The Price of Power: Born in Binding

The chamber reeked of incense and fresh ink. Symbols of power were etched into obsidian walls, glowing faintly with residual sigil-light. Kael stood before the Council of Crimson once more — this time, not as a petitioner, but as an anomaly.

"Do you understand what you've accepted, Initiate Kael?" asked Elder Verrin, voice a silk thread pulled taut.

"I accepted truth," Kael replied, eyes steady. "Not shackles."

A murmured ripple moved through the elders. To speak so plainly in this room was to tempt consequences. But Kael had stopped fearing that kind of punishment.

He had seen what they hid.

Ever since the Binding Ritual, whispers had clawed at the back of his mind. Not the cursed ones — he had mastered those — but subtler murmurs: manipulated memories, truths half-buried under careful wording, authority enforced through selective ignorance.

The trial in the last chamber had revealed it. A series of illusioned scenarios meant to assess his loyalty. But Kael saw through the tests — and more importantly, what lay beyond them: a rotating wall of hidden tomes, the kind not meant for initiates. He had memorized the ward sequence before the illusion collapsed.

He wasn't supposed to remember.

But he did.

And now… he waited.

Elder Verrin stepped forward, robes trailing silence behind him. "Power can be a mercy, Kael. You lack the context to wield it correctly. That's what the Crimson Covenant offers: direction. Control."

Kael didn't blink. "You mean obedience."

Another ripple. This time, sharper.

A female elder — Lady Sorva, her face veiled in mourning cloth — leaned forward. "Obedience tempers ambition. Without it, power devours. You were not the only one who passed the trial. But you are the only one who asks these questions. Why is that, Kael?"

He didn't answer. He knew the trap. That question was a door — step through, and they'd close it behind him.

So he chose silence.

The silence lingered long enough to become a threat.

Then Verrin sighed. "We will allow you to continue, but you will be watched more closely than before. There are deeper truths, yes — but they require loyalty sealed in blood. And you have not bled enough for us."

Kael's fists clenched behind his robe sleeves.

Later, back in his quarters — a sanctum of stone and solitary candlelight — Kael unspooled the memory-seal he had hidden beneath his collarbone. It stung as it unwound, and images bloomed in his mind like painful stars.

He saw it again — the hidden library behind the test. The sigil-maps traced the outlines of something massive. Not just a political order… a ritual network. A massive system of siphoning — harvesting something from those bound to the Covenant.

Not just power.

Will.

They weren't empowering initiates. They were farming them.

Kael staggered, the weight of it sinking into his gut like lead. He pressed his hand to the candle flame — let it burn. Pain was clarity. He needed clarity.

He could no longer assume the Covenant was a stepping stone. It was a maze. A prison with golden bars and whispered promises. The chains they offered were elegant, but still chains.

And someone had to break them.

End of Chapter 24