ACTS OF SANCTION
CHAPTER TEN: ACTS OF SANCTION
Day 12 – The Tribunal Responds
---
The White Spire sat above the clouds, anchored to the spine of a Rift-tear older than the Dominion itself. It wasn't a building. It was a statement.
Cold. Absolute. Untouchable.
Inside its mirrored halls, light bent. Sound traveled too slowly. And the walls listened.
Judicator Velae stood beneath the Crownlight Prism, arms clasped behind her back. Below her, the full Tribunal Council had gathered—twelve figures arranged in a crescent of glass and silence, each more mask than man. Their robes shimmered with kinetic warding. Their Remnants pulsed like held breath.
"Are we agreed?" Velae asked.
One of them shifted. A deep voice, barely filtered: "Dawnbreak was not meant to awaken. Let alone bond."
"She didn't bond," Velae said. "She chose. That's worse."
A murmur passed between them.
"She is now under the protection of a rogue Contractor unit," another voice said. "The Ashbinders are not sanctioned. Not recorded. Their Contracts are... unstable."
"Their Remnants predate modern bindings," added a third. "Original echoes. Forbidden rites."
"Exactly," Velae said. "They survived Hollowforge. Claimed Ephra Dusk. Revived a Dawnbreaker."
She turned slowly to face the council.
"They've done what no military unit has. No Choir. No Inquisitor cell. And now the world is watching them."
A beat.
"You mean to eliminate them," a final voice said.
Velae's lips curved—not quite a smile. "No."
The chamber grew colder.
"I mean to offer them legitimacy. Under one condition."
"And if they refuse?"
She tapped the command slate in her hand.
"Then we unleash the Inheritance Protocol."
Silence.
Even for the Tribunal, that was a name wrapped in centuries of redacted whispers.
A low, hooded figure leaned forward. "You would revive the Seraphim?"
"I would unleash them," Velae said. "One for each member of the Ashbinder cell. One for Dawnbreak herself."
Another councilor interjected, voice laced with unease. "Those constructs nearly unraveled the last Rift War. You propose we use them against five children?"
"They're not children anymore," Velae said coldly. "They're symbols. If we crush them now, the world will rally behind a martyr's lie. But if we bind them under Tribunal seal, use them as examples—"
She turned back to the Crownlight.
"Then we remind the world who holds the leash on gods."
---
Beneath the Spire, in one of the black cells reserved for class-zero anomalies, something stirred.
It had once been human.
Now it was a shape of glass and scream, held together by Remnant chains that wept memory.
As the cell lock hissed open, it smiled without lips.
A voice spoke through the dark.
"Target: Ashbinder. Codename: Grin."
The Seraphim awoke.
---
Back in the command archive, a quiet aide approached Velae as the council dispersed.
"Judicator… The girl—Dawn. Her frequency signature just triggered an old beacon."
Velae's eyes narrowed. "Where?"
The aide hesitated.
"Far beneath the Bastion. Below even Forge-sealed layers. We didn't know it existed."
Velae turned slowly.
Then whispered:
"...Neither did the Architects."
-----
The stairwell was too quiet.
It spiraled downward through architecture older than Hollowforge itself, untouched by Rift corrosion, preserved in black stone veined with silver that hummed faintly under their boots. Not a single layer of dust. No decay. As if time itself had been sealed out.
Jex muttered, "Feels like walking down a throat."
Torren grunted. "Speak less."
"No, seriously. What kind of ruin doesn't have spider-webs or corpses? Even the Echoes steer clear of this place."
Senya walked ahead, rifle ready, each step measured. "It's not a ruin. It's a vault."
Silas said nothing.
He didn't need to.
Because the pressure was building.
With each step, he felt the resonance grow tighter. A slow frequency rising behind his eyes. His Remnant—usually a whisper—now pulsed against his spine like it was trying to warn him.
Dawn walked near the middle. Her expression hadn't changed since they'd begun the descent. Blank. Listening. Like the stairs spoke in a language only she could hear.
"How much further?" Nira asked.
Senya paused, checking the mapping display she'd jerry-rigged from old Forge parts.
"We're nearly beneath the Riftbed. There shouldn't be anything down here."
Jex gave her a sideways glance. "You say that like it's comforting."
They reached the bottom.
A smooth wall. Seamless black alloy. No door. No keypad. Just a faint outline glowing softly, shaped like a hexagonal prism.
Dawn stepped forward.
Her hand moved on instinct, tracing the air just above the metal.
A pulse answered. One deep note of resonance.
Then the wall… breathed.
It folded inward like liquid steel parting at a thought.
Beyond it was a chamber.
Huge. Hollow. Filled with cold light and silence.
Dozens of sarcophagus-like pods lined the walls in a circular pattern, each one rimmed with symbols none of them recognized. Cracked glass. Burn marks. Some shattered from the inside.
Senya raised her rifle again. "Contractor stasis?"
Nira stepped into the room slowly. "Or containment."
Silas stood at the edge of the threshold, eyes narrowed. His Boon whispered run. Not because of danger—but because of memory. This place felt… familiar.
Jex knelt near one of the pods, tapping the edge.
"None of these are alive. Whatever they were keeping down here, it's long gone."
Torren moved further in, frowning. "Why seal this off? What were they hiding—"
A noise.
Metal shrieking.
They spun instantly—blades, Boons, and shadows at the ready.
One of the back pods had shifted. Steam curled from its seams.
Dawn's voice was calm. Too calm.
"They were hiding us."
The pod opened.
Not explosively. Not violently. Just... cleanly.
Inside was a body.
A teenager.
Pale. Still. Wrapped in armor that shimmered like folded starlight. Eyes closed.
Then they opened—pitch black, no whites, no pupils.
He inhaled.
And the Riftlight dimmed.
---
Aboveground, Ephra Dusk's power spiked.
An alarm triggered in the Tribunal's farwatch array.
In the Spire, Velae stood over a live feed.
"They found it," the aide whispered.
Velae nodded. "Then send the first Seraphim."
The room darkened.
And somewhere, a thing wearing a smile too wide opened its eyes.