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“The Evaluation Chamber,” Blackridge replies, moving to a cabinet and extracting some barbaric-looking surgical tools, but crafted from materials I’ve never seen, not quite metal, not quite stone.

“Established when SilverGate was first built, and modified over the years, for the precise purpose of documenting and cataloguing exceptional abilities.”

“You mean dissecting them,” I correct, taking an involuntary step back.

“Nothing so crude.” He arranges the tools on a small table beside the obsidian slab. “Please remove your outer clothing and lie face down on the table.”

“Like hell I will.”

Blackridge sighs, looking almost disappointed. “Miss Morvoren, we can proceed with your cooperation, or without it. The evaluation will happen either way.”

I consider my options. If I unleash it here, underground, I could bring the entire academy down on our heads. I’m not entirely sure that would be better than… this .

“What exactly are you going to do to me?” I ask, buying time as I assess the room for weaknesses, escape routes.

“I’m going to map your power,” Blackridge explains, lifting a slender rod of silvery metal, tipped with a needle-sharp point. “Through a process called runic telemetry. It will allow me to catalogue the specific signatures of your abilities, to understand precisely what you’ve become.”

“And you need to stab me with that to do it?”

“The barbs must be inserted along your spine, at the seven major chakra points. Your power, everyone’s power, flows through these channels, and this is the only way to accurately measure it.”

I glance toward the doorway we entered through, weighing my chances.

“The doors are warded,” Blackridge says mildly, following my gaze. “And the entire chamber is designed to contain power far greater than yours. Even at your full potential.”

“You’re awfully confident about that.”

His smile is thin. “SilverGate has had its fair share of powerful creatures, Miss Morvoren. Now, shall we proceed with dignity?”

Something in his tone tells me fighting would be futile. Not yet. Not until I understand more. Reluctantly, I unbutton my shirt a bit to loosen it, but I don’t take it off.

“Lie face down,” Blackridge commands, his voice now taking on a clinical detachment that somehow makes this worse.

The obsidian table is cold against my skin as I position myself, shirt lifted to expose my back, turning my head to keep Blackridge in sight. The symbols etched into the surface glow brighter at my touch, responding to my blood, my power.

“Restraints will now activate,” Blackridge announces, touching a series of symbols along the table’s edge.

Before I can protest, bands of light materialise around my wrists, ankles, and waist, pinning me to the table with unbreakable force. I struggle instinctively, but the bonds only tighten in response.

“These are calibrated to your specific energy signature,” Blackridge explains, moving to stand at my head. “The more power you channel, the stronger they become. I suggest you remain calm.”

I force myself to stop struggling. Conserve energy. Wait for an opportunity.

“The process requires seven barbs, inserted at precise points along your spine,” he continues. “Each will penetrate to a different depth, connecting with the corresponding energy channel. The pain will be... significant.”

“Just get it over with,” I growl, bracing myself.

I hear him move to the foot of the table, feel his cold fingers at the base of my spine, just above my tailbone. Something sharp presses against my skin.

“The first barb maps your root chakra,” Blackridge says. “The foundation of your power.”

Without further warning, he drives the needle into my spine.

The pain is beyond anything I could have imagined. It’s not just physical but metaphysical. It feels like he’s driving the barb into my essence.

I bite down on my lip hard enough to draw blood, determined not to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream. The metallic taste floods my mouth as the barb sinks deeper.

“Interesting,” Blackridge murmurs, watching instruments I can’t see from my position. “Your root chakra shows signs of ancient bloodline magic, dormant until recently. The Sanguinarch heritage awakened during the violence spell.”

He withdraws that barb slightly, though it remains embedded in my spine, and moves higher. I feel his fingers trace up to the small of my back.

“The second barb maps your sacral chakra,” he announces. “The seat of creation and destruction.”

This time, I can’t hold back the scream as he drives the second barb in. It’s worse than the first, a white-hot agony that races up and down my spine, radiating outward through my hips and legs. My vision blurs, the edges darkening.

“Extraordinary,” Blackridge breathes, sounding genuinely amazed. “The creative potential here exceeds anything I’ve recorded. No wonder you were able to temporarily restore William’s corporeal form.”

I can barely process his words through the haze of pain. Each breath sends fresh waves of agony through my body as the barbs shift minutely with my movements.

“The third barb,” Blackridge continues, moving higher still, to the middle of my back, “maps your solar plexus chakra. The wellspring of your will.”

By the time the third barb pierces my spine, I’m beyond screaming. The sound that escapes me is primal, animalistic, a howl of pure torment. The restraints tighten as power instinctively surges, seeking release, seeking to defend me from this violation.

