I am Anakiel, Prince of the House of Anak. This is roughly seventeen thousand years before your common era. The fog was law and the sky was only a rumor.

  One mile thick. Luminous gray. A mercy and a cage. No one alive has seen the naked heavens. No one expects to.

  We do not miss them.

  We command them.

  From the eastern balcony of the palace ziggurat I look down upon the courtyard. I feel the familiar, comforting weight of my Royal Bell at my hip. It hums faintly. A living thing. Heavy with the same power that flows through my sister's.

  The courtyard is a living hierarchy. A perfect mirror of the strata themselves. I see them all. None of them see me as anything but unextinguishable.

  At the lowest level scurry the humans. Six feet tall at most. Bent under baskets of grain, jars of oil, bundles of reeds. Their eyes are downcast. Their chants thin and fearful. They exist to carry and kneel.

  Above them move the Gimorrin. Eight to ten feet of hybrid blood. Slaves haul heavier loads while upper-class citizens wear finer robes. Minor resonance trinkets glint at their throats. Their weak telepathy flickers like dying embers. Enough to feel the crowd's terror. Not enough to resist it.

  Then come the lesser Nephilim. Ten to twelve feet tall. Armored enforcers with spears and shields. Their own smaller Bells chime in faint sympathy with the Grand Bell. They keep order. Their eyes flick nervously toward the Greater Royals.

  Among them stands Caelthar, my subordinate. A terrifying presence in rune-plate armor. His massive frame is a living weapon beholden to the House of Anak. He nods once as my gaze passes. Respect. Rivalry.

  Higher still are the Greater Royals. Twelve to sixteen feet of divine arrogance. Lounging on litters or standing like living statues. Their Royal Bells glow brighter. Their presence alone silences voices for yards around them.

  Dragons coil among them. Transformed humans. Horse to house-sized. Reptilian and winged. Used as mounts or guards. Their eyes still hold fragments of mortal intelligence. Some are loyal. Some are resentful. All are leashed.

  Seeloks prowl the edges. Horse-sized. Reptilian-skinned lions with long lizard tails and Anubis-inspired jackal heads. Golden collars glint. Resonance crystals hum. Elite guards and trackers. They growl low at the sphinxes nearby. Lion bodies with wings and human heads. Guardians of riddles and sacred sites. The truce is tense. Only the ceremony keeps them from tearing each other apart.

  Minotaurs stand as ceremonial challengers. Bull-headed humanoids. Massive and territorial. Horns gleaming. Ready for any who dare disrupt the rite.

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  Satyrs revel in the margins. Half-human, half-goat. Horns and tails. Drunk on fermented nectar or resonance wine. Providing music that is both joyous and mocking.

  Apkallu serve as scribes and oracles. Eagle-headed, fish-headed, or human-looking with wings. Hovering above the crowd. Taking notes on tablets of crystal.

  And then the shadow falls.

  A 450-foot behemoth towers over the entire town. Her colossal form cuts out the already dim light from the diffused sun. The courtyard darkens as though night has fallen early. She is ancient. Barely humanoid. Limbs like pillars. Skin like weathered marble veined with gold. Eyes like distant storms. She does not move. She simply is. Even Caelthar lowers his head slightly. The fog parts around her like a bow wave.

  The entire crowd feels her presence and falls silent.

  Then the priestly Nephilim ascends the spire that holds the Grand Bell. Hooded. Scholarly. Voice thin and precise.

  The ritual begins.

  Humans prostrate first. Then Gimorrin. Then lesser Nephilim kneel. Then Greater Royals bow their heads. Even the colossal behemoth lowers her gaze in deference.

  I stand at the forefront. A required presence. Not a participant. My Royal Bell pulses against my hip.

  The ceremony is the same every year. Chants. Bows. Incense. The same dull toll. I stand here because the Law demands it. I endure because I must. But endurance is not obedience. It is patience.

  And patience has limits.

  The priest raises his Royal Bell and taps it against the Grand Bell.

  One toll.

  The sound is subsonic. Bone-deep. Shaking stone and flesh. A visible hemispherical shockwave blasts outward. The fog thickens in golden waves. Rolling from the spire like liquid. Smothering the sky once more.

  The crowd remains prostrate. Breath held in perfect, synchronized submission.

  I feel my own Bell chime in sympathy. The compulsion forces a silent rhyme in my mind:

  The veil endures, the sky is blind,

  The Law is spoken, the world confined.

  My thoughts, at least, remain my own.

  Every toll is a reminder. We are gods. We are jailers. We are prisoners. And Anakia. Anakia is the lock.

  The final note fades. The fog is thicker than before.

  The ceremony ends.

  I turn and walk away. The crowd parts before me like water.

  As I pass, one human in the throng hesitates. Just for a heartbeat. Before bowing.

  I mark his face.

  One day that hesitation will become a spark.

  And when it does, my sister will ring the Bell that ends it.

  Or I will.

  She is the only one I love.

  She is the only one I fear.

  And the fog will never lift until one of us is gone.