealing a single, bloodshot eye. "You dare bring the Outer Dark into this sanctum?"
Elias stared at the oozing slate. So that's what this is called.
The Outer Dark.
The Fracture Grows
They dragged him to the center of the chamber. Runes flared beneath his feet—a binding circle. Orthen raised a hand, and Elias's vision went white with pain as something reached into his mind, clawing for the knowledge he'd stolen.
Not stolen. Earned.
He gritted his teeth. The equation in his sleeve burned like ice.
Then—
A voice cut through the agony.
"Enough."
The pressure vanished. Elias collapsed, gasping. Standing at the chamber's edge was a woman in tattered scholar's robes, her left eye obscured by a patch of stitched leather.
Magister Orthen hissed. "Illana. You have no voice here."
The woman—Illana—smiled. "I do when the accused is mine." She tossed a scroll at Orthen's feet. "By the Archivist's Decree, Kael Arvandor is remanded to the Forsaken Section for study."
Forsaken Section. The words sent a fresh wave of murmurs through the crowd. Even Orthen hesitated.
Illana stepped forward, her single eye locking onto Elias.
"Come, little heretic," she murmured. "Let's see how deep your cracks go."
The Hidden Library
The Forsaken Section was not a place. It was a wound.
A labyrinth of shelves carved into the Tower's foundations, lit by bioluminescent fungi that pulsed like dying stars. The air smelled of salt and rust.
Illana led him to a desk buried under precarious stacks of books. One lay open, its pages filled with the same black-veined script as his equation.
"You saw it, didn't you?" she said. "The flaw in their pretty numbers."
Elias touched the book. The ink writhed under his fingers. "What is this?"
"The truth they're too terrified to name." Illana leaned in. "Magic isn't just science here. It's a conversation. And something on the other side..." She tapped her eyepatch. "...has been answering."
A chill crawled down Elias's spine. He pulled out the torn equation.
Illana's breath hitched. "Where did you get this?"
"I wrote it," he said. "In another life."
For the first time, the old archivist looked afraid.
"Then you're not just a heretic," she whispered. "You're an invitation."
Outside, the Tower's bells began to toll.
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End Chapter 2