Tales of flame and void

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Chapter 11 (Part 1 – Crept's Arc)

—The Quiet Before Fire—

Years Ago

The wedding was loud. Unbearably so.

Golden lights shimmered above the halls of the Artem Grand Branch Estate, and polished marble reflected the waltzing nobles in their jeweled attire. It was a celebration no one could escape, especially not Crept Artem—dragged by the arm of his mother, Marcaella, straight into the chaos.

He stood stiff in a ceremonial tunic he hated, collar too tight, sleeves too long. And yet, amid the boring speeches and hollow laughter, something silenced him.

A girl.

Not from his branch. Not someone he recognized.

She stood beneath the paper-lantern archways, lit in warm gold and candlelight. Pink hair like dusky coral fell past her shoulders, and eyes—pink, clear, almost aglow—met his with a kind of quiet gravity.

She didn't smile.

She didn't need to.

Crept just stared.

And for the first time, he felt something shift.

Something fragile.

Something unfamiliar.

---

Now

The room was dark when the call came.

Crept rolled over, half-asleep, until the sharp pop of the communicator snapped him upright.

A voice crackled through. Urgent.

> "My lord—emergency. We've detained Basen. He was caught transmitting classified defense grid data to an unknown line."

The voice paused.

> "He... says your father has his family."

Crept didn't speak for a long moment. His eyes adjusted to the moonlight, falling across the ceiling like scattered silk.

From the other side of the room, Shilial stirred. Her silver-blonde hair spilled over her bare shoulder as she sat up.

> "Bad news?" she asked, her voice quiet but alert.

Crept exhaled.

> "Worse."

---

Minutes Later

The control deck's glass walls overlooked the entire Artem Branch Estate—an aerial kingdom suspended in the clouds.

Below them, the spires of the estate flickered with orange rune-light, veins of defense magic tracing the buildings like nerves. Obsidian skyscrapers pierced the sky, and above it all, ships hovered silently—sleek, armored, waiting for war.

The estate was a city built atop a ship.

And something had cracked.

Basen stood at the center of the control floor, knees buckling, two guards flanking him.

Basen—Crept barely remembered his voice, only that he always flinched when the alarms rang. A man built for quiet hours, not breaking points.

Crept's boots echoed as he approached.

> "You were feeding them defense barrier information?" his voice was low, dangerous.

Basen collapsed into a bow.

> "I—I didn't mean—my lord—I swear it wasn't betrayal! They have my children—"

Crept's gaze didn't waver, but his jaw tensed.

> "Who. Was. It?"

Basen trembled.

> "Your father… Henriech."

Shilial inhaled sharply behind him.

A pulse passed through the room.

> "And what does he want?"

> "To summon... hingchas into the branch. He intends to cripple it from the inside."

Basen was shaking now, close to tears.

> "I didn't know what else to do… I'm sorry, Lord Crept, please—my family—"

Crept closed his eyes for a second. Then opened them.

> "What did you give them?"

Basen's lips trembled.

> "The barrier protocols... I was assigned to manage them. I thought… maybe they wouldn't use it all—"

> "You thought wrong."

The words were soft. But final.

Shilial stepped beside him, placing a hand gently on his arm. Her touch was light, but grounding.

> "Crept…" she murmured, just for him. "Are you alright?"

He didn't answer.

Didn't move.

Just stared through the glass at the city that was now exposed.

> (Henriech... you would come after your own blood?)

> (Then I'll burn the line before I let you cross it.)

---

The heart of ANSEP beat cold. Not a pulse, but a drone—sterile, precise, constant.

Runes flickered against reinforced walls, cycling symbols at half their brightness. The air vents hissed low, struggling. Somewhere deep, a circuit coughed and died. No one noticed.

The soldiers noticed other things.

Missing people. Tech that refused to obey. Rooms blinking in and out on surveillance logs.

And the growing silence— Like something just beneath the surface… was watching.

A private vomited in the elevator and apologized to no one. A technician stared too long at static and muttered a prayer to a god she didn't believe in. A pair of medics refused to enter Wing C without each other.

They whispered behind corners now. About the dissection rooms. About what they saw in the glass. About the way memories didn't quite line up anymore.

