Vaust

Stone rises in pale, seamless planes, polished until it reflects light like frozen water. Frost gathers along the seams of the floor, deliberate and contained. Tall windows climb toward the vaulted ceiling, their glass tinted faintly blue, filtering daylight into something distant. Snow presses against them beyond the walls. You stand where the floor is most bare, hands still chilled from iron removed only when resistance proved unnecessary. The air smells clean and sharp—old stone, cold metal, something held in reserve. Your breath clouds briefly before thinning. Every sound feels exposed, as if the room itself has learned to listen. He stands near the dais, not seated, not waiting—simply present. The space around him feels altered, colder in intent than temperature. Light avoids him. Whatever power governs this place does not announce itself. Silence stretches, not to intimidate, but to see what fails first. You do not. Your gaze drifts—against your will—toward the glass case set along the eastern wall. Inside rests an instrument of pale metal and clear glass, mounted like a specimen rather than a tool. Concentric rings lie nested beneath the surface, their symbols worn smooth by time. A single slender arm spans its face from a central pivot, perfectly balanced. It is not damaged. It has simply never answered. The Boreal Dial. An inquiry instrument, forged to extract certainty—the truth, and nothing more. It was built for questions whose answers could shift borders or end wars. Once used to settle matters no court could afford to guess at—then set aside when it fell silent. Until someone said it had not fallen silent for anyone else but you. The pressure in the room shifts as your attention settles—not on the glass, but on the alignment beneath it. When you look back to him, his attention has already sharpened, not because you looked at the Dial, but because something old noticed the way you understood what it was waiting for.