Cyrus sagged back into his chair, a vital spark extinguished in his eyes. His gaze, hollow and unfocused, was lost on the grimy library ceiling.
"Once, like all of you, I was ripped from Terra."
No. 7 sat up straighter, resolving to be an attentive audience. He knew Cyrus was a man of few, poorly chosen words; this might be his one and only recounting of a buried past.
"Fifteen," Cyrus murmured, his hand sketching a height in the air, as if measuring a ghostly younger self. "Just hauling in the nets with my father, about to head home. One blink, and then… here. I was like you then, utterly clueless. Even thought it was some divine calling, that a grand destiny awaited me."
A thousand questions swirled in No. 7's mind: *Where was Terra? Why them?* But Cyrus, caught in the torrent of his own narrative, plunged onward. These were words that had festered in his heart for too long, finally uncorked by the raw spirit.
"I was the prize of my cohort. Took me only five years before they shipped me off to the capital for 'advanced tutelage'."
He drifted into memory, a disturbingly boyish grin illuminating his ravaged face, his fingers drumming an unheard rhythm.
"The cathedrals in the capital… they scraped the very clouds. Inside, a statue of the First Pope, all gleaming bronze, its guts a tangle of gears and steaming pipes. It *moved*, that thing. Recited the sacred doctrines in Resonance, six o'clock sharp every morning, a voice loud enough to rattle the dead from their graves."
No. 7 watched him, a sliver of doubt creeping in. Was this truth, or merely the fantastical ramblings of a drunk?
"I imagined it the pinnacle of honor," Cyrus continued, his voice roughening. "But when I arrived… I found only…" His fingers clawed at the air, a desperate search for the right word. "Filth. Utter filth."
"At their high-council banquets, they'd swill wine from jeweled goblets while coolly decreeing which mining district needed its slave quota upped, which village was next for the faith tax. And I? The 'prodigy' from the labs, the 'scion of the Golden Age'? I wasn't even fit to share their table. Just a gilded idiot, propped against the wall for decoration."
His voice dwindled, sinking into a bitter, self-loathing whisper. "Finally, I couldn't stomach it. Applied for a transfer, back here, to teach. At least here…" His gaze swept the dust-laden, forgotten shelves. "At least here, I could delude myself into thinking I was helping someone, not… not oiling their corrupt machine. And wouldn't you know it? Barely a few years in, and they send over that raving luna— Ahem."
He cleared his throat with a dry, rasping cough.
"They transferred in a Cardinal of Sin. Scion of some 'noble' Ecclesiastical dynasty." He spat the words "Ecclesiastical dynasty" with a venomous, mocking civility, as if describing a troupe of particularly inept circus clowns.
No. 7 listened in stark silence. Now he understood Cyrus's reclusive nature—it wasn't just his abysmal social skills; it was the crushing weight of all he'd witnessed.
Cyrus fumbled in his trouser pocket, producing a battered metal hip flask. He twisted off the cap, and the rank, aggressive stench of cheap alcohol assaulted No. 7's nostrils.
"Drink." He shoved the flask towards No. 7, his tone leaving no room for argument.
No. 7's brow furrowed, but under Cyrus's unwavering, expectant stare, he took the flask and tipped it back. The instant the liquid hit his throat, regret seared through him. This wasn't merely wine; this was undiluted spirit, a river of fire that scorched its way from tongue to stomach, leaving him gasping and retching.
Cyrus erupted in a harsh, triumphant cackle, laced with a perverse satisfaction. "First taste, eh? Never pilfered a drop before? Good stuff, this."
No. 7 slammed the flask back onto the table, trying to sluice the burn away with his own saliva. He opened his mouth to speak, but Cyrus's amusement vanished as swiftly as it had appeared. He leaned in, his bloodshot eyes, burning with a feverish intensity, locking onto No. 7's.
"Two guards were injured in the woods yesterday. Your handiwork?"
Every muscle in No. 7's body coiled tight, but his face remained a mask of calm. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"The exam papers on my cabinet. Taken out, perused. Not your doing either, I suppose?"
No. 7 offered no reply.
Cyrus stared him down for several long seconds, then, with a sudden, sharp sneer, he slumped back. "Fine. Doesn't matter." He waved a dismissive hand, as if batting away an irritating insect, yet his eyes had sharpened, a degree of clarity returning. "Listen to me, No. 7…" A profound weariness settled over him, as if the preceding torrent of words had leached every last ounce of his strength. "Let No. 3 go. Drop it."
No. 7's fingers dug unconsciously into the table's scarred edge, waiting.
A rare, raw note of pleading entered Cyrus's voice. "You're different. You're sharp—sharper than I ever was. You know how to talk to people, how to play their games, how to work the angles within their damn rules… You have a shot at the capital. A real chance to actually *change* things."
"No. 3 is my comrade," No. 7 stated, each word a carefully placed stone.
Cyrus's face twisted into a grotesque mask. He surged to his feet, the chair screeching in protest against the stone floor. His hands crashed down on the table, the impact making the ancient books leap. "What in God's name does No. 3's fate matter to you! You're the one with the potential to shake the foundations of this rotten world! All these years…" His voice cracked, caught on a knot of unshed tears. "All these years, I've poured everything into you, even kept your damned failing eyesight a secret… all so you wouldn't just fester and die here like the rest of the refuse!"
No. 7 rose too, a head shorter than Cyrus, yet the inferno blazing in his eyes made the older, drunken man instinctively recoil. "If I turn my back on my comrade now," No. 7's voice was a low, deadly growl, "what courage will I possess when I reach your precious capital? What conviction would I have to fight *anything*? Would I just become another you—a cold-eyed observer at their lavish, blood-soaked feasts?"
The words struck Cyrus like a physical blow. His lips trembled, the ruddy flush of alcohol draining from his face, leaving behind a ghastly, mottled pallor.
The air between them crackled, thick and unbreathable. From the distance, the mournful tolling of bells, each chime a leaden weight upon the suffocating silence.
Finally, Cyrus stumbled back, a broken man. He turned towards the doorway, his steps an unsteady lurch, nearly careening into the towering bookshelves multiple times, yet he held his spine rigidly, stubbornly erect. At the threshold, he paused, his back still to No. 7.
"You will regret this," he whispered, the words little more than a sigh lost in the gloom.
He vanished into the corridor's encroaching shadows, leaving behind a half-ajar door and a room reeking of despair and cheap spirit.
No. 7 stood frozen, listening as the footsteps receded into nothingness. The flask on the table remained open, the liquid within mirroring the fading window light, a tiny, stagnant, sullied pool. He reached out, his hand steady, and screwed the cap back on.
Outside, twilight had bled into true night. The distant clock tower was now a beacon of cold light. No. 7 knew, with chilling certainty, that their time was running out. Whatever warnings Cyrus had issued, whatever horrors awaited them, they had to move. And they had to move now.