[Southern Road — Day 5]

The return journey was faster.

---

[Imperial City — South Gate — Day 8 — 3:00 PM]

The wall of Imperial City came into view.

The gate guard looked at the team.

Looked at Grim.

Grim holding Maya’s stone. Eighty centimeters. Completely harmless in appearance.

Raven approached him and whispered something.

The guard made a note. Let them pass.

Emily came up to Raven curiously.

"What did you say to him?"

Raven smiled at Emily.

"A Circle code. He’s a member, and now that Cael isn’t lurking around, we can use our contacts."

Kira to the team once they were inside: "Four Temple guards at the gate. Fewer than the first time."

"Is that good?" asked the boy.

"It means Cael withdrew his squad." Kira. "It doesn’t mean no one is watching us."

"So?"

"It means whoever is watching us now is better at not being seen."

The boy processed that.

He kept walking.

---

[Old Market District — The Column — 4:00 PM]

Viktor was already there.

As always.

He stood up when they entered. Evaluated them one by one with focused attention.

Alex — the physical changes more pronounced. The crimson veins more extensive. The white streak at his temples.

Grim in Form 2/7 — three meters, translucent armor, permanent crimson flames. First time Viktor had seen him in this form. His expression didn’t change, but his eyes paused for an extra second.

And at the end — the boy. Blue clothes. No mask. No violet in his eyes.

Viktor processed them all.

He sat down.

He pointed to the chairs.

The teapot was already poured.

---

"Fragment 5 is in the Celestial Academy," said Alex.

Viktor picked up his cup.

He held it without drinking.

Eight seconds of silence.

"Confirmed?"

**"Original Harvester’s memories."** Grim. **"Confirmed."**

Viktor looked at Grim.

Then at the map on the table — updated, with markings from months of intelligence work. The mark on the Eastern Island visible.

He looked at it.

"That changes everything."

He folded his hands.

"The Temple has a permanent presence in the Academy. Father Agustín has direct influence over Director Magnus." A pause. "Magnus doesn’t fully know it. He believes it’s institutional cooperation between the Temple and the Academy."

"Isn’t it?"

"It’s more than that." Viktor. "Agustín uses the Academy as an operating base. He’s had the oldest building under restricted access for two years — he told Magnus it was structural restoration."

Alex looked at him.

"Does Agustín know about Fragment 5?"

"He knows there’s anomalous energy in that building. He doesn’t know exactly what it is." Viktor. "Not yet."

---

"Tell me about Agustín," said Alex.

Viktor considered.

"Thirty years building the Temple’s doctrine on the Fragments."

"He’s not a fanatic — fanatics are predictable. Agustín is a strategist."

"The difference?"

"A fanatic acts on faith. Agustín acts on logic." Viktor. "He genuinely believes that the Fragments are the greatest threat to the world’s order. That any cost to eliminate them is justifiable."

"What does he base that on?"

"On something he saw thirty years ago. The Temple’s archives have it sealed." Viktor. "I don’t know exactly what it was. But after that event, Agustín dedicated his life to this."

"Is he completely wrong?"

"No." Viktor. "The Fragments are dangerous. The corruption is real. What’s wrong is the conclusion — that the solution is to eliminate the Fragments instead of understanding why they exist."

"A strategist with an incomplete premise."

"Exactly." Viktor. "That makes him more dangerous than a fanatic. His logic is internally consistent if you accept his premise. And there’s no way to refute it without information he doesn’t have and that the Temple doesn’t want him to have."

---

The plan.

Viktor built it while the team listened.

Maya with her notebook. Kira with specific questions about access and terrain. Raven evaluating weak points in silence.

"Alex can’t enter as Alex Carter. The bounty is still active — 500,000 crowns, updated description." Viktor looked at Alex. "The physical changes are identifiable. The eyes. The hair. The companion."

**"Thank you,"** said Grim.

"It’s just information." Viktor. "You need full covers. Documents, stories, reasons to be at the Academy that will withstand scrutiny from Temple personnel."

"Can the Circle get that?" asked Raven.

"The Circle can get things the Temple wouldn’t want to know about." Viktor returned to the map. "But I need time. Two weeks for covers that can withstand someone at Agustín’s level."

"Two weeks," said Maya. "And in the meantime?"

"Prepare." Viktor looked at them. "And rest. Because what comes after isn’t going to have much rest available."

He activated the Circle that afternoon — not all of them. The right ones. Those with experience, with infiltration, with the Academy in particular.

---

Before the team left the room, Viktor pointed at the boy.

"Who is he?"

"The previous bearer of Fragment 4," said Alex.

Viktor processed that. He looked at the boy with his usual direct evaluation.

The boy looked back. Unintimidated.

"Does he have a name?"

"Not yet," said Alex.

Viktor looked directly at the boy.

"Do you want one?"

The boy didn’t answer immediately.

Five seconds.

"Yes."

"Then choose." Viktor said it without elaboration. "A name is yours when you choose it. Not when someone gives it to you."

The boy looked at him.

"Just like that?"

Alex answered that last part.

"Just like that. I also chose mine when I was old enough to decide for myself at the orphanage."

The boy looked at the team — at Alex, at Grim, at the group he had learned to recognize as a reference for how to exist.

He thought.

Not long. Like someone who already knew and only needed permission to say it.

He said the name.

"Max."

Emily smiled.

Kira nodded with the seriousness of someone cataloging important information.

Raven: "Good."

**"Good,"** repeated Grim.

Viktor wrote it in his notebook without further comment.

Max looked at the paper where Viktor had written it.

The first time his name existed in any document that wasn’t a Herald’s registry.

---

[Imperial City — Two weeks]

The Circle working.

The team with time that had no immediate urgency and that none of them fully knew how to handle.

Raven in the artisan district finding the blood magic practitioner from the first visit — completing a pending exchange of techniques that had been interrupted in Veltharr.

Emily with a local herbalist, different from the one in Veltharr but with access to southern region plants that complemented what she had learned before.

Kira building a contact network in Imperial City with the same efficiency she had shown in Veltharr — four people in two days, information about the Academy that the Circle’s maps didn’t have.

Maya in the Circle’s library — archives on the Celestial Academy, its history, its structure, the access points that official records didn’t document.

Alex and Grim with Viktor twice a week — coordinating, adjusting the plan, incorporating the information that Kira and Maya brought.

Corruption stable at 76% with Emily’s sessions.

Fragment 4 unintegrated but without additional pressure.

Time working as it should — preparing instead of reacting.

---

[Imperial City — Night of Day 13]

Alex’s device vibrated.

A message from Seraph.

No text.

Just coordinates — a city to the west, two days’ travel.

And below Seraph’s coordinates, with a different signature — one none of them recognized — a single line.

*"It’s time to talk. Bring the Core."*

Alex looked at the message.

He called Grim.

Grim read the coordinates. Read the unknown signature.

His crimson flames stilled in that specific way they did when he processed something he recognized without knowing exactly where from. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

**"The signature,"** said Grim.

"Do you recognize it?"

**"No."** His eyes on the device. **"But Fragment 2 does, and that’s worrying."**

Alex looked at him.

**"It’s Fragment energy."**

"Which one?"

**"The 6th."**