The first thing that hit them was the sound.

It wasn't the clean, digital hum of Tsujan technology. It was a rhythmic, thundering heartbeat. Clank. Hiss. Clank. Hiss. Massive copper pistons, the size of redwood trees, drove deep into the earth, pumping coolant through the city’s veins.

The second thing was the smell. It smelled of ozone, ancient grease, and sweat—the smell of effort.

Val and Saje slid down the rusted curve of the intake pipe and landed on a metal grate. Below them, a drop of hundreds of feet into a churning abyss of steam and gears.

"It’s... it's a machine," Val shouted over the roar, wiping soot from their face. "The whole city. It's sitting on a machine."

"Not a machine," Saje yelled back, pointing to the walls. "Look at the masonry. This is a lung. It breathes for the library."

They were in the Shdu Ohisa (The Under-City). It was a cavernous industrial cathedral carved from the bedrock. Pipes of frosted glass ran along the ceiling, carrying liquid nitrogen and water, glowing with a faint blue light. But the air down here was heavy and suffocatingly hot (jeɾuʋ).

And it was crowded.

Dozens of Ajuʋoɾi (Workers) moved along the gantries. They weren't dressed in the uniform grey of Council servants. They wore modified protective gear—heavy leather aprons over cooling suits that looked patched and repaired a hundred times over. They moved with a practiced, dangerous grace, swinging heavy wrenches and hauling replacement cooling rods.

They didn't look like slaves. They looked like soldiers holding a frontline.

"Keep your head down," Saje warned, pulling his hood up. "Gold robes don't make friends down here."

They moved along the shadows of the walkway, dodging jets of steam. Val watched a group of workers manually crank a stuck valve. Their muscles strained, veins popping, until the valve gave way with a groan, releasing a blast of pressure that cooled the pipe above.

"Why do they do it?" Val whispered. "It's brutal."

"Because if they stop, the history melts," Saje said. "This is the Harmony of Endurance. It’s one of the oldest pacts. The people sweat so the memories stay cool."

Suddenly, a heavy wrench clanged against the railing in front of them, blocking their path.

Val froze.

Three workers stepped out from behind a steam vent. They were covered in grease and soot, their eyes protected by thick goggles. The leader, a massive Ide with arms like tree trunks, lowered their goggles. Their eyes were hard, tired, and burning with suspicion.

"We don't get tourists in the Lung," the leader growled. They looked at Val’s torn, golden robes. "And we definitely don't get Royals."

The other two workers hefted their tools—heavy pry bars that looked like they could crack a skull as easily as a valve.

"We're not tourists," Val said, raising their hands slowly. "We're travelers. We need to get to the Library."

"The Library is for those who read," the leader spat. "The Lung is for those who bleed. You're in the wrong zip code, Gold-blood."

They took a step forward. "We heard the alerts. A fugitive Liorovaj running from the Council. I bet the bounty on your head would buy us new cooling cores for a year."

Saje tensed, ready to hum a defensive frequency, but Val stepped in front of him.

"We aren't here to hide," Val said firmly. "We're here to stop the burning. But I was told I might find friends of the Wind down here."

Val reached into their pocket and pulled out the rough-cut stone Dava had given them. They held it up in the dim light.

The spiral sigil of the Davaɾu caught the glow of the cooling pipes.

The leader froze. The aggression didn't vanish, but it shifted into shock. They looked at the stone, then at Val, then at the stone again.

"Where did you get that?" the leader demanded, their voice dropping to a whisper.

"From a friend in the glass desert," Val lied smoothly. "They said the Wind goes where it pleases. Even down here."

The leader stared at Val for a long, tense moment. Then, slowly, they signaled the others to lower their weapons.

"Dava doesn't give those out for charity," the leader grunted. They spat on the grate. "I'm Kael. Shift supervisor."

"Valode," Val replied.

Kael snorted. "I know who you are. The question is, do you know where you are? This isn't a palace basement, kid. This is the only reason your fancy library isn't a puddle."

Kael gestured to the massive, struggling machinery around them. "This system was built to handle the suns of the Old Era. As you can tell, most of it is borrowed tech from the Waters and Chaos. But ever since your Council put up that damn Solar Grid, the reflected heat down here has doubled. We're running at 140% capacity just to keep the ambient temp stable. We work double shifts, half rations, and we fix the pipes with scrap metal because the Council won't send parts."

"Why stay?" Val asked softly. "Why not let it melt?"

Kael looked at Val, offended. "And let the Narin (Echoes) die? We don't do this for the Council. We do this for the ancestors. Someone has to carry the weight."

A sudden, piercing siren echoed through the cavern. It was a rhythmic, two-tone blast. Whoop. Whoop.

The workers around them instantly scrambled, hooking safety lines to the rails and bracing themselves.

"That's the High Eleven warning!" Kael shouted over the siren. "The Convergence is hitting. The system is about to purge the heat build-up! You need to move!"

"We need to get to the Library!" Val yelled. "Romar is in danger!"

