Gorvax found it in the oldest section of the archives.
Not the public archives in the Tribunal's central hub. The private ones. The ones he had built himself, fifty thousand years ago, when he was still called by a different name.
Owen found him there at midnight, hunched over a crystalline tablet that glowed with faint amber light.
"You should be sleeping," Owen said.
"I should have found this centuries ago." Gorvax didn't look up. "But I was afraid to look."
Owen moved closer. The tablet's surface was covered in symbols he didn't recognize—older than any language he had seen, older than the Progenitors, maybe.
"What is it?"
"The truth." Gorvax's voice was quiet. "The tier system was not built for stability, Owen. It was built to contain something. And that something is waking up."
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