“Control yourself,” Blackridge admonishes sharply. “If you disrupt the readings with random power fluctuations, we’ll have to start again.”

The thought of enduring this a second time is enough to make me clamp down on the power raging through me. I focus instead on breathing, on staying conscious through the agony.

“Your willpower is remarkable,” Blackridge notes, adjusting something on the third barb that sends fresh spasms through my body. “Most subjects lose consciousness by this point.”

He moves to my mid-back, fingers tracing along my spine to find the precise spot for the fourth barb. “This one maps your heart chakra. The centre of your emotional power.”

When the fourth barb enters, something changes. The pain is still there, excruciating and all-encompassing, but beneath it runs a current of something else. A connection. I can feel the power in the room, in the foundations of SilverGate, responding to my agony.

“Your heart chakra is directly linked to the SilverGate nexus.”

That connection grows stronger as he drives the barb deeper, a resonance building between my suffering and the ancient power that permeates this place. For a moment, I sense other presences, distant echoes of pain similar to my own, stretching back through centuries.

He moves higher, to the base of my neck. “The fifth barb maps your throat chakra. The voice of your power.”

This time, when the barb enters, I feel it scrape against bone, a sensation so viscerally wrong that bile rises in my throat. My scream chokes off into a gurgling sound as my entire body convulses against the restraints.

“Careful,” Blackridge warns, though whether he’s speaking to me or himself is unclear. “This connection is particularly delicate. It links directly to your ability to command others through blood resonance.”

Through tears of pain, I see the symbols on the obsidian table growing brighter with each barb Blackridge inserts. The silver light beneath my skin responds in kind, flaring at the entry points of the barbs.

“The sixth barb,” he announces, moving to the back of my head, at the base of my skull, “maps your third eye chakra. The seat of your perception.”

When this barb enters, my consciousness fractures.

For one terrible moment, I see through a thousand eyes, across a thousand years.

SilverGate, as it was being built, the blood sacrifices were laid into its foundations.

SilverGate as it is now, students moving through corridors oblivious to what happens beneath their feet.

SilverGate, as it might be, transformed by power beyond reckoning.

“Your perceptive abilities are off the charts,” Blackridge notes, making adjustments to the barb that send fresh waves of agony cascading through my splintered awareness. “You’ll be able to see across realms, across time itself, once you learn to control it.”

I can barely comprehend his words through the kaleidoscope of visions assaulting me. Past, present, and possible futures blur together, making it impossible to anchor myself in any one reality.

“The final barb,” Blackridge says, his voice seeming to come from very far away, “maps your crown chakra. The pinnacle of your power, your connection to the universal consciousness.”

As he positions the seventh barb at the crown of my head.

The pain transcends physical sensation. It’s existential, cosmic.

My consciousness explodes outward, no longer confined to my body or even to this dimension.

For one eternal moment, I perceive the universe in its totality—every realm, every possibility, every thread of power that binds reality together.

My scream echoes through the fabric of reality. The symbols on the obsidian table flare blinding silver, then fracture as power rises from me in an uncontrollable wave.

The restraints shatter. The instruments around us explode in showers of sparks and twisted metal. Even Blackridge is thrown backwards, colliding with a cabinet of specimens that crashes down around him.

I lie there, seven barbs still embedded in my spine, unable to move as power courses through me, raw and unfettered. Blood trickles from my nose, my ears, and my eyes—not red but silver, glowing with the same light that now pulses visibly beneath my skin.

Through blurred vision, I see Blackridge picking himself up from the wreckage, his expression a disturbing mixture of fear and exultation.

“Magnificent,” he breathes, staggering toward me. “Even I underestimated your potential.”

He reaches for the first barb at the base of my spine. “Now we begin the extraction process. Each barb has recorded your power signature and must be removed in the precise order of insertion. They will leave behind tiny runic implants that will continue to monitor you.”

I want to fight, to lash out, but my body refuses to obey. The overload of power has left me paralysed, my muscles spasming uncontrollably as silver light leaks from my eyes, ears, and nose.

He pulls, and it feels like he’s ripping out my soul along with the barb. A fresh scream tears from my throat.

One by one, he removes the remaining barbs, each extraction bringing fresh agony. By the time he pulls the final barb from the crown of my head, I’m barely conscious, floating in a haze of pain and power that blurs the boundary between suffering and transcendence.

He places a hand on my forehead, and blessed darkness finally claims me. It swallows me whole, but even in oblivion, I can feel the changes racing through my body, my mind, and my soul, rewriting me from the inside out.