Kael pointed to a vertical maintenance ladder disappearing into the steam and darkness above. "That shaft goes straight to the Records Room. But in five minutes, it's going to be a chimney for superheated steam. If you're in there when the flush hits, you'll be boiled alive."

Val looked at the ladder. It was a straight shot.

"We can make it," Val said.

"Then run, Liorovaj," Kael shouted, turning back to a pressure wheel. "And if you see Romar... tell him the Lung is still breathing!"

Val and Saje sprinted for the ladder. "I'll do one better," Val called out from behind. "I'll bring him to see it!"

They climbed. The metal rungs were hot to the touch. Below them, the machinery groaned, the pistons moving faster and faster as the city above absorbed the noon suns.

"Faster, Val!" Saje urged from below. "I can feel the pressure building!"

The air in the shaft grew hotter. Sweat poured down Val’s back, soaking the gold robes. Their lungs burned.

Whoop. Whoop. WHOOP.

The siren went continuous.

"Purge initiating!" a mechanical voice boomed from the walls.

"Val!" Saje screamed.

Val saw a circular hatch above them. It was sealed.

Val grabbed the wheel lock. The metal was glowing a dull, angry red.

"It's pressure-locked!" Val shouted.

Below, a roar like a jet engine started. The steam was coming.

Saje braced himself on the ladder. He looked up at Val, his eyes glowing with amber light. "I’ll match the pressure! Turn it when I shout!"

"It's too hot!" Val yelled, reaching for it anyway.

Saje opened his mouth and hummed. It wasn't a melody; it was a counter-vibration, shaking the very metal of the hatch.

"NOW!"

Val lunged, grabbing the scorching iron wheel with both hands. They braced for the smell of burning skin, the searing pain—but it didn't come.

Instead, a strange sensation washed over Val’s palms. The heat didn't burn; it flowed. It felt like dipping their hands into warm bathwater. The red glow of the metal seemed to dim where their skin touched it, the energy absorbing into Val’s blood like a battery charging.

Val blinked, confused, but there was no time to question it. They threw their weight against the wheel. The metal shrieked—and turned.

The hatch popped open.

Val scrambled up, grabbing Saje’s arm and hauling him through just as a column of white, scalding steam erupted up the shaft, missing Saje’s boots by inches. Val slammed the hatch shut and spun the lock, sealing the roar of the Glass Lung beneath the floor.

Silence.

Val rolled onto their back, gasping for air, looking at their hands. They weren't burned. They were tingling.

They expected guards. They expected alarms.

Instead, they were met with the smell of old parchment and static electricity.

They were in an alcove, hidden behind a towering shelf of translucent data-crystals. The air was cool—artificially so—and the light was a soft, filtered blue.

"We're in," Val whispered, wiping soot from their face.

Saje put a finger to his lips. He pointed through the gap in the crystal shelves.

In the center of the Oɾepasgi, beneath the Great Skylight which had been shuttered against the noon sun, stood Liorovaj Romar.

He wasn't the bored, lazy prince Val had met in the throne room. He was pacing, his posture rigid with fury. He was shouting at a flickering hologram hovering above the central desk.

The hologram was Vaelor, the Fire Enforcer.

"You cannot demand entry!" Romar shouted, his voice echoing off the glass walls. "Khijan is a Sovereign Archive! By the Treaty of the First Sun, your High Guards have no jurisdiction here!"

"The Treaty is a courtesy, Romar," Vaelor's digital voice crackled, distorted by the heat interference. "The girl is a walking bomb. She belongs to the Council. Surrender the specimen, or we will burn the doors down ourselves."

"Try it," Romar snarled, leaning over the desk. "You burn my doors, and I broadcast the Archives. All of it. The Purge. The Tribes. The lie about the calendar. I’ll flood the Wesahb (World Web) with so much truth you'll drown in it."

Vaelor’s hologram flickered red. "You are playing a dangerous game, little King. The Low Eleven is coming."

The connection cut. The hologram vanished.

Romar stood there for a moment in the silence, his hands trembling on the desk. He took a deep, shaky breath and ran a hand through his hair.

"Idiot," he muttered to himself. "You absolute idiot."

"He's right, you know," Val said, stepping out from behind the shelf. "Vaelor doesn't bluff."

Romar spun around, his hand flying to the dagger at his belt. When he saw Val—covered in grease, sweat, and glass dust—his eyes went wide.

"Valode?" Romar blinked. He looked at the floor, then at the sealed maintenance hatch Val had just emerged from. "How... how in the Suns did you get in here? The perimeter is locked down."

"We took the scenic route," Val said, gesturing to the hatch. "Through the Shdu Ohisa."

Romar frowned. "The Under-City? That’s impossible. The vents are lethal."

"Not if you have friends," Saje said, stepping out of the shadows. He looked at Romar with a mix of respect and wariness. "Your city is breathing, Vajava. But it’s wheezing. The Ajuʋoɾi down there are dying to keep your library cool."

Romar’s expression softened. He looked genuinely confused. "The Ajuʋoɾi? I... I sign the maintenance requisitions, but I’ve never..." He looked at the floor hatch, as if seeing it for the first time. "I didn't know there was a way up."

