NOVEL NEXT Chapter 165: [165] The Anchor and the Vessel
Xavier's bare feet made no sound against the volcanic stone as he slipped through corridors that should have been impossible to navigate undetected. The temple's heartbeat thrummed beneath his soles—a steady pulse of heat and power that matched the rhythm of his own blood.
Two guards stood at the intersection ahead, their attention focused down the main hallway where Naomi's engineered commotion echoed from the records chamber. Xavier pressed himself against the wall's carved reliefs, feeling ancient symbols bite into his shoulder blades. The King's Gaze whispered tactical assessments in his mind but he pushed the alien voice aside.
Trust your instincts, he told himself. You survived twenty years without cosmic commentary.
The guards shifted, one pointing toward the distant sounds of Brother Kael's raised voice. Xavier moved during the gesture, twenty meters of open corridor crossed in heartbeats. His borrowed noble's clothing felt strange against his skin—too fine, too clean for someone who'd spent weeks killing monsters in the snow.
The archive entrance loomed before him, a massive stone slab that belonged in a pharaoh's tomb rather than a temple basement. No visible hinges, no lock, no handles. Just smooth volcanic rock carved with spiraling patterns that hurt to look at directly.
Xavier placed his palm against the stone.
The door recognized something in his blood—Xavien's blood, the body he wore like an ill-fitting coat. The slab ground inward with the weight of centuries, revealing darkness beyond.
The heat was a solid wall, a furnace blast that seemed to cook the air from his lungs.
Xavier stepped through the threshold and stopped, his expectations crumbling around him. This wasn't a library. Wasn't even close.
The chamber stretched out in a perfect circle, its walls rising toward a domed ceiling lost in shadow. But the floor—the floor was transparent crystal, revealing the molten heart of the mountain below. Magma moved in slow, hypnotic currents, casting everything in shifting red and orange light. The air hummed with contained energy, as if the room itself was a massive Essentia circuit.
Laboratory equipment lined the walls—devices Xavier didn't recognize but that radiated purpose. Crystal matrices the size of dinner plates, metal instruments that gleamed despite their obvious age, tables covered in precise geometric diagrams. This was a place for experimentation, not study.
Or imprisonment.
Xavier's breathing quickened as he took in the scope of what he was seeing. Lord Torval hadn't been researching his family's history. He'd been conducting experiments that required the raw power of a volcano's heart.
At the chamber's center stood a single stone plinth, carved from the same volcanic rock as the door. Its surface was smooth as glass, unmarked by tool or time. Upon it rested a single object—a leather-bound journal secured with silver clasps shaped like flames.
Xavier approached, each step echoing strangely in the superheated air. The journal seemed to absorb the magma's glow rather than reflect it, creating a pocket of darkness atop the white stone.
When his fingers touched the leather binding, cold shot through his bones.
Impossible. The chamber was hotter than a forge, but the journal felt like it had been stored in winter ice. Xavier's breath misted as he lifted it from the plinth, the silver clasps burning his fingertips with their chill.
The flame-shaped clasps opened at his touch—more Flameheart blood magic. The journal's pages were thick parchment, each one pristine despite their obvious age. Xavier opened to the first entry, squinting in the shifting light.
The handwriting was elegant but strained, as if the author had been fighting tremors while writing.
Fifteenth day of Wintermarch, Year 847.
My dearest Selene has Awakened. May the gods forgive me for what I must do.
Xavier's hands tightened on the journal's edges. Five years ago—exactly when Calypso had said the original Lady Selene died. He read on.
The manifestation came early, as I feared it would. Fourteen summers old and already her Essentia burns brighter than mine ever did. The bloodline runs true, but that very truth will damn us all.
I have studied the old texts, consulted with the scholars who remember the Time of Binding. There is precedent for what I plan, though the cost grows heavier with each day's consideration. But what choice do I have? The Winter Court's agents whisper of a vessel, someone pure enough to contain what they have lost. They speak of my daughter.
They will not have her.
Xavier flipped the page, his mouth dry despite the humid air. The handwriting grew more erratic.
Seventeenth day of Wintermarch.
The ritual components are gathered. Sister Elara has agreed to the binding, though I see the fear in her eyes. She understands what I ask of her—to become the anchor while Selene's soul is hidden away. The scholars say consciousness can be displaced, held in stasis between worlds. A mercy, they call it.
I call it the murder of my daughter's innocence.
But better innocence lost than soul consumed. The Winter Court seeks a vessel for their fallen queen's return. They will find only an empty shell, a consciousness trapped between realms while my true daughter sleeps in safety.
The journal trembled in Xavier's grip. Displacement. Consciousness held between worlds. The pieces clicked together with horrible clarity.
Lord Torval hadn't killed his daughter. He'd hidden her.
And when seven students fell through a dimensional gate five years later, they'd landed in bodies prepared to receive them. Bodies whose original souls were trapped elsewhere, waiting.
The binding is complete, read the next entry. Elara gave her life willingly, anchoring the displacement field. Selene's consciousness has been moved beyond reach, stored in the spaces between realms where not even the Winter Court's magic can find her.
The body that bears her face is empty now, ready to receive whatever soul the fates provide. Perhaps it will remain vacant. Perhaps the gods will be merciful and grant my daughter eternal sleep.
I pray they are not so cruel as to fill that vessel with a stranger's dreams.
Xavier's vision blurred. Every word was a knife twist, revealing the true horror of their situation. They weren't just wearing borrowed bodies—they were wearing stolen ones. Seven children ripped from their lives and thrust into forms prepared by a desperate father's love.
And somewhere in the void between worlds, the real Lady Selene waited in magical stasis, displaced by her father's protection spell.