The road narrowed as the carriage climbed.
At first, Aurel watched fields pass by the narrow window patches of green stitched together by low stone walls, workers bent double among the rows. Then the fields thinned. Farms gave way to terraces, terraces to exposed rock where the land had been cut open and abandoned. The wheels struck stone more often than dirt, the rhythm sharpening with every turn.
The handler spoke to fill the space.
About the weather.About the altitude.About the fort ahead how it had once been an observatory long before the Empire learned to repurpose what it did not understand.
Anything to keep silence from asking questions.
"You don't have to pretend," Aurel said quietly.
The handler faltered. "Pretend what?"
"That this is for me."
The handler's smile came late. It did not quite settle. "They want to understand how to keep you comfortable."
Aurel nodded and turned back to the window. He had learned the value of nodding.
The fort emerged around a bend in the road as if it had always been there and had simply waited to be noticed. It rose directly from the rock, its stone darker than the mountain behind it, seams filled with older mortar that no one bothered to disguise. There were no banners. No carvings. Nothing to suggest belief or welcome.
The handler felt it as soon as the carriage stopped—a thin pressure behind the eyes, like air drawn too tight.
Inside, the air felt wrong.
Not heavy. Not cold. Just insufficient, as though it had been filtered one time too many.
Aurel hesitated at the threshold.
"Is something wrong?" the handler asked.
Aurel shook his head and stepped inside anyway. The handler followed, not missing the way his shoulders stayed tense.
The room assigned to Aurel was small and deliberate in its design. Smooth walls, pale stone, no deep corners. The bed was narrow, bolted to the floor. The blanket thin. A lamp was mounted high on the wall, its light steady and colorless.
Someone had planned this carefully.
"There will be fewer interruptions here," the handler said. "Quieter."
Aurel nodded.
The handler lingered at the door longer than necessary. "I'll be close."
Aurel did not answer.
The door closed without sound.
The first test was simple.
They left him alone.
Not cruelly. Not abruptly. Just long enough to count.
Minutes passed.
Aurel sat on the bed and folded his hands in his lap. He focused on the faint variations in the stone floor the way one vein curved and disappeared beneath the wall. He breathed slowly.
He did not cry.
Crying made things worse.
Somewhere deep in the fort, a containment ward guttered. Not enough to alarm anyone. Not enough to summon authority.
Enough to be logged.
When the handler returned, Aurel was exactly where he had been left.
Hands folded. Back straight.
"Good," the handler said before they could stop themselves.
The word echoed strangely.
Aurel smiled.
It was small. Careful. Practiced.
Something in the walls cracked.
Not visibly. Just enough.
Down the corridor, a clerk frowned at their instruments and adjusted the readings.
Environmental variance, they wrote.
That night, Aurel slept lightly.
Dreams came in fragments. Not images sensations. Warmth without source. Pressure that did not hurt but refused to leave.
In another wing of the fort, a stabilizing sigil dimmed and corrected itself.
No one mentioned it.