"There's a lot the Council keeps from its Kings," Val said, walking toward him. "But we aren't here to fight. We're here to help."

"Help?" Romar laughed, a dry, bitter sound. "You're a fugitive, Valode. I just threatened the Council with nuclear truth, and you're the most wanted Ide on the planet. We are way past help."

"Not yet," a soft voice spoke from the shadows of the reading nook.

Val turned.

Sitting in a large, velvet armchair, wrapped in a thick blanket despite the heat of the day, was Wren.

The girl looked better than she had in the throne room. Her skin wasn't glowing with magma anymore; it was a pale, healthy bronze. Her eyes, however, were tired.

"Wren?" Val breathed.

Wren stood up, the blanket falling away. She wore simple Khijan robes, not the prisoner's rags she had arrived in. She walked over to Val, her steps hesitant.

"I remember you," Wren whispered. She reached out and took Val’s hand. Her skin was warm, but stable. "You're the Coolant. You felt like... rain."

"And you felt like a storm," Val smiled, squeezing her hand. "I'm glad you're safe."

"She is safe because I bought her," Romar interrupted, walking over to pour himself a glass of water. His hands were still shaking. "I negotiated the transfer from your sister's custody. It cost me half the kingdom's treasury, but at least she isn't in a lab."

"Why?" Val asked, looking around the pristine library. "Why haven't they burned this place down already? How does this place even exist?"

Romar sighed, leaning against the map of Rahmori etched into the glass wall. "Because of my Selu (Father). He isn't just sick, Valode. He is broken."

Romar traced the seal of Khijan on the wall. "Twenty-two years ago, when the Council rewrote the calendar, they came for the books. My father told them that if one boot crossed the threshold, he would shatter the cooling rods and flood the city with liquid nitrogen. He held the entire population hostage. Mutual destruction."

"So they made a deal," Saje realized.

"The Harmony of Silence," Romar nodded. "The Council lets us keep the books, and we let them build the Solar Grid around us. They get the energy, we get the history. But the stress of maintaining the stalemate... it broke him. He lies in the Stasis Ward, kept alive by the very machines you just climbed through. Khijan has no King, Valode. Just a ghost and a caretaker."

"And now the deal is broken," Val said. "Because you have Wren. And because I'm here."

"Exactly," Romar said. "We can't stay here. Vaelor knows I have her. He knows you're likely heading here. Khijan is a glass cage."

"We need to move the Archives," Val said. "We can use the Sonic Rails."

"The Rails are too slow for the Archives," Saje corrected gently. "And the Council watches the tunnels now."

"Then where?" Wren asked, looking between them. "I can't go back to Jefue. My own Selu imprisoned me."

Romar walked to the massive map. He traced a finger downward, past the deserts of Khijan, past the jagged coastline, toward the bottom of the world.

The Hipe. The South.

"There is one place the Council’s sensors can't penetrate," Romar said. "The Land of the Waters. The Rumathi Coast."

Val looked at the map. "The Water Tribes? I thought they were extinct."

"Hiding," Saje corrected. "Like the Thame."

"My Tama..." Romar hesitated. "Before she died, she spoke of a master. A Rumide (Water Weaver) who refused the Council's integration. His name is Emerjn. He lives in the Frozen Hipe, in the southwest wastes."

Saje inhaled sharply. "Emerjn? The Tidal Tama? I thought he was a myth."

"He's real," Romar said. "He’s the only one who understands the old elemental bonds. He might be the only one who can teach you what you are, Valode. And he might be the only one who can fix Wren permanently."

Romar turned to them. The mask was gone completely now. He looked young, scared, and ready to fight.

"I have a stealth-transport in the private hangar. It’s fast. If we leave during the High Eleven, the solar interference might cloak our exit."

"How do you know the interference will be enough?" Val asked.

"Because I arranged it," a deep voice resonated from the darkness.

The shadows in the corner of the room didn't just darken; they stood up.

A figure stepped out of the gloom. It was a tall, slender Ide dressed in a suit of matte-black weave that seemed to absorb the light of the library. He wore no mask, but his features were hard to focus on, as if he were standing just slightly out of phase with reality.

Ouhan.

Val stepped back, hand going to the wind-stone in their pocket. Saje hummed a defensive note.

"Peace, Liorovaj," Ouhan said. His voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once. "I am not here to collect you."

Ouhan walked past them, nodding respectfully to Romar. "The interference grid is set, My King. The solar flare will blind the Council's sensors for exactly three Arks."

Val stared at him. "You... you sent the message. In the garden."

"I did," Ouhan said, turning his void-black eyes to Val. "I have been waiting for you to wake up, Valode. We all have."

Val scrunched their face, blending their features in confusion. "What does everyone mean by that? Why me?" Val thought.

Ouhan looked at the group—Val, Saje, Romar, Wren.

"Fire, Water, Light, and... Echo," Ouhan murmured, nodding to each of them in turn. "And Shadow to bind them."

He bowed low, a gesture of ancient, terrifying grace.

"Thank you for coming," Ouhan said, a small, knowing smile touching his lips. "The transport is fueled. Shall we begin the revolt?"