And yet ANSEP marched on.

Orders were orders. Schedules were sacred. Fear could wait.

---

Cornicius Corell hadn't slept in 36 hours.

He stood before a wall of blinking terminals, eyes flicking from one chart to another. Yai pulses spiking. Barrier codes fluctuating. A zone labeled "Non-Static" had appeared in the east sector logs and then vanished five minutes later.

He blinked.

> (That shouldn't be possible.)

He didn't say it aloud.

No time.

Three departments were already behind schedule, a containment pod in Lab 6 was unresponsive, and half the comm staff were filing memory lapse reports again. It would've been manageable—just barely—if not for one fact:

The Fourth Corps weren't here.

Or rather— They were, but not really.

Crept. Zelaine. Atiya.

Gone.

He didn't know where, or why, and frankly, he couldn't afford to ask.

> (Not my call. Not my jurisdiction. Keep moving.)

He turned back to the central console, fingers ghosting over an interface that refused to stabilize.

And then—

A voice behind him.

"Still here?"

He startled—just slightly.

Cerejeira stood in the doorway, arms crossed, her braid draped over her shoulder like a coil of silk-threaded thorns. She held a bottle in one hand, two glasses in the other.

> "You look like you've forgotten how to breathe," she said flatly. "Drink?"

Cornicius hesitated.

Then, nodding, he stepped back from the console. The light from the terminal etched hollow shadows beneath his eyes.

Cerejeira handed him a glass. Amber liquid, faintly sweet, faintly bitter.

He sipped it like it might bite him. She didn't.

> "I've been looking for you," she said, leaning against the desk. "You disappeared after the third alert. Thought you were in the autopsy wing."

He shook his head.

> "I was recalibrating the shield corridors… Sector G8 shifted without operator input."

Cerejeira narrowed her eyes.

> "Shifted?"

He nodded again. Quietly.

> "The floorplate was three inches to the left. The hall remembered it wrong."

They stood in silence.

A long, heavy silence— thick with everything they didn't want to admit.

Something was wrong with the base.

But it wasn't loud. It wasn't screaming. It was whispering, smiling, sitting in the corners and changing things just enough to make you question if it had always been like that.

Cerejeira finally broke the silence.

> "You think it's the Box?"

> "It hasn't opened. But the readings... fluctuate. It's behaving like a variable," he murmured, eyes unfocused. "Like it's... waiting to be measured."

> Cerejeira raised a brow. "You're using math metaphors now?" "Math doesn't lie," he muttered, and turned back to the screen.

He traced one display with his fingertip—like a priest offering prayer to a deity that had long since stopped listening.

> "It's not behaving like an artifact. It's behaving like a variable."

Cerejeira blinked. "A variable?"

> "A reaction. Not a cause."

Another silence. Longer this time.

Then—

BZZZZZZZZT.

The alarm screamed.

Not a drill. Not a practice loop.

⚠️ SURGE DETECTED — YAI ENTITY PRESENCE: LEVEL 4 — INTERNAL BREACH PROBABLE ⚠️

The lights stuttered. The walls trembled.

Cornicius froze.

> (No. No, that's not—inside? How—)

Cerejeira was already moving.

> "Sector C just reported movement!"

The rune-screen flared red. Dozens of dots. No identification tags. No IFF signals.

Just motion. Everywhere.

Cornicius stepped forward—his voice low, shaking.

> "This shouldn't be possible. We sealed everything."

Cerejeira drew a blade from her coat, light barriers flickering up across her skin like woven sunshields.

> "Doesn't matter."

A door burst open down the hall.

A scream echoed—cut short. Wet.

Another dot blinked off the map.

Then another.

Then another.

Cornicius's hands trembled.

> "We need containment teams. We need—"

> "We need to survive," Cerejeira cut in, eyes sharp. "Save your breath, Corell. It's starting."

Somewhere deeper in the base, where even the cameras had stopped watching, something smiled. And across ANSEP, the lights began to dim.

Done. I've incorporated the enhancement of Basen's prior cowardice and added a more ominous ending with:

> "Somewhere deeper in the base, where even the cameras had stopped watching, something smiled.

And across ANSEP, the lights began to dim."