Golden Shackle

The city of Orys had no night. That was the first thing outsiders noticed when they stepped through the Sun Gate, and it was the last thing that drove them mad.

In Orys, the Golden Sun—a colossal sphere of burning thaumic alloy suspended atop the Tower of Heaven—always shone at the zenith. It never set; it never blinked. Its light did not bring life; it brought preservation. Under that sickly, stifling golden glare, time seemed to congeal. Flesh did not rot, iron did not rust, and sins were never hidden by darkness.

Dorian closed his eyes, counting down in his head to stave off the migraine threatening to split his skull. Three... Two... One.

The bell signaling the labor cycle tolled—a deep, dull sound that vibrated the very marrow of the bone, emanating from the underground. For the nobility in the Upper Tier, this bell was a signal to change wine vintages. For Dorian and those living in the Lower Tier—the slums nestled in the city’s only shadow—it meant “Absorption Hour.”

Dorian was a “Sin-Eater,” or in the flowery language of the Golden Church: a “Vessel.”

The rusted metal door of his cell opened with an ear-splitting screech. Two guards of the Legion of Light entered. Their armor was plated in shining gold, etched with complex warding sigils, but beneath the gilding, Dorian could smell the sour stench of sweat and contempt.

“Get up, Number 734,” the lead guard ordered, his voice distorted through a gas mask stylized like a lion’s head. “Lord Valerius is waiting.”

Dorian slowly rose from his straw mattress. He was shirtless, revealing a torso crisscrossed with strange scars. They were not scars from knives or fire. They were metallic veins—streaks of pure gold running beneath his skin, weaving through muscle, crystallizing into rigid patches on his shoulders and spine. That was the price of being a Vessel.

“Valerius?” Dorian asked, his voice raspy from dehydration. “Third time this week? Is the old man trying to turn himself into a gold statue, using that much magic?”

“Shut your mouth,” the second guard growled, jamming the butt of a shock-spear into Dorian’s gut. A green arc of electricity surged through him, but Dorian didn’t even wince. His nervous system had been burned out by things far worse than electricity long ago. “You are just a trash bin. Trash bins don’t get to ask questions about what people throw into them.”

Dorian smirked, revealing teeth that were startlingly white against his grease-smudged face. “Lead the way. Don’t keep Lord Valerius waiting. The ‘Gilding’ isn’t patient.”

They marched him through the labyrinth of the Lower Tier. This place was the gut of Orys, a tangled network of steam pipes, massive air filtration machines, and stacked shanties. The people here lived in dim artificial light, their skin gray from a lack of the Golden Sun, yet ironically, they were the only ones who retained their humanity.

They entered the central axis elevator, a massive glass cage that ran through the social strata of the city. As the elevator rocketed upward, piercing the layer of smog that separated the Lower and Upper Tiers, the light began to change. From a dull gray, it shifted to a brilliance of gold that hurt the eyes.

The Upper Tier was a dream cast in bullion. Skyscrapers of white marble with gold-leaf domes reflected the blinding light. Hanging gardens floated in mid-air, where genetically modified plants bloomed with crystal flowers. And the people... beautiful, perfect people, wearing exquisite masks to hide the truth that they were slowly dying from the inside out.

In Orys, magic was power, but it came with a price higher than life: “The Gilding.” Every time a mage used Aether to bend reality, their body accumulated toxins. Their flesh would slowly turn into solid gold. It was a beautiful death, but agonizing, as your lungs turned to metal and you suffocated in your own opulence.

That was why Vessels existed. Dorian and his kind possessed a rare ability: they could siphon the Gilding from others into their own bodies, enduring the pain on behalf of the nobility so the elite could continue to wield power.

Valerius’s mansion was located in the Summer Palace district. It was a fortress of luxury, where the floors were paved with jade and the walls draped in silk.

Dorian was shoved into the master bedroom. The heavy scent of incense could not mask the metallic tang in the air—the smell of blood mixed with brass.

Valerius, a Grand Mage of the Senate, lay on the bed. He was naked, and the entire left half of his body had turned to gold. His left arm was rigid, fingers curled like the claws of a flawed sculpture. Golden veins were racing up his neck, threatening to strangle his windpipe.

“You... are late,” Valerius moaned, his eyes rolling back, the whites having turned a milky yellow. “Take it out... Take it out now!”

Dorian stepped forward, needing no command. He had done this hundreds of times. He climbed onto the bed, kneeling beside the dying old man.

“This is going to be a heavy one,” Dorian said, placing his calloused hand over Valerius’s left breast, right where the heart fluttered weakly beneath the gold. “Next time, you should reconsider before trying to turn lead into diamonds, Valerius.”

“Do it!” Valerius screamed.

Dorian closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and opened the “Gate.”

It wasn’t magic. It was a curse. A hole in his soul that allowed him to vacuum up the impurity.

Immediately, the pain hit.

It wasn’t like being cut or burned. It felt like molten mercury was being injected directly into his bone marrow. Dorian roared, his back arching. He felt the Gilding leaving Valerius’s body, flowing through his palm, invading his bloodstream.

Valerius’s skin slowly returned to the pink of living flesh. The layer of gold melted, receding like the tide leaving a beach. The old man took a deep, greedy breath, life returning to his eyes.

But for Dorian, hell had just begun.

