Chapter 20. The Weighing Rooms

The rooms beneath Veilgrove were older than our language for age.

They called them weighing rooms because everything that entered them left lighter: lies, sometimes; safety, always. The floor was a disc of black glass threaded with veins of frozen light. Walls wore sigils that squirmed if you stared—words that refused to be read unless you’d paid for the privilege in blood.

The New Moon Seer waited with her hands folded, looking, as always, like a mercy carved in bone.

“This is not a punishment,” she said as Syra barred the door. “It is an accounting.”

“Of what?” I asked.

“Balance.”

Mavienne stood off to one side, hair unbound, blade sheathed, eyes too sharp for anyone’s comfort. Kael took his place within a second circle set off from mine by a sliver of empty space. Not touching. Close enough for a shadow to think about it.

“Your bond is unsanctioned,” said the Full Moon, drifting in like a winter draft. “Not broken. Not recognized. This cr