The palace was never silent.
Even in the dead of night, there was the shuffle of guards' boots, the low hiss of oil lamps, the occasional murmur from sleepless courtiers.
But the corridor Elara led him down now felt different — as if sound itself had been stripped away.
"It's here," she whispered, stopping before an unremarkable stretch of wall in the servants' wing.
Lysander crouched. At knee height, beneath flaking plaster, was a faint carving. The same faded symbols from the map, but arranged in a tight spiral.
"How did you find it?"
"A maid tripped carrying linens. She swore her hand touched 'something wrong' in the wall."
Lysander pressed his palm to the carving. The stone was colder than the air around it, and there was a faint vibration — almost like the hum of the Weave-shard in the archive, but weaker… older.
"It's not just a marking," Lysander said. "It's a lock."
---
They cleared the wall in silence, plaster falling away in dusty clouds. Behind it lay a narrow arch, filled in with tightly set bricks.
"Brell can cut through," Elara offered.
"No," Lysander said. "It's not a door you open with tools."
From his coat, he drew the obsidian chess piece and held it against the spiral. The vibration deepened, resonating through his arm. The bricks shivered, the mortar crumbling like ash.
One by one, the bricks fell inward, revealing a black tunnel sloping down. The air that wafted up was cold and dry, carrying the scent of dust older than the palace itself.
---
They descended with lanterns. The steps were uneven, carved directly into the bedrock.
After perhaps fifty paces, the tunnel opened into a chamber. Its walls were covered in the same mirrored stone Lysander had seen in the reflection chamber — but these mirrors did not reflect their faces.
Instead, each panel showed somewhere else.
One showed the outer market, bustling under daylight. Another showed the ruins of the cathedral from above, snow swirling in the wind. A third… showed a forest Lysander didn't recognize, where a lone cloaked figure stood at the treeline.
Her outline was unmistakable.
Elara saw it too. "That's—"
The image rippled. The woman turned her head — not toward the forest, but toward them.
The mirror shattered, glass falling inward into blackness.
---
Lysander stepped closer, heart steady but sharp in his chest.
"She can see us," he said quietly.
"You mean she could track us," Elara corrected.
Lysander didn't answer. His eyes lingered on the jagged edges of the broken mirror.
Because he'd caught something in that brief moment before it fell apart.
Not her face.
Her eyes.
And they had not been angry.
They had been afraid.