Chapter 10: The Cost of a Kept Name

The Vault received them the way a river receives a stone: grudgingly, and with a current that tried to turn them back. So Cheong descended the spiral stairs with Mok Ran at their heels, and the air grew older with each step—thicker, the way water grows thick before it freezes. The torches along the walls burned with a steady, unnatural flame, unflickering, as if the Vault had decided that even fir...