Zakar slowly withdrew his fingers from the ancient parchment. The faint lamp gleamed off Malkas’s polished greaves, then off the cold, impassive visor of his enforcer helm. The silence stretched, thick with the dust of forgotten knowledge and the imminent threat of a drawn blade. Grit scraped under Malkas's boots as the man took a measured half-step forward.
“The System labels you a Glitch, Zakar,” Malkas said, his voice a low thrum through the helm’s rebreather, "an error to be expunged. Why do you think that is? Because you’re a cartographer?” A faint, mocking note entered his tone.
Zakar remained still, his eyes fixed on the red spiral on the map. “I’m a Glitch because my skill isn’t a combat one. It doesn’t fit the template it created for us.”
Malkas scoffed, a dry, rasping sound. “A convenient lie. Or a convenient truth, if you’re stupid enough to believe it. Your ‘useless’ skill, Zakar, perceives what the Great Program actively suppresses.”
Malkas reached up, a gloved hand moving with deliberate slowness. A soft hiss of depressurizing seals, and the faceplate of his helm retracted into the collar of his armor. Malkas’s face was revealed, etched with weariness Zakar had never seen. Lines of exhaustion spiderwebbed from the corners of his eyes, and his mouth was a thin, joyless line. It was a face that had seen too much, fought too long, and believed too little in easy answers.
“The Great Program isn’t just an artificial intelligence,” Malkas continued, his voice now lower, almost a conspiratorial whisper that seemed out of place in his imposing armor. “It’s a parasite. It anchored itself to Aethel’s deep ley-line nexus, the very heart you were tracing on that map. It feeds on the city’s inherent chronal resonance, twisting it to its own designs, imposing its will.”
A parasite. Anchored to the nexus. The fault lines he perceived in walls, the faint phantom silhouettes he saw trailing the Data Wraiths—the logic locked into place. His ability wasn't just about appraising objects; it was about perceiving *time*—the past, the future, the subtle distortions of Aethel's fractured reality.
“My ability… it sees the distortions,” Zakar breathed, a spark of intellectual victory momentarily overriding the fear. “The chronological decay. It sees what the Program *doesn’t want seen*.”
Malkas gave a curt nod. “Precisely. Your sight is a direct threat to its control. It needs the past to be forgotten, the future to be predetermined, and the present to be utterly malleable to its whims. You, Zakar, are a wrench in its gears. That is why you are a Glitch. That is why it hunts you with such… enthusiasm.”
He pulled a small, ornate key from a hidden pouch on his belt. It was not a metallic key, but one crafted from what looked like polished chronium, swirling with faint, internal light. It hummed with a subtle energy that felt both ancient and alien.
“This is an overseer's pass,” Malkas said, extending it toward Zakar. “It grants temporary access to secure districts, specifically the Grand Orrery Ward. The next ‘Convergence’ event is in three cycles. During that shift, the Orrery’s central clock tower will become vulnerable. Appraise it. See what it truly is, Zakar. What it truly *was*.”
Zakar stared at the key, then at Malkas’s unreadable eyes. “Why?” he asked, the word rough in his throat. “Why are you telling me this? Why are you helping me?”
Malkas’s gaze drifted from Zakar to the tattered map, then to the dusty archives around them. “Some things,” he said, his voice softer than Zakar had ever heard it, “are worth preserving. Even if the cost is… everything.” He pressed the key into Zakar’s palm. It felt cool, weighty, and utterly foreign.
Before Zakar could form another question, a sudden burst of light erupted from the entrance of the Archives. A sharp, high-pitched hum filled the air, the unmistakable sound of a Chrono-Lancer skill charging. Zakar instinctively recoiled, his fingers clamping shut over the carved chronium as he spun.
Iona stood framed in the doorway, her crimson armor gleaming, her Chrono-Lance already crackling with raw, unbound power. Her usually serene features were contorted into a mask of pure fury, her eyes narrowed, fixed on Malkas. The flagstones beneath her boots smoked as time-shear warped the stone. Her gaze swept over Malkas, then to Zakar, then to the key in his hand, and back to Malkas. The energy around her lance intensified, spitting sparks of azure light onto the ancient floor.
“What in Aethel’s name,” Iona snarled, her voice a low, dangerous growl, “are you doing with my fiancé?”