While the lower gates burned, the upper levels of the Temple of Time remained deceptively quiet.Deep within the eastern wing of the palace, far from the grand war rooms and royal quarters, sat the archives of the Hiwren. The room was cold, illuminated only by the faint, blue glow of containment crystals housing ancient scrolls.Angie moved quietly through the narrow stone aisles, her fingers tracing the old leather bindings. She wasn't supposed to be here. By order of the High Council, the inner archives were restricted to advisors and Sages. But Angie wasn't just a timid village girl anymore; she was the daughter of the kingdom's chief architect, and she knew the secret passages of the plateau better than General Duwall himself.She stopped in front of a heavy wooden chest bound in tarnished silver—the personal records of her father, Lord Trevor.Ever since Chris had been brought to the palace a week ago, a suffocating sense of dread had followed her. Her father had welcomed Marcell with open arms, but there was a stiffness in their interactions, a mutual, unspoken tension that felt less like friendship and more like a fragile truce between two men who shared a terrible secret.Angie pulled a small iron hairpin from her locks, kneeling before the lock. With a practiced, quiet click, the silver latch popped open. Inside lay bundles of old correspondence, structural blueprints of the palace's magical tethers, and a singular, heavy leather journal stamped with the royal seal of seventeen years ago.She opened the journal, her eyes scanning the faded ink."The spatial shift approaches, and the King's brother grows increasingly unstable," her father's elegant script read. "He speaks of breaking the tethers, of collapsing the boundaries to free the lower realms from the Sages' harvest. He does not understand that without the tethers, the magic that sustains our lives will evaporate. Alced will fall into the void."Angie's breath hitched. She flipped the page, her heart hammering against her ribs."Marcell agrees. We cannot allow his brother to destroy creation for a philosophical whim. Tonight, Trevor and Marcell will lead the Sages to the western rim. The child must be spared and hidden. If the boy lives, the lineage remains intact, and the tethers will hold. May the Ancients forgive us for what we must do to the bloodline."The journal slipped from Angie's trembling hands, hitting the stone floor with a dull thud.The stories they had been told as children—the tragic attack by monsters from the wilds, the heroic sacrifice of Chris's parents—were a carefully manufactured lie. Her father hadn't just known about the slaughter. He and Marcell had orchestrated it. They had delivered Chris's parents directly to the executioners to protect the kingdom's power structure."You shouldn't be reading that, my love," a deep, familiar voice said from the shadows of the aisle.Angie gasped, spinning around. Her father, Lord Trevor, stood at the end of the stone corridor. He wore his spotless white ceremonial robes, his face etched with a profound, weary sadness as he looked down at his daughter. Beside him stood Marcell, his eyes dark, his hand resting heavily on the hilt of his sword."Father..." Angie whispered, backing away until her spine hit the archives wall. She looked from Trevor to Marcell, the horror evident in her eyes. "What did you do?"