Chương 273: Ch263- Acclaim

The Flamels veered straight for Cassian, Perenelle already eyeing him like she was bracing for trouble, and Nicolas looking more awake than Cassian had seen him in months. Cassian lifted a hand.

"Finally here." Perenelle pulled him into a quick, tight hug.

"We had to argue with three departments and a spirit ward to get here."

"Sounds like a fun journey." Nicolas clapped him on the shoulder.

"You alright?" Cassian snickered.

"Had a lovely flight." Bathsheda gave him a look. Nicolas didn't ask. Then his tone shifted.

"You said this links to Greece?" Cassian nodded.

"Don't reactivate your memories yet. If we go forward," He said, "you'll need to go blind and trust me." Nicolas and Perenelle frowned. They weren't suspicious of Cassian, he'd earned more than enough trust for that. But the others wouldn't see it the same way. The local Keepers didn't know him. They hadn't seen him in action like the rest of them did. They hadn't stood in the dark while the walls moved and the maps turned to lies. Coriolanus gave a short nod.

"They won't take our word for it. Not without proof." Cassian scratched the side of his jaw, muttering, "Well, that's a problem."

"They're not unreasonable," Perenelle said.

"Just... proud."

"And territorial," Coriolanus added.

"They'll want to speak for the land. Not let an outsider do it."

"They can be convinced to shut the site," Sabine said.

"But they'll want to do it their way. Under their seal. Not because some Brit with an attitude problem said so." Cassian stared out across the temple.

"I don't really care," he said.

"Let them make the call. I just want it made." Perenelle glanced at him.

"You sure?" He nodded.

"Don't care who plants the flag. I care that no one dies trying to poke it." The stone groaned behind them. A few metres away, one of the local Keepers stepped back from the base, eyes narrowed, fingers brushing faint scorch marks that hadn't been there an hour ago. Nicolas sighed.

"Alright. Let's do the introductions. Then you can explain as much as you can." Cassian gave a nod and stepped back as the Flamels moved ahead. The oldest of the Keepers, the woman with the jaguar shadow, nodded and spoke in Mayan. Nicolas replied without pause. Eventually, they all agreed on English. They moved to a nearby tent, pitched between the tree line and the dig site. The local Keepers followed with frowns and twitching hands suggesting they weren't above hexing them if things smelled off.

"Before we get to the core of the problem," Nicolas started.

"You all need to understand why we trust these two." He turned slightly, nodding to Cassian and Bathsheda. Their names had already been whispered around for years now, so some already recognized them.

"Cassian Rosier," Nicolas went on.

"If you've heard of him, it's probably been through our reports. The British records paint him as trouble. They're not wrong. But what they don't tell you is this, when a cursed monastery in China turned out to be a sealed imperial tomb, he was the one who discovered and saved countless lives. He walked in, took one breath, and told them the scent was wrong. The tomb wasn't under the monastery. The monastery was built over it to cover it." A few of the Keepers shifted. Nicolas kept going.

"Half the warding team would've walked straight into a collapse zone if he hadn't noticed the displacement lines carved through. He called it, adjusted the mapping and got every one of them out." There was a rustle as a few of the local Keepers glanced toward the two of them now.

"Then came Greece," Nicolas said.

"Ancient temple site. He flagged it the moment they stepped on the stone. Locals dismissed him." He delivered the line with a raised brow, the unspoken meaning clear.

"And they were wrong." Of course the local Keepers understood what Nicolas meant. A few eyes narrowing now.

"The leading team broke through the wards anyway. It opened something that should never have been woken. Barely got out." Nicolas's voice shifted.

"And then there was Australia," he said.

"That one didn't make the reports but some of you must have heard the troubles me and my wife went through to create footpaths all around the world." That earned more attention. A few nodded, aware of their latest activities.

"Something got out. Things that eat spellwork. Runes. Wards. Even memories." Murmurs flicked across the circle. Nicolas glanced toward Cassian.

"Then Cassian unearthed the original wardnet. We've used it to trap them again. Everything after that was clean-up. Only reason it's sealed is because he found the bones underneath."

