Sonder might have missed the door entirely if not for the sand.
She brushed it with her fingers, unnaturally smooth and cold.
No handle. No keyhole.
She pressed on it lightly, then harder, but nothing moved.
Her eyes darted to the walls beside it, tracing patterns that might conceal some kind of lever or mechanism. Often enough there were stories where one might push or pull on something hidden or ordinary to open a secret door: a loose brick, a candleholder, a piece of carving that could be turned or pressed.
She searched, working methodically.
First, the walls near the floor. Then higher. Then the base of the torch bracket.
She tugged on an unlit sconce: nothing. Pressed her palm flat against a carved spiral: still nothing. The wall stood unmoving, stubborn.
"Come on," she whispered, frustrated.
She ran her hand along the edge of the tapestry again, then behind the folds, hoping for a hidden latch. Still, there was nothing.
At last, she straightened.
"I didn't want to do this," she murmured, half to herself, half to the wall before her. "But you're not leaving me a choice."
Sonder set her palm against the center of the faint outline.
She gathered her focus, mana sinking into her arm until her hand glowed faintly, veins of power lighting beneath her skin. She wanted it quiet but effective.
The wall resisted at first. It wanted to stay closed. But she pushed far beyond what it could hold.
Then there was a crack.
The seam split and the stone groaned.
Dust drifted down, and with a sound like an exhale, the slab gave way, shifting inward and to the side like a door.
Sonder stepped back, wary, but there was no sound beyond.
Slowly, she slipped through the door.
A small, square room without windows or torches, smelling of iron.
In the middle of the room, chained to an iron ring set in the floor, sat a figure.
At first, Sonder thought he might be dead. He didn't move. His head hung low, hair draping over his face in a dark, tangled curtain.
She took a cautious step forward.
The man stirred, if barely.
The movement drew her eyes to his hair. It was uneven, untidy, and streaked with red at the tips, but dark at the roots. It wasn't cut like the mohawks of the Thole men she'd seen, but she could tell it had once been. The sides of his head were still shorter, though grown out.
When he finally looked up, she saw a faint gleam in his eyes through the mess of hair, and the coarse shadow of a beard clinging to his jaw.
Sonder stood still because she recognized that same gleam she'd seen in Thiliel.
This had to be him. Vhereli.