The vault wasn't meant to hum.
But it did.
Each time Sykaion opened it now, the glow pulsed deeper. Not in light—but in feeling. A kind of emotional resonance that couldn't be quantified by the System, only felt in the lungs, like the pressure before a storm.
The feathers inside whispered.
Not in words.
In memory.
Every vow etched into the metal replayed faint echoes—broken promises mended, grief released, debts forgiven not because they were paid, but because they were understood.
And in the center of the vault sat the one feather Sykaion hadn't dared touch in days.
His own.
The one born from his first vow:
> I will not survive at the expense of another's hope.
He stared at it now.
And it burned.
Gold fire without heat.
A silent inferno of unspent mercy.
Arlyss entered quietly, blade sheathed, face tight with the tension of someone who'd seen too much and feared what she hadn't yet seen.
"It's pulsing again," she said.
Sykaion nodded. "I think it's responding to the System."
Zeraphine followed her, face unreadable.
"No," she said. "It's responding to you."
The System blinked inside Sykaion's vision.
> ANOMALOUS VALUE INTEGRITY
CORE VOW: DESTABILIZING LEDGER HIERARCHY
DO YOU WISH TO WITHDRAW?
He didn't answer.
He reached toward the feather.
Zeraphine stepped forward. "If you touch it—if you reaffirm that vow—it may collapse the wealth protocol around you. You might lose access to the System entirely."
Arlyss shook her head. "Or worse. You might shift value away from currency… and make belief the only real form of power. That's bloodbait to the Syndicate."
Sykaion closed his hand around the feather.
It didn't burn him.
It recognized him.
The vault flared.
A shockwave of golden light rushed through the shop, knocking books from shelves, rattling glass, cracking the stone beneath the counter.
The System howled:
> UNAUTHORIZED CORE OVERRIDE
ARTICLE V REINFORCED
VALUE SYSTEM REDIRECTED TO MORAL PROMISSORY MODEL
SYSTEMIC INTEGRITY: 73% AND FALLING
Outside, people stopped.
Every device flickered.
Every debt record rewrote itself with a line of code no one had input:
> Debt may not outweigh mercy.
Zeraphine staggered.
"I didn't think it was possible."
Sykaion looked at them both.
"I didn't think I was supposed to survive this long."
The shop's foundation groaned.
Arlyss stepped closer. "We need to hide you."
"No," he said. "We need to anchor it. Before the System reboots."
Zeraphine nodded slowly. "Then we write the next Article before it can erase the last."
And in the vault, his feather pulsed a final line of fire into the stone:
> ARTICLE VI: No system shall define what a soul owes to another.
The walls shook.
The Syndicate moved.
And the System began rewriting its own boundaries.