"If they hadn't intervened," Nicolas said, "we'd have lost more than a dig site." Nicolas nodded toward Bathsheda now.

"She's the one who led the teams in China," he said.

"When they hit a cluster of Time and Space runes even the senior scholars couldn't untangle, she stepped in. Opened the path. Got everyone through without a single casualty. Then left before the tomb was even breached, came back to teach, because she wasn't after glory or riches." A few of the Keepers looked her way.

"In Australia, same story," Nicolas went on.

"Without her help, we couldn't have done it." He turned slightly, facing the circle now.

"She's a master in multiple runic languages. In Greece, her work sealed the site. Not the Keepers. Not me or my wife. Her." Bathsheda didn't speak. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. He folded his arms again.

"That's why they're here." Perenelle spoke next.

"We're not asking you to hand over the dig. This isn't about pride. But those two have seen more Arcane-level awakenings in the last five years than most Keepers see in a lifetime." Someone scoffed. A relatively younger Keeper. Mid-fifties, braided hair, coat pinned with local emblems.

"And their fears are the absolute truth now?" she said.

"Because they survived things?" Goshawk stepped in without hesitation.

"No," she said, "you're supposed to take ours. And if that's not enough, you can read the sealed archives we sent two weeks ago. Or the names of the people who didn't make it out." She fell silent, a few others murmured. A woman who'd been quiet the whole time, older, long grey-black hair tied in a thick rope down her back, nodded.

"Flamels trust them. That means something." A few muttered. One or two others still looked unconvinced, arms folded like they didn't care how many curses Cassian had dodged. Nicolas turned to Cassian.

"Tell them what happened in Greece," he said.

"The part we all choose to forget." Cassian stepped forward. He stopped at the edge of the ring. He glanced round the tent. They were waiting for him to justify a warning he barely understood himself. That always went well.

"Let me just say this up front," he said, "I don't give a toss about treasure. I'm not here for what's buried under the rock. If there's gold down there, lovely. Let someone else buy a palace with it. Not my concern." He took a slow step forward.

"Every time I say stop, someone thinks it's about greed. They reckon I'm trying to cut ahead, stake a claim, steal credit. Let's get that out of the way too... I don't want anything. I'm already rich. I'm already young. I don't need more." Bathsheda made a sound behind him. Fleur tried not to laugh. Selena didn't even bother. He ignored the lot of them.

"Next thing. No, I'm not going to tell you what happened in Greece. I can't. Whatever was there cannot be named or remembered. That's why even the Flamels had to strip their own memories of it." Some of the Keepers shifted. Beings that gained power by being named or remembered weren't easy to deal with. They all knew. He glanced sideways at Nicolas, then back to the group.

"As for why I remember, that's my problem, not yours. My mind's isolated from cause and effect. It can't be altered. No, you can't test it, and I'm not interested in proving it to anyone. Me remembering doesn't give anything power. It just means I know when something feels wrong." The jaguar-shadow Keeper shifted, eyes sharp now. Cassian gestured loosely toward the pyramid.

"The reason I called for a halt and dragged half the Old Masters across the ocean is simple. I felt the same pattern here. I don't know if it's related to Greece. I don't know if it's the same thing wearing a different skin." He paused, letting that sit.

"But if what's under Itza is even a quarter as dangerous as what we ran into back then, we're finished. And I mean the whole world." The tent had gone very still.

"You can do whatever you want with that information," Cassian said.

"Ignore me. Argue about jurisdiction. Slap your seals all over it and call it contained. I don't want the lead, and I don't want the credit." He met their eyes, one by one.

"I only care that this place gets sealed properly." Then he stepped back, hands sliding into his coat pockets, as if he'd finished a lecture and was waiting to see who'd stayed awake. Bathsheda drifted over, stopped beside him.

"Did you have to be that direct?"

"I'm tired," he said.

"Of repeating myself. Of being looked at like I'm here to rob the walls and sell them to a French museum." They both stood there, watching the scene.

"Every time, it's the same thing. Someone thinks we're too young, too foreign, too something. By the time they listen, it's usually because something's already exploded."

"Or screamed," she said.

