She was waiting for him at the foot of the Seeress' dais, her arms loosely folded, one hip leaned into the curve of a stone pillar that bore no name. She hadn't followed him—Kaine would have noticed—but she hadn't been far either. As if she'd known the moment would end. As if she'd been listening.
The girl wasn't dressed like a novice or a ceremonial attendant. No veil, no temple robes, no sanded footwear. Her uniform was black with a high collar, the hem lined in silver thread—combat formal. Her braid was tight and recent, still damp at the crown. She didn't speak at first. She just studied him, calm and silent, the same way a strategist studies a puzzle she half-remembers solving.
Kaine didn't slow. He adjusted the fall of his tunic, shifted his weight back into a neutral gait, and continued toward the stairway that would lead him out of the Hall. He assumed she'd let him pass.
She didn't.
"You answered her wrong," she said, stepping gently into his path. Her tone wasn't confrontational—just factual. Like a correction written in red ink.
Kaine stopped—not with hesitation, but calculation. He let his gaze drop briefly to her boots, noted the scuff pattern, then followed the crease of her trousers up toward the badge missing from her collar. Not a student then. Not fully. But close.
"She asked a question," he replied, keeping his voice level. "I gave a reply."
"She asked for value," the girl said, more insistently now. "You gave her a threat."
He studied her more directly now. Her posture wasn't martial—but it was trained. She knew where to place her feet. Her hands remained visible. Her accent was neutral, cut with deliberate elegance, which suggested private training. More importantly, her eyes were violet.
Not a common colour.
Not natural.
Modified, most likely—unless she belonged to one of the Vale subclades, which kept that trait preserved across select generations.
She's not testing me. She's measuring me, Kaine thought. This is how they begin.
He tilted his head slightly, offering a response that was neither concession nor challenge.
"I gave her a truth," he said. "If that sounds like a threat, then perhaps she should ask simpler questions."
The girl didn't flinch. But something in her jaw eased, just enough to let a smirk slip past her lips.
"You speak like a Matron," she said, tone shifting now—less precision, more play.
"Only because they wrote everything worth remembering," Kaine replied.
"I doubt they'd approve of you quoting them in private."
"I doubt they'd notice."
She held his gaze for another breath, then stepped aside.
"Be careful," she added, and her voice flattened again, returning to formality. "Seeress Malari doesn't test people she doesn't intend to use."
Kaine nodded once in silent acknowledgment and moved past her without further comment. But before he could disappear down the next stairwell, her voice followed him again.
"What's your name?"
He paused. Just slightly.
And then, with perfect calm:
"I haven't said yet."
Later, in the quiet dim of the lower archives—his sanctuary, his cage—Kaine removed two scrolls from beneath the registrar's lock. Not stolen. Just borrowed from the blind spots.
The first was a genealogical ledger. Names, eye colours, branch ranks. He searched for violet. Narrowed it by age and House association. Only one plausible match.
Tirene Vale.Daughter of a tactician-priestess. Elite placement pending. Unawakened but noted for "strategic disposition."
A player, Kaine thought. Not yet on the board, but already reading it.
He memorised the entry. Burned the page from his thoughts and rolled the scroll closed.
The second was more obscure: a dissection of High Binding—the tonal system embedded in older Matriarchal dialects used for command, oath-binding, and compliance enforcement. It was a language not spoken aloud anymore. Not fully. Its remains had calcified into ceremony, ritual touch, layered inflection. But the structure still lived—like an infection beneath skin.
They use it without knowing, Kaine thought. But if I can see it—if I can hear the shape of it—I won't flinch when they try to bind me.
He read slowly. Traced vowel structures. Learned which rises of pitch were demands disguised as suggestion. Which pauses preceded pain.
By the time the candles had guttered low and the ink had begun to blur, he was no closer to sleep.
But he was closer to something else.
And in the darkness of the archive floor, beneath shelves that no one ever checked, Kaine folded his arms and whispered:
"Alec. It's me. I know you can't respond yet. But I'm making progress. I'm isolating inputs. I'm finding Laws. I'll rebuild your root logic if I have to. But I need more time. I need you to wake up before they find me."
There was no voice.
No ping. No comfort.
But the stillness…felt less empty.
He did not dream.But he remembered everything.