CHAPTER 18- Ashes and Sigils

Hester's first contact was a man named Verin Bell. A former Sealer—a specialist in glyph-bonding and vault-guarding from the shattered Ivory Guild. His name had vanished from records a decade ago after a failed coup in Whitebridge. Supposedly executed. Officially forgotten.

But he was alive.

They met him beneath the ruins of an old grain exchange, where mold crept along every stone and the air stank of damp and rust. Verin wore a copper half-mask and spoke in sharp, clipped phrases. He demanded proof of Hester's loyalty, then Ashra's, and finally—Corwin's intent.

When Corwin showed him the fragment of the Philosopher's Circuit, the air turned cold.

Verin didn't touch it. Just stared.

"You don't know what this is," he said at last.

"I know it's real," Corwin replied.

Verin leaned back. "That's worse."

He gave them a map. Not of locations—but of people. Names hidden in ciphers. Safehouses. A list of old allies who might still be alive. Some with grudges. Some with debts. All dangerous in their own way.

He warned them: "The Carrion doesn't purge indiscriminately. They erase systems. This circuit? It wasn't just a myth. It was a model. A threat to their dominion. You can't complete it without waking what they buried."

Corwin thanked him.

Verin turned away. "Don't thank me. I'll be dead before month's end. Just make sure it's worth it."

Far across the city, beneath a mountain of spires and gilded arches, the Carrion Order convened.

Six figures sat at a table of bone and inked glass. Each wore a mask carved from different alchemical mediums—obsidian, salt crystal, polished mercury-steel.

At the head of the table, the Arch-Scholar of Nullity tapped his fingers against a codex etched with living glyphs.

"The Endren boy gathers exiles," said one masked figure.

"Let him," said another. "They'll tear each other apart. That circle was meant to breed madness."

A third voice, deeper, more resonant: "The Ouroboros has stirred. That cannot be coincidence."

The Arch-Scholar silenced them with a motion.

"The girl Ashra is marked. The one-handed exile watches. The rogue Sealer speaks. The pattern emerges."

"What of the workshop?"

"Not yet," he said. "The bait has not yet bitten deep enough."

The table pulsed once, a heartbeat made of ancient symbols.

"Let them believe they are gathering strength. Let the circuit wake. Then we move. And end this. As we did before."