The Whispered Court – Rebels Eat Their Own
Darkness wasn't new to Raghav.
But this one had weight.
The kind that settled in your bones, not your eyes. The walls of the Whisper Vault were made of relic-dead stone—charcoal gray with veins of anti-ether, designed to dampen every trace of resonance. The moment they dragged him in, his Devourer rune went still.
Muted.
Silenced.
He sat chained in a chair bolted to the floor, wrists locked by relic-forged cuffs that pulsed with suppression runes.
Across from him, a single torch burned with black flame.
No guards.
No windows.
Just silence.
Until the door creaked.
And Mira stepped in.
She didn't speak right away.
Her eyes scanned the walls, then the cuffs. Then his face.
Raghav tried to smirk. "Didn't think you'd visit. Thought maybe you'd vote to bury me."
Mira rolled her eyes. "If I wanted you buried, you wouldn't have seen it coming."
"Fair."
She walked to him, pulled a thin glass blade from her sleeve, and pressed it to the cuff's rune lock. A spark, a hiss, and the locks clattered open.
Raghav stood slowly. "This a jailbreak?"
"No," she said. "This is a conversation. You've got five minutes."
She spoke fast.
"The attack wasn't ordered by the Judges. It came from deeper in the Rebellion. The Whispered Court."
Raghav narrowed his eyes. "Never heard of them."
"Few have. That's the point."
She stepped back, folded her arms.
"They're the real power underneath the Rebellion's politics. The ones who fund forbidden relic studies. Who sanction silent removals. Who believe we're not using relics—we're failing them."
"They wanted to control the Devourer."
"Exactly. And now they think you're too stubborn to tame… so they're shifting strategies."
Raghav's eyes sharpened. "Elimination?"
"No. Something worse."
A second door opened.
A taller man entered, cloaked in black-and-gray ceremonial robes—no insignia.
But Raghav recognized the aura.
The Judge of Silence.
Even in this prison, his presence altered the air—like language itself avoided him.
He walked past Mira and placed a sealed scroll in Raghav's hand.
"You are exiled," the Judge said.
Raghav blinked. "Exiled?"
"To the Outer Ring. You will enter the Scarred Facility alone. No allies. No aid."
"Trial by death?"
The Judge didn't respond.
He turned away.
But just before leaving, he paused—his fingers tapped his belt three times.
> Same rhythm as during the trial.
A signal.
Raghav watched him vanish into the shadows.
Mira exhaled. "He wants you alive. Just not… here."
Twelve hours later, Raghav stood at the edge of the Outer Ring.
A rusted dome loomed before him, cracked with age, covered in vines and blackened glass. The Scarred Facility—once a relic lab, now a dumping ground for things that could no longer be understood.
The skies above the ring were copper-red, the clouds humming with static.
Mira handed him his racket back.
"It'll work again once you're inside."
Raghav nodded. "You coming?"
She shook her head. "Can't. Too many eyes. But I'll leave a signal when the time's right."
He paused. "You're not telling me something."
Mira looked away. "Inside that place… there's someone waiting."
Raghav frowned. "Who?"
"His name was Kaveen. He used to be a prodigy."
She stepped closer.
"He was the last bearer of the Devourer. Before it broke him."
Raghav stepped through the shield gate.
Instantly, the air changed—thicker, colder.
His racket pulsed in his hand.
The Devourer stirred.
A whisper curled around his ear—not from within, but from the walls themselves.
> "You came back…"
He stood still, letting the relic hum against his palm.
Then he heard it.
Footsteps.
Slow. Metallic. Heavy.
A man emerged from the mist of the broken lab.
Hair silver. Eyes blind. A scar across his jaw.
His presence radiated like a storm kept in a bottle.
He dragged a broken racket behind him—one edge glowing with ancient runes, the other fused with metal claws.
> "You're the new vessel," the man said.
Raghav raised his racket. "And you're the warning, I'm guessing?"
The man grinned, half-mad, half-sad.
> "No. I'm your first lesson."
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