Chapter 122: The Chimes Begin

Rhovan looked down after the third stitch. "That one is tighter than the others."

Marek checked it, loosened the thread slightly, then continued. "Better?"

"Marginally."

Marek moved on to the next stitch.

Once the sixth was in place, Marek tied it off and checked the wound again. Six would hold for now, although Rhovan still needed proper treatment once they reached somewhere with more equipment than a battered medical case in the middle of a damaged road.

Rhovan studied Marek for a moment. "Degree V."

"I noticed."

"You reached Mastery before most teachers would have finished explaining Degree I."

Marek began putting the medical instruments back into the case. "Would’ve been more useful a week ago."

Rhovan drew breath as if to say something else, but Marek shut the case harder than he intended.

Whatever had been coming never left Rhovan’s mouth.

Mara was safe with Venielle for now, but Amara had vanished after Marek finally reached her, and his father remained an eleven-year-old absence whose first real trail led toward House Libra.

Degree V had changed none of that.

Marek slipped one hand beneath his shirt and pressed his palm over the still-warm Mark. "I keep getting there after it matters."

Rhovan’s expression changed.

Marek looked down at his other hand.

"Mara left. Mom disappeared again. Dad’s been gone for eleven years." His fingers curled against the edge of the case. "Every time I finally understand what I should’ve done, there’s nobody left in front of me to do it for."

Rhovan’s eyes dropped briefly to the hand Marek still had beneath his shirt, then returned to his face. He seemed about to speak, but whatever he had intended to say stayed there.

For a while, he said nothing.

"..."

Then, quietly, "You were late for some of them."

Marek’s jaw tightened.

Rhovan continued before he could answer. "But not everyone is gone."

Marek had barely opened his mouth when Kellan shifted beside them. Red light was spreading across his hand. Kellan lifted it slowly. The Aries Mark had begun to glow.

Before anyone could ask why, the same reaction spread through the shelter. Astral Marks appeared beneath sleeves and across exposed skin as conversations stopped and people began looking around for whatever had caused them to respond.

Silas was already outside by the time Marek reached the shelter entrance. Rafe followed him into the road, then stopped so suddenly that Marek nearly walked into him.

Rafe was staring upward.

Marek followed his gaze.

High above Linden City, the sky was changing.

The first road opened beyond the northern rooftops.

It was nothing like the streets beneath it. An enormous ivory-white path stretched through the dark, broad enough that Marek could follow both edges even from the ground. Pale light drifted from its sides like mist, while the center remained smooth and almost solid, as though someone had laid a road across an empty space.

A crest slowly appeared upon it.

Marek could not make out the smaller details from where he stood, only the shape of an elaborate crest spread across the road’s width, dark gold against the white. It remained there for several seconds before fading back into the light farther along the path.

At first, he thought someone had opened another route over Linden.

Then, the road continued upward.

It did not bend toward another building or disappear into a mirror, shadow, or doorway. It climbed past the city and kept going, maintaining the same impossible width even after distance should have reduced it to a thread. Eventually, Marek could no longer tell where the road ended. It simply continued into the darkness beyond Earth.

Another opened to the east.

This one carried a different crest.

A third spread across the western sky before Marek had finished looking at the second. Its ivory surface brightened, and another unfamiliar mark appeared across it.

Then the others began opening.

One after another, enormous white roads took shape around Earth from different directions. Some carried a faint tint beneath the ivory light, barely noticeable until Marek compared one against another, but every road bore its own crest. He caught flashes of gold, silver, deep blue, red, and darker metallic shades before the distance swallowed the details.

None of the marks repeated.

By the sixth road, people were already coming out of the shelter. By the ninth, civilians farther down the street had begun appearing in doorways and between damaged buildings. Marek heard someone ask what was happening, but nobody nearby answered.

The roads kept coming. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

A tenth opened.

Then... an eleventh.

The twelfth opened almost directly above the far end of Linden City.

For several seconds, its surface remained blank. Then the last crest spread across the ivory light.

Twelve roads now crossed the darkness above Earth.

Somehow, all twelve could be seen from every direction. Distance and angle should have hidden some of them, yet each road remained overhead, curving through space without ever seeming to turn. For the first time, Marek understood that they were not simply crossing the sky.

They were crossing space itself.

Then, the chimes began.

Clear notes rang from somewhere high above Linden, one after another, too distant to belong to any bell in the city yet loud enough to carry across the rooftops. They overlapped slowly until the whole sky seemed to be sounding a welcome.

The city looked very small beneath them.

Marek heard movement behind him and glanced back.

Rhovan had come out of the shelter with one hand near the fresh stitches at his side. He took two more steps before finally seeing the sky.

Then, he stopped.

His hand dropped away from the wound.

Marek had seen Rhovan bleeding in front of Sareth and still find something to joke about. Even after being thrown through concrete, he had come back complaining about his hair. Seeing him this quiet now unsettled Marek more than either of those things.

His eyes moved from one road to another, counting.

Marek watched his face when he reached twelve.

Rhovan counted them again.

"Rhovan."

He did not answer immediately.

Above them, one of the distant crests appeared again across its road, so enormous that for a moment the mark seemed to hang over half the city before sliding farther along the ivory path and disappearing into the distance.

Marek looked back at Rhovan. "What are they?"

"House roads. A House usually opens one after it has studied a Newborn World long enough to establish a stable approach."

Rhovan kept staring upward.

"Not twelve at once."

Rhovan’s voice had changed enough that Kellan stopped looking at the sky and looked at him instead.

Marek followed his gaze.

Rhovan finally looked at him.

"One House opening a road to a Newborn World would already be enough to make half the Prime Continuum pay attention." His eyes returned to the twelve paths suspended above Linden. "Two Houses doing it at the same time would mean they had something to argue over."

His jaw tightened slightly. "Twelve do not open their roads together by accident."

The last of the House crests passed across the sky.

Rhovan watched it disappear into the distance. "The Twelve Houses have come for Earth."