Chapter 5 - Demitruis
The doors to the Affinity Spire parted like lungs inhaling. The chamber was silent, sterile, precise.
I stepped forward.
The platform beneath my feet wasn't stone. Not anymore. It was alloyed quartz, veined with circuitry that pulsed beneath the surface like veins beneath glass skin. Not magic. Not cultivation.
Infrastructure.
Elders lined the outer ring. Their robes were correct. Their posture, reverent. But their expressions… were not.
They looked afraid.
Alaria stood at the threshold and did not enter.
I did not ask why. She had already stopped being explainable hours ago.
At the center of the dome stood the Affinity Engine.
Not the glass box from childhood. This was no ceremonial crystal. It was a column of fused obsidian, latticed in crimson-threaded wiring, humming with restraint. It pulsed in time with nothing. Not breath. Not heart. Not ritual.
It waited for me.
An opening slid into view. Seamless. Oval. My hand's shape, but not quite.
I approached with practiced calm. My feet made no sound. The floor was too smooth.
The elders bowed in unison.
"Lord Dorian Rose," one of them intoned. "Heir Apparent. First Bloom. Vessel of the Divine Lineage. Step forward and be known."
I had heard those titles all my life.
But this time, they sounded like identifiers.
Not praise. Not prophecy.
Just labels.
I pressed my palm into the socket.
It was cold.
Not physically. Fundamentally.
The machine hummed louder.
The chamber dimmed.
A sound like pressure building underwater echoed through the dome.
Then—
A flash.
Not light.
Color.
Red.
Brilliant, wet, arterial red exploded across the core. Not from me. From it. As if the Engine was bleeding on my behalf.
The elders gasped.
The platform shifted.
A ring of glyphs lit up around me. Not sacred text. Not Rose Clan scripture.
Code.
Lines of red script hovered in the air, projected from the Engine.
I could read it.
Somehow.
SPECIMEN: DORIAN ROSECLASS: PRIMOGENITOR TIER-AAFFINITY: WATER (CONFIRMED)SECONDARY TRAIT DETECTED: UNREGISTEREDBLOOD CATALYST RECOGNIZED[ERROR] SYSTEM DESYNCHRONIZATIONREPORT TO OVERSEER NODE 1
Silence.
No music. No declaration. No ritual conclusion.
Just text.
Hanging in the air like judgment.
The blood vanished.
The Engine dimmed.
My hand remained pressed to the glass.
I felt something beneath my skin.
Not power.
Processing.
As if something had begun indexing me.
A whisper flickered in the air—not sound, but a thought shoved into language:
He is awake.
Then it was gone.
The broadcast orb zoomed.
I saw him.
A face.
Just for a frame.
Hooded. Not aged. Not young. Not a father.
Not even a man.
A shape in the shape of a man.
The image vanished.
The elders began to move again.
One cleared his throat. "The ceremony is complete."
But no one clapped.
No one sang.
No one lit the fireworks.
I pulled my hand back.
The socket was clean.
As if nothing had touched it.
I turned.
Alaria waited at the exit.
Not kneeling. Not bowing.
Just watching.
I walked to her.
The elders did not stop me.
Because they didn't know how.
The corridor had rearranged itself.
Or perhaps I had never noticed how straight it was. No curves. No artistic veering. Just one long, clinical passage from the Affinity Spire back to the central hall.
My footsteps made no sound.
No one followed.
Not even Alaria.
The doors to the atrium opened early. Not dramatically. Just… ahead of schedule. A mechanical courtesy, like a shopkeeper sensing impatience.
Inside, the lights were wrong again.
Bright, cold, hierarchical. The chandeliers were off, and the skylight was open. The hall was flooded with colorless morning—sharp enough to peel oil from marble.
And someone was already there.
He wasn't standing in the center.
That would have been too poetic.
He stood just to the left of the second pillar. Exactly where a figure might be in a painting, to balance composition.
But this was no painting.
