The vault under Knotspire did not look like a vault.
No iron doors. No bars. No torch smoke. The entrance was a smooth arch of pale stone with a single line carved above it.
ONLY OATHS OPEN WHAT STEEL CANNOT.
Inside, the air held a clean chill. Three lamps burned in glass niches. Their flames stayed steady, even when someone spoke close to them. Their light did not reach the corners. It did not need to. The room was built to be seen.
A bowl of black glass sat at the center on a low pedestal. Inside it rested something small, pale, and alive.
The Crown Seed.
It was no bigger than a fingernail. It pulsed once every ten seconds, a slow beat that pressed against the skin. With each pulse, the room seemed to tighten, as if the stone itself paused to listen.
High Registrar Oren Vale stood beside the pedestal with his hands clasped behind his back. He wore the gray and silver of the Registry, but no cloak. Cloaks hid posture. Oren preferred to be read and underestimated.
Across from him, a warlock in full Registry robes knelt inside a circle of salt and ink. Her palms faced upward. Her eyes were closed. Sweat shone along her temples, but her breathing stayed controlled. She was young, but the scar lines on her fingers said she had paid for skill.
Near the only door, Captain Maera Flint stood at attention. Dark armor. Braided hair. Sword sheathed but ready. Her gaze moved between Oren, the warlock, and the Seed as if she expected any one of them to strike.
Oren waited for the next pulse.
"You are certain the lock is whole," he said.
"The lock is whole, High Registrar," the kneeling warlock replied without opening her eyes.
"You checked the outer wards."
"Yes."
"You checked the inner wards."
"Yes."
"You checked the oath chain."
"Yes."
Oren stepped closer. The lamps did not flicker. The Seed did not move in its bowl. It sat as it always did, perfect and patient.
He said, "Then why does the Seed feel anxious."
The warlock's mouth tightened. "It does not have feelings."
Oren did not raise his voice. He did not need to.
"Everything that holds a realm together has feelings," he said. "Even if it should not."
Maera shifted her weight. A small sound from her armor, then stillness. "If you suspect breach, we add guards. Double the rotation. Lock the corridor."
"Guards fight people," Oren said. "What is coming does not need to be a person."
Maera's hand settled on her sword hilt. "Then name it."
Oren looked at her at last. His expression stayed calm. "If I could name it, I could bind it. That is the problem."
Another pulse.
A faint sound came from the bowl, sharp and thin, as if something had cracked far away. The warlock's eyes snapped open. Her pupils had widened too far.
"High Registrar," she whispered.
Oren did not move. "Speak."
"The oath chain shifted," she said.
Maera took one step forward. "What does that mean."
The warlock swallowed. "It means someone signed."
Silence held for a breath.
Then the lamp flames wavered, not from wind, but from attention. The light bent toward the bowl.
Oren's face tightened. "That is impossible."
"It happened," the warlock said. "A signature was added just now. The name was hidden. It was there and not there. I could feel the pressure of it."
Maera's voice sharpened. "Show me the mark."
The warlock lifted her palm.
A symbol had burned into her skin. A simple shape, a crown formed from thorned vine. The lines were clean, not like a blister or a rash. It looked stamped by law.
Maera inhaled. "That mark is forbidden."
Oren's eyes brightened with something that looked too close to relief.
"So she is alive," he murmured.
The warlock blinked, confused and afraid. "Who is alive."
Oren did not answer. He stepped toward the pedestal as if drawn.
Maera caught his wrist. "Do not touch it with bare skin."
Oren looked down at her hand on him. Then he looked at her face.
"You are a good guard," he said softly. "That is why you will do what I tell you next."
Maera released him as if his skin had become poison. "Try me."
Oren leaned closer, lowering his voice so the kneeling warlock could not hear.
"If the Seed is taken tonight," he said, "do not stop it."
Maera went still. Her eyes did not widen. Her jaw did not drop. Her control was too practiced for that.
"You are ordering a betrayal," she said.
"I am ordering survival," Oren replied. "The realm is built on an incomplete oath. That is why the seasons strain. That is why the borders thin. Tonight we find the missing piece."
Behind them, the kneeling warlock strained against the salt circle, sensing tension without hearing the words.
"High Registrar," she said, voice shaking, "you cannot risk the Seed. It binds harvest. It binds storms. It binds the safe roads. If it moves, the realm will shake."
Oren did not turn. "The realm is already shaking. We have been calling it weather."
The stone wall behind the pedestal made a sound, low and soft, almost a sigh.
A seam appeared in the pale stone. Thin as hair.
Maera drew her sword in one clean motion and put herself between the seam and the Seed.
Oren did not step back. "Too late."
The seam widened, not by force, but as if the vault welcomed it. Stone folded aside in smooth segments. No debris fell. No dust rose. The opening looked prepared.
A figure stepped through.
Plain cloak. No emblem. No jewelry. No glow. Their face sat in shadow, hidden by hood and angle.
Heat slid across the room, gentle at first, then sharper. The lamp flames leaned toward the newcomer, as if pulled by a current.
Maera raised her blade. "Name yourself."
"I would rather not," the figure said. Their voice was calm. Not hurried. Not shaky.
Oren's voice lowered. "You have come at last."
The figure tilted their head. "Have I."
The kneeling warlock tried to stand, but the salt circle held her knees as if glued. Fear tightened her throat. "Captain. High Registrar. Please."
Maera did not look away from the figure. "One step closer and I cut you."
"Cutting is honest," the figure said. "I respect that."
They lifted one hand toward the pedestal.
Oren whispered, "Take it."
Maera turned in disbelief for a fraction of a moment. Not because she trusted him. Because her mind rejected the order.
That fraction was enough.
The figure exhaled.
Flame poured out, bright and clean, shaped into a narrow ribbon. It did not scorch the floor. It did not touch Maera. It struck the bowl and the stone beneath it, not as heat, but as command.
The black glass shattered with a crisp sound.
The Crown Seed sprang upward, rising fast, as if the room had been holding it down and finally released it.
The figure caught it in bare fingers.
Maera lunged and swung. Her blade passed through cloak fabric. No blood. No impact. The figure moved with a step that should not have fit between heartbeats.
Maera drove forward, shoulder low, trying to tackle instead of strike.
The figure turned their head and the hood shifted.
Shadow slid away.
Maera saw the face under the cloak.
A young woman's face.
A face from the Registry halls.
A face she had saluted in passing, polite and forgettable, built for work.
Sable Vane.
Maera froze, not from fear, but from the shock of recognition. Her body obeyed training and kept moving, but her mind stuttered.
The figure stepped backward into the opening in the wall.
The stone began to close at once.
Maera thrust her sword toward the gap. The edge struck stone that was already becoming whole.
The wall sealed smooth. No seam. No trace.
The lamps steadied.
Silence returned with cruel speed.
The kneeling warlock began to scream.
Oren Vale did not.
He only said, very softly, "Good."
Then the Crown Seed's pulse echoed through the floor, once, twice, three times, too fast to be normal.
And somewhere above, in the streets of Knotspire, the bells that marked the seasons rang out of order