The war chamber was silent. Light from the stained-glass windows hit the stone floor. The sigils on the war map pulsed in a steady rhythm, like a warning.
Caelan stood at the table, arms crossed. "This isn't just corruption," he said. "It's awakening."
The lines on the map had darkened, crawling outward. Seraphina stepped in, focused. She pressed her fingers to the parchment.
Thalion leaned over the table. "It's reacting to something," he said. "But this isn't normal decay. It's being guided."
The walls groaned. Wind circled the upper towers. It wasn't natural.
Candles snuffed themselves one by one.
Seraphina turned to the guards. "Seal the doors. Spell and steel."
They obeyed without another word.
A courier arrived soon after, panting hard.
"Lord Hareth collapsed. He's raving. Says his children have been replaced. Tore down tapestries. Tried to dig into the wall."
Thalion swore under his breath.
"What about his wife?" Seraphina asked.
"Didn't recognize her. Called her a doppel made of smoke. He had to be restrained."
Seraphina turned to Thalion. "Make a list. Everyone he's had contact with in the last week."
He nodded, already writing.
Caelan returned from the eastern wing, soot clinging to his boots. He dropped a scrap of burned cloth on the table.
"A scribe tried to burn the restricted section. She said the books were lying. That the pages moved."
Seraphina tilted her head. "Did she know who you were?"
"Not at all."
"Her name?"
"Sira Alenth. Been here seven years."
Dorian spoke from the hearth. "Never a single report against her."
The inner council gathered: Dorian, Maren, Amara, Mairen, Lyria, Celia. Loyal. Proven.
Dorian spoke last. "The wards near the archive are under pressure. Not from within. Something's pushing on them."
"How do you know?" Caelan asked.
"Because the glyphs changed. We tried to rewrite them. The ink bled."
Caelan dropped a heavy book on the table. The leather was cracked, the spine marked with banned sigils.
"It came from the rebellion vault. It tracks relic activity."
He opened it. The page showed spirals branching from a central mark.
"Same pattern as the war map," Thalion said.
Caelan nodded. "It's bloodcraft. It breaks people. Turns them paranoid. Mad. Dangerous."
Seraphina touched the diagram. Her hand trembled briefly.
"This thing was made to tear people apart. Not with weapons. With fear."
A guard entered. "New case. Noblewoman. Screaming in the main hall. Blood on her hands. Said her reflection was stalking her."
They followed. She stood on a table, glass everywhere. One shard still reflected her, but the face didn't move with hers.
Two guards wrestled her down. Her arms flailed. She shouted names that didn't match anyone in the palace.
Seraphina turned down a nearby hallway. A servant walked slowly, hands red.
"Who told you to do this?" Seraphina asked.
The girl smiled. "The voices. In the walls."
She said nothing after that.
The mist arrived by nightfall. It crept along the floor and hugged corners. Guards started reporting odd things. Reflections showing the wrong expressions. Unfamiliar footsteps echoing their own.
Celia reported whispering in the seamstress wing. Mairen said five informants had vanished. Amara saw a noblewoman pacing and talking to no one.
Lyria handed over a sealed journal. "Same words. Different hand. Different language."
"What language?" Dorian asked.
"No idea. The letters move if you look too long."
A guard from the east wing staggered in. He was sobbing.
"They're not real. None of them. I'm the only one left."
Thalion felt the sigil on his arm dim. It hadn't flickered in twenty years.
By morning, six more cases had been logged. The cook's assistant was found crying in the cellar. Said she'd been speaking with her dead mother. A footman locked himself in a storage room, muttering about spiders in his blood.
Dorian started setting traps, sigil markers across the high-traffic halls. Half were removed within hours, scratched away as if someone knew what they were for.
Seraphina found a single black feather on her desk. Not crow. Not any known bird. It pulsed faintly with residual energy.
"This is getting worse," Caelan said.
"It's escalating," Mairen replied. "Or getting bolder."
A scream cut through the palace.
They ran.
In the stairwell, three guards were dead. Another stood over them. He'd died days ago.
His movements were off. Delayed. Unnatural.
A guard attacked. The dead man moved fast. Too fast. Then he changed. Skin stretched. Bones popped.
Dorian shouted, "Get his blood. We can use it."
Seraphina raised a sigil. The light hit him. He laughed.
"It's learning," Thalion whispered. "And feeding."
Back in the map room, the veins shifted. The lines moved on their own. The pulsing quickened. The table cracked near the center.
Far below, something responded. A relic, buried deep. Old and waiting. Put there by someone close.
Seraphina stayed behind. Symbols glowed near the wall.
They spelled nothing.
But the air felt like it was watching.
She didn't say anything when she rejoined the others. But her eyes didn't leave the floor for a long time.