He wasn't tall. Not especially. His posture was symmetrical but unspectacular. No robes of state. No ceremonial rings. Just black.
His hair was silver. Not dyed silver. Real silver. Weightless. Hanging wrong. Not windblown. Not levitating. Just… undecided.
He was reading something from a thin device in his palm.
He didn't look up when I entered.
I stopped three steps into the room.
No attendant announced me.
No trumpets sounded.
He turned the page.
I cleared my throat.
He didn't flinch.
After another second, he raised his eyes.
They were dark. Not black. Deep.
I felt the light around me shift, just slightly. Like the room had remembered it had ceilings.
"You're early," he said.
I blinked.
It wasn't a question. Or a greeting. Just a… statement.
"I wasn't aware we were scheduled to meet," I said.
"We weren't."
His tone was not dismissive. Just… immune to courtesy.
He lowered the device and let it vanish into his sleeve.
Now he looked at me properly.
And I hated that I couldn't place him.
Not a noble. Not staff. Not recorded in any memory I trusted.
Still he didn't bow.
He didn't ask permission to speak.
He didn't call me Radiance.
A breath of wrongness passed through the hall. The mirrors didn't reflect quite right.
I stepped forward.
"You are trespassing," I said.
"Incorrect."
I tilted my head. A gesture I had perfected. It made people rethink entire arguments.
Not him.
He walked toward me, hands clasped behind his back.
Not threatening. Not subservient. Just… efficient.
"Your readings have triggered recalibration protocols," he said.
"What readings."
"Bloodline resonance. Unmapped affinity. Philosophical instability."
I smiled. "I've been called complex before."
"Incorrect again."
He stopped two paces away.
I could smell nothing from him. No fragrance. No skin. No dust. As if he had been cleaned out of reality and dropped here from a better one.
"Who are you," I asked.
He considered.
Not paused. Considered.
Then: "Demitruis."
The name meant nothing.
But the space around it warped.
A chandelier flickered, just once. A beam of light narrowed across the floor like a sniper's judgment.
I knew that name.
Not from memory.
From instinct.
From blood.
This was the first.
The one who hadn't died.
The one they said no longer intervened.
He looked at me, and I felt indexed.
Not judged.
Just… documented.
"You were built for a different context," he said.
"I was born."
"You were issued."
I did not move.
He walked past me. Slowly. Deliberately. Like someone inspecting a design.
"The Rose Protocol was meant to generate aesthetic adherence. Harmony through symbolism. You were its highest output."
"You're welcome."
He turned.
Finally.
"Unfortunately," he said, "you're also its flaw."
I laughed. Not politely. Beautifully.
"Because I surpassed the model?"
"Because you believed in it."
A pause.
No footsteps outside. No noise. The city held its breath.
"The ceremony was a success," I said. "The affinity confirmed. The crowd adored. The engine bled. Everything proceeded."
"Incorrect," he said.
Then he raised one hand.
Not toward me.
Toward the atrium's center.
The floor hissed.
And opened.
A structure rose.
Not fast. Not mechanically. Like it had always been there, waiting for its cue.
An egg-shaped pod. Glossed in alloy and marked with unknown glyphs. Laced with crimson like veins drawn by a child who had only seen blood in theory.
"This is not punishment," Demitruis said. "It is preparation."
"For what?"
"The world."
I scoffed. "I am the world."
"No," he said. "You're a product."
He gestured toward the pod.
"You will enter. The system will educate you."
"And if I refuse?"
"You won't."
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
The pod pulsed once.
I felt the floor beneath me correct its angle.
The room was adjusting.
Not for him.
For me, in anticipation.
I was being moved into position.
"Your delusions are inefficient," he said.
"Your face is underwhelming," I replied.
A pause.
Then—he almost smiled.
Not with lips. With presence.
"I look forward to seeing what breaks first."
The pod opened.
White inside.
No shadows.
I stepped in.
Because this was still my story.
Even if someone else had started writing it.