"Or bled." The voices were still rising in the background. One of the local men jabbed a finger at Coriolanus. Coriolanus looked utterly bored. Bathsheda sighed.

"We're not even arguing the artefact. We're arguing the right to argue."

"That's academia," Cassian muttered.

"Only louder." She folded her arms, elbow brushing his.

"We'll get there. They're warming up."

"They can warm up somewhere else. I've got better things to do than stand here while they measure wand sizes." Someone shouted about jurisdiction. Another voice answered in a dialect Cassian didn't catch. The Keeper with the jaguar spirit raised her hand.

"I'll take Mr Rosier's word for it," she said.

"I've felt it for years now. Never knew what it was. But the closer I came to this site today, the worse it got. It turned cold. In here." She tapped her chest.

"Like the land was bracing. My people were the first to bury this place. And the first to stop speaking of it." Across the tent, a younger Keeper, tall, sharp features, badge-heavy robes, stepped forward with a frown.

"That doesn't make sense, Elder Xul'al. You said nothing at the last two gatherings. You never mentioned a threat." Xul'al looked at her, calm.

"Because I didn't know what it was. I only felt it move. Like something breathing behind a wall." Another local Keeper cut in.

"And now that he speaks, it goes quiet?" He pointed at Cassian.

"That's what you're saying?"

"Yes."

"That's impossible."

"No. It's not." They stared at her. Like they wanted her to take it back. She didn't. A man near the back, older, darker robes, eyes narrowed, shifted uneasily.

"You're telling me the threat sensed him and retreated?"

"I'm saying it felt it too," Xul'al replied. Another woman cleared her throat.

"But why would it?" Xul'al tilted her head slightly.

"Because it's done this before." Goshawk leaned forward slightly, catching it.

"You think it remembers the sense of impending danger Cassian'll cause?"

"I don't know," she said.

"But when he spoke, I could breathe again." A few of the locals exchanged glances. Two looked ready to argue, but something about her tone pinned them down.

"You'd risk the seal on a feeling?"

"I've lived long enough to know when instinct's worth more than committee votes." Another shifted closer.

"This might be a calling too," she said.

"What if we're meant to open it?" A younger man to her right sighed through his nose.

"That's assuming it's sealed for no reason. Could be hiding knowledge. Power. If we turn away now, we might never know what's inside."

"Sometimes things are buried because they're dangerous," Bagshot said. He didn't blink.

"And sometimes they're buried because someone wanted them forgotten. That doesn't make it right."

"I'd rather not base my work on guesswork," Goshawk said.

"Not when the guess might end in a crater." One of the quieter women near the back finally spoke.

"It hasn't hurt anyone."

"Yet," another Keeper muttered. The man with the rings from earlier gave a dry laugh.

"We don't need lectures. We've been handling this site for years."

"Without understanding it," Perenelle said. He ignored her.

"We've held this ground since before your people discovered these lands. Our ancestors kept it quiet."

"And your ancestors didn't open it either," Nicolas said.

"There's a reason it's still closed."

"That reason might not apply anymore." Cassian tilted his head.

"Then dig it up on your own time. Just don't ask for help when it starts speaking backwards." The ringed man glared.

"You've seen one seal you couldn't handle and now you think everything's cursed."

"No," Cassian said.

"I've seen one seal break. And I remember what it cost. That's why I'm here." Goshawk stepped forward.

"You want to keep studying the site, fine. But no one's breaking into it without knowing what's behind the wall." Xul'al nodded.

"If you force it open, the land will suffer." The younger woman who'd spoken first folded her arms tighter.

"And if we leave it sealed forever?"

"Then it stays buried," Xul'al said.

"Better a hundred years of curiosity than an eternity of regret." Nobody spoke for a while. Outside, the wind picked up. It slipped through the trees, brushed across the canvas, tugged faintly at the edges. Cassian looked at Bathsheda, then at Bagshot.

"We're wasting time," he said.

"You want to research it? Fine. But lock it down. Ward it. Seal it so tight even the bloody mosquitoes bounce off." Bagshot nodded. The Keepers began to shift again, murmuring between themselves. Some stepped back. Some didn't. But the pyramid stayed quiet. For now.