The corridor stretched ahead, dim, narrow, and aggressively quiet. Selene’s boots struck the stone floor in a rhythm that felt too heavy, the stride too long. She forced herself to adjust, to suppress the urge to run.

  Third door. Dark wood. Brass handle.

  The door stood open. Just a hand’s width. A sliver of darkness slicing the afternoon light.

  Her control snapped. She didn't walk; she collided with the room.

  Selene stumbled into the study, shoulder checking the frame. The room that greeted her wasn't messy; it was hollowed out.

  It was a narrow space, built of old gray stone. The small arched window was clouded with age, filtering the light into a bruised purple. Beneath it, the desk stood polished and bare. No papers. No ink stains. The iron candelabrum held three holders, scraped clean of wax.

  To the left, the bookshelf was a skeletal frame. Empty shelves. Closed drawers.

  The floor had been swept. The walls were bare.

  It looked like a room where no one had ever lived.

  Selene’s legs buckled.

  She caught herself on the edge of the desk, heavy fingers gripping the wood. This was worse than finding it ransacked. Ransacking implies a search. This was erasure.

  "Gone," she whispered. The voice was deep, gravelly, and foreign to her own ears. "All of it."

  Her hand curled into a fist. She didn't think; she swung.

  Crack.

  She drove the fist into the floorboards. White-hot pain shot up her forearm—an old man’s pain, brittle and sharp.

  She struck again.

  The wood splintered. The pain grounded her. It was the only thing that felt real.

  "What am I supposed to do now?"

  The question hung in the silence, unanswered. Eldric was gone. And she was wearing the face of a man who should be grieving his brother, not punching his floor.

  Her breath came in ragged gasps. She stared at the splintered wood, at the blood welling on the knuckles that weren't hers.

  Then she saw it.

  Not an accident. A deliberate scratch in the grain of the floorboard, hidden in the shadow of the desk leg.

  E.

  The pocket watch.

  Her hand fumbled to find the watch beneath her coat, fingers thick and clumsy as they pulled the brass disc free. She turned it over. The same mark was etched into the casing.

  She accidentally pressed her bruised palm flat against the carved letter on the floor.

  Click.

  The sound was heavy, mechanical. The empty bookshelf groaned, then shuddered and swung inward. A draft of cool air hit her face.

  Behind the shelf lay a spiral of stone steps, vanishing into darkness.

  Selene stood still, wiped the blood from her hand onto her coat, then stepped into the dark.

  The bookshelf swung shut behind her, sealing the room in silence.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Selene stood in the pitch black, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Slowly, the gloom resolved into shapes. Faint light filtered from ventilation shafts high above, illuminating worn stone steps.

  She touched the wall. Her fingertips found a groove worn into the masonry at shoulder height.

  You walked this path for years, Old Owl.

  The spiral straightened into a horizontal passage. The ceiling lifted, but the walls pressed in. This wasn't a hallway; it was the space between spaces.

  Navigating it in her own body would have been easy. In Aldric’s, it was a fight. His broad shoulders scraped the rough stone. The heavy coat caught on jagged edges. She had to turn sideways, shuffling through the constriction.

  Along the left wall, narrow slits appeared at regular intervals.

  She peered through the first. Professor Halvern’s lecture hall. Empty benches. A half-erased equation on the slate.

  She moved to the next. The refectory. Empty.

  They don't just teach here, she realized, a cold knot tightening in her stomach. They watch.

  The passage forked.

  At the junction, scratched low on the stone: a small arrow and the letter E.

  Right.

  She followed his trail. The floor sloped upward. The air grew warmer, stifling. Her legs burned. Aldric’s stamina was fading.

  Voices drifted down from above. Muffled. Indistinct.

  Selene froze. She looked up. The ceiling here was vaulted, carrying sound like a whispering gallery.

  She crept forward, boots silent on the dust. The passage ended at a dead end, but the wall on the right was different, smooth fitted blocks with no mortar. At eye level sat a ventilation grate, cleverly disguised as ornamental stonework on the other side.

