Chapter 29

Alone on the operating table with two guards, Sancia awaits the mysterious voice. It finally contacts her, identifying itself as Valeria, an Editor—an ancient device made by the Makers to analyze and assemble commands. Valeria says she can project to Sancia because of the sigils in Sancia’s head and confirms she once resided within the Mountain.

Valeria explains the soul-transfer ritual and warns the merchants are close to rediscovering it. She outlines the Makers’ ambition to rewrite creation with a constructed intelligence, a project that led to catastrophic war and their collapse. To prevent a repetition, Valeria proposes that if Sancia acquires the key and unlocks Valeria’s casings, Valeria can edit the chamber’s materials so they cannot be used to pursue the conduit again.

Valeria also offers a better path to escape: editing Sancia herself. She reveals Sancia’s plate was crudely written to make her “as things,” turning her into a controllable object—likely why the imperiat can command her. Valeria says she can rewrite Sancia’s plate to let Sancia engage and disengage her senses and grant her limited editing ability through touch.

Shaken but desperate—and longing for control over her abilities—Sancia consents in exchange for later unlocking Valeria. Valeria warns the process will be painful because it must convince reality that Sancia’s plate was originally made differently.

Valeria begins. Sancia convulses in agony as the edit takes hold, then plunges into a vast, fragmented, alien mind. As darkness closes, Sancia realizes Valeria is far more than a mere clerk and fears she has been misled about Valeria’s true nature.