His right arm—the arm touching Valerius—began to harden. The golden veins beneath his skin flared bright, spreading, claiming patches of flesh that had been untouched. The weight of the metal dragged his shoulder down. His blood boiled, trying to fight the foreign invader.

The transfer lasted ten minutes, but to Dorian, it felt like a century.

When he pulled his hand away, Valerius was fully healed, his skin as smooth as a baby’s. Dorian, however, collapsed onto the cold floor, gasping, sweat pouring off him like rain. His right arm was now heavy, gleaming with a deadly metallic sheen. It would take hours, maybe days, for his body to “digest” this amount of gold and excrete it through sweat and tears.

Valerius sat up, admiring his newly restored arm. He didn’t even glance at Dorian. He threw a bag of coins onto the floor, right in front of Dorian’s face.

“Clean him up,” Valerius ordered the guards. “And burn these sheets. They smell of sewer rats.”

Two guards hoisted Dorian up by his armpits, dragging him out of the room like a sack of garbage.

But when they reached the hallway, something unusual happened.

A woman was blocking their path.

She was tall, clad in a full suit of platinum armor—a metal far rarer than gold in Orys. On her chest was the insignia of the “High Justicars”—the direct enforcers of the Sun King’s law. Her face was cold, severe, marred by a long scar running vertically through her left eye.

“Release him,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried such authority that the two guards immediately let go, dropping Dorian face-first onto the floor.

“High Justicar,” one guard stammered. “This is just a Vessel. We are returning him to the pens.”

“I know what he is,” the woman stepped forward, her iron boots clanging on the marble. She stooped down, grabbing Dorian’s chin, lifting his sweat-drenched face. She looked deep into his ash-gray eyes—the only part of him untainted by gold.

“You are Dorian?” she asked.

“Depends on who’s asking,” Dorian replied, trying to maintain a shred of dignity despite lying at another’s feet.

“I am High Justicar Seraphina. And I am not here to hire you to take pain for a fat noble,” she said, releasing him and standing straight. “The Sun King summons you.”

The hallway went dead silent. The two guards went pale. Valerius, who had just stepped out of his room in a silk robe, dropped his wine glass.

The Sun King. The living god of Orys. The man who had not left the Tower of Heaven in three hundred years. The man whose name was only spoken in whispered prayers.

“The King... summons a Vessel?” Valerius stuttered. “Justicar, there must be a mistake. He is trash...”

Seraphina turned, her gaze sharp as a razor. “Lord Valerius, if you utter one more word, I will personally execute a sentence of ‘Permanent Gilding’ upon you right here, and this time there will be no Vessel to save you.”

Valerius shut his mouth instantly, retreating into his room.

Seraphina turned back to Dorian. “Stand up. If you can endure the sins of this entire city, you can stand before me.”

Dorian gritted his teeth, forcing strength into his trembling legs. He used the wall for support, pushing his metal-heavy body upright.

“Why?” Dorian asked, his breath hitching. “What does the King want with me? I have nothing to offer but this cheap life.”

“The King does not need your life,” Seraphina said, turning to walk away. “He needs your endurance. There is a thing... something in the Tower of Heaven that no one, not even the strongest Grand Mages, can touch without dying instantly.”

She paused, looking back at him over her shoulder.

“It is a gift. Or a curse. Depending on how strong you are.”

Dorian looked down at his golden arm, then at Seraphina’s retreating back. He had no choice. In Orys, when the light called your name, you could only step forward to be burned or illuminated.

He dragged his feet after her, leaving heavy footprints on the marble floor.

The journey to the Tower of Heaven was an ascent into the surreal. They crossed glass bridges suspended in the clouds, where the wind blew so hard it would strip flesh from bone without the protective force fields.

The Tower of Heaven was not a building. It was an artificial mountain, a massive spire constructed of a pitch-black material that absorbed light—a perfect contrast to the brilliant Golden Sun hanging directly above its peak.

Inside the tower, there was absolute silence. No guards. No servants. Only endless, empty corridors where their footsteps echoed like thunder.

They ascended via a gravity elevator, moving so fast Dorian’s stomach churned. When the doors opened, they were at the pinnacle. The Throne Room.

But there was no throne.

The room was a massive glass dome, looking directly into the core of the artificial Golden Sun. The light here was so intense Dorian had to squint, tears streaming down his face. The heat was blistering.

In the center of the room, floating above a pedestal of black stone, was an object.

It was not the Sun King.

It was a manacle.

A single, massive manacle, crafted from gold so bright it seemed to be burning. It floated in mid-air, rotating slowly. Its surface was etched with ancient runes, characters that Dorian found strangely familiar, as if he had seen them in fever dreams.

And around that manacle, space distorted. Tiny arcs of black lightning danced around it, tearing at reality.

“What is that?” Dorian whispered, a fear creeping into his bones that was stronger than any pain he had ever endured.

“That is the Golden Shackle,” a voice spoke from everywhere at once.

Dorian turned. Stepping out of the blinding light on the far side of the room was a man. He was incredibly old, his skin wrinkled like dry bark, and his eyes were bandaged with a strip of golden silk. He wore a simple robe, no jewelry, no crown.

The Sun King.

“My Lord...” Dorian moved to kneel, but an invisible force held him upright.