  The voices sharpened.

  "—calculated risk," a man said. harsh. "Catastrophe is a different metric."

  "The metric is loss, Ariel." Soft, deadly calm. "Eldric. Access. The timeline."

  Selene pressed herself against the cold stone, heart hammering against her ribs.

  She leaned toward the grate.

  Through the grate, the Council Chamber was bathed in amber light. Heavy velvet curtains were drawn against the day. Around the massive oak table, the Circle of Luminars stood like statues deciding the fate of a world they thought they owned.

  Silas Verrick stood at the head, his hawk-like profile casting a sharp shadow. "Dead. All of them. And the site compromised."

  "We underestimated the volatility," Adelaide said. She stood by the window, playing with the hem of a teal cloak. "Though the fire... that was unexpected."

  "Ineptitude," Ariel Graves growled. The commander was still in his armor, looking like he wanted to hit something. "We rely on shovel-pushers and academics. This is the result."

  "Content yourself, Ariel ," Brayden Marsh said softly, seated at the table's edge. "Blame does not recover information. Corvan is dead. Eldric is... unaccounted for."

  "Unaccounted for means dead," Ariel snapped.

  "Or it means he ran," Mauldric Ardent said. He was leaning against a pillar, cleaning his fingernails with a small knife.

  "And took the knowledge with him," Isadora Ardent finished, standing so close to her brother their shadows merged.

  Selene held her breath.

  "The Baron holds two survivors," Mauldric said, not looking up from his knife.

  "Who?" Silas demanded.

  "Unknown. They're being held in the manor."

  "Witnesses," Adelaide said, turning from the window. Her eyes were cold. "If they saw the Vault..."

  "Then they know what we’re looking for." Silas leaned over the map on the table. "And more importantly, the Carmyne will know."

  The name dropped into the room like a stone in deep water.

  "If they learn we found the crown and lost it," Silas continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that still carried, "they won’t send a letter. They’ll send a purge."

  Adelaide turned back to the glass, staring out at the darkening skyline of Veilmouth.

  "The shadows are already moving," she murmured, barely loud enough to be heard.

  "Then we clean it up," Ariel said. "We get to the survivors first."

  "The Baron has them under guard," Brayden noted.

  "The Baron is a distinct lack of obstacle," Isadora murmured.

  "Find them," Silas commanded. "Determine what they saw. If they carry anything from the Vault—an artifact, a weapon—secure it. If they know too much... silence them."

  "And Eldric?" Adelaide asked.

  "Assume he is a liability." Silas straightened. "If he lives, he has betrayed us. If he is dead, he is useless. Mauldric, Isadora—take the manor. Quietly."

  The Ardent siblings nodded in perfect unison.

  "Adelaide," Silas turned. "Draft the report to Carmyne. Tell them... tell them the excavation suffered a structural collapse. Minor delays."

  "Lying to the Blood Kingdom," Adelaide smiled tightly. "My favorite pastime."

  "And one last matter," Brayden said, standing up. "Aldric."

  Selene flinched behind the wall.

  "What of him?" Silas asked.

  "He returned. Noon today."

  Silas raised an eyebrow. "From the ruins?"

  "Unclear. He is here now."

  Silas adjusted his cuffs. "Find him. He likely knows something, he is Eldric's brother."

  "And if he resists?" Mauldric asked, sheathing his knife.

  "He is an academic, not a soldier. Apply pressure. He will break. Dispose of him afterward."

  The scraping of chairs. The meeting was over.

  Selene pulled back from the grate, her breath trembling.

  They don’t know about the sword. What is this kingdom of Carmyne? They seem afraid of it. No time to think. Ardents were coming for her. She was standing in a dead-end tunnel with nowhere to go but down.

  She looked back the way she came.

  She looked at the wall near the grate. Another mark, scratched faintly into the stone. E, with an arrow pointing straight down.

  Selene didn't hesitate. She moved deeper into the walls, following the ghost of the man who raised her, while the wolves started their hunt.