"One of you must burn."
Kaelen stared at Elena's final words. The journal's pages shifted with each breath.
The alarm bells rang through the corridors—not celebration bells, but warning bells. Someone had breached the eastern wing.
She sat on her cell bench, Elena's journal clutched tight. The words repeated endlessly.
Thorne or me.
Elena planned this from the beginning—a choice between murder and suicide.
The runes on her cell walls began to glow, their light intensifying. Footsteps thundered overhead as guards ran towards the breach.
Now.
She looked at the brass key Halden had sent. Flame script covered its surface—the same key he had used to open the foundation chamber under the Archive.
He is helping me flee.
She stood. The brass key grew warm in her palm as she approached the cell door.
Trust the warmth.
The key touched the lock. Flame script blazed across the metal.
Click.
The first lock opened, then the second, third, fourth—all seven locks turned one after another. The door swung open.
Kaelen stepped into the corridor. Her ankle shackles remained, but her wrist bindings had loosened enough to allow movement. She looked towards the stairs where guards shouted from above.
"—eastern wing breach—"
"—someone in the Vaults—"
"—seal all exits—"
Thorne.
He is looking for Elena's journal.
She needed to reach him before the guards did. Kaelen moved down the corridor, away from the stairs, towards Miriam's cell—the woman who had called out to her earlier.
"I know what you did to Maera! I know what you are planning for her daughter!"
Miriam sat on her bench with eyes closed, still dazed from Graves's ward-rod, but breathing. Kaelen pressed her face against the bars.
"Miriam."
No response.
"Miriam. Wake up."
The woman's eyes fluttered open.
"Maera?" She whispered. "Little Maera?"
"No. I am Kaelen. Her daughter."
Miriam struggled to sit up.
"You... you look just like her."
"You knew my mother."
Miriam's laugh held no humour. "Knew her? I worked with her before the Council silenced me."
"You were there when she discovered the wardlight's true purpose."
Miriam pulled herself against the bars. "I was. But what Maera found went deeper than control over the outer kingdoms. She found the source. The first transgression that made it all possible."
"Tell me."
"Not here. The Council listens. Always listening."
Miriam looked towards the vaulted stone above, where footsteps echoed. Kaelen looked at her key, then at Miriam's cell door.
"If I free you, will you show me the way to the Vaults? The shortest path?"
Miriam pulled herself closer. "Child, if they catch us—"
"They are going to kill us anyway. Whether we run or not."
Silence.
Miriam nodded.
"There is a passage. Behind the storage chambers. The swiftest way to reach the Vaults."
Miriam glanced down the corridor before continuing.
"But I cannot go with you. If they find me beyond my cell, they shall have me killed on sight. Seventeen years I have been here—they will show no mercy."
"Then show me the way. That is all I ask."
Kaelen reached for the key, prepared to open Miriam's lock.
Miriam's hand shot through the bars, gripping Kaelen's wrist. "No. I can guide you from here, child. Listen carefully."
She pointed down the corridor.
"Move past the empty cells. Past the blood rust on the bars. Past the sealed chambers."
Kaelen memorised every word.
"You will reach what appears to be a wall. Place your hand against the stone. Your mother's magic will recognise you."
"How do you know?"
Miriam whispered, "Because I was there when she built it. She designed it to respond only to her bloodline. To flame script bound to Virelle blood."
Miriam's gaze dropped to the key in Kaelen's hand.
"Your mother built this passage to reach the Vaults without the Council knowing. It slopes downward to an iron door sealed with seven locks. Your key shall open them."
Kaelen nodded and moved down the corridor past empty cells, past the blood rust on the bars, past the sealed chambers. What appeared to be a wall blocked her path. She placed her hand against the stone.
The wall grew warm, then hot. Symbols carved themselves into the stone, burning red with flame script.
Mother's craft.
The wall slid open, revealing a narrow passage into shadow. Looking back towards Miriam's cell, Kaelen saw the woman standing at her bars, watching.
She stepped inside.
The wall began to slide shut behind her. Darkness closed around her, and her collar began to glow, faint red light revealing the passage ahead.
The collar responds to my flame. Still bound, but not dead.
She walked.
The passage sloped downward with water dripping from above. She walked deeper into the earth—away from the cells, away from the Archive, towards whatever truth her mother had died keeping safe.
She reached a door.
Iron, with seven locks as Miriam had described.
Beyond this door lay the Vaults proper.
Kaelen pulled out the journal and opened it to the last pages. Elena's handwriting:
"The medical archive is on the third level. Past the quarantine chambers."
She read faster.
"What you will find there will change everything you thought you knew about your family."
No.
"Freeing him comes with a price. The wardlight is bound to his life force. Break that connection, and the barriers fall."
Immediately. No warning. No time to prepare.
"Erathil will be vulnerable."
She continued reading.
"But I have given you the tools to make a different choice. One your mother never had."
What choice?
"The key opens more than doors."
Kaelen closed the journal and stared at the brass key.
I am alone.
She pressed her key against the first lock.
Click.
Second lock.
Third.
The seventh lock opened, and the door swung inward.
Beyond lay the Sunken Vaults.
And somewhere in the darkness, Thorne was searching for answers—the same answers Kaelen now carried in her hands.
. . .
Thorne descended into the Sunken Vaults, torch in hand. The stairs wound through solid rock, down past the Archive's foundations and into the bedrock under it. Water dripped from above. The smell of rot thickened.
Council guards should have stopped him at the first guard post.
Instead, he found their posts abandoned—empty chair, cold braziers, weapons left behind.
"Where is everyone?" He whispered.
His voice echoed off stone walls.
The second guard post stood empty. The third had been barricaded from the inside with furniture and broken spears scattered across the floor. The barricade lay in pieces. Dried blood streaked the stones.
. . .
The first room Thorne entered was filled with books and ancient collections. Journals and manuscripts lined the shelves from floor to ceiling. He moved through the shelves, searching for anything about his mother's binding spell.
A leather journal bore his mother's handwriting across the front page:
"Research Notes: The Price of Binding Magic"
He opened it to a random entry.
"Day 1,820: The child grows stronger. Every spell she casts feeds the flame within. Her power already exceeds Maera's at the same age."
Thorne turned the pages, scanning for his own name.
There—an entry dated three months after his tenth birthday.
"Thorne shows signs of healing ability. Defensive barriers. If I could bind their life forces together..."
The next line had been crossed out, then rewritten.
"The binding may be the only way to give them both a chance. But if Kaelen's power overwhelms the anchor, both children shall die."
He closed the journal before he could read more. Footsteps sounded above as guards returned to their posts. He tucked the journal inside his cloak. The other journals could wait.
He needed to keep moving.
After gathering three more journals from the shelves, he moved towards the door when a faint hum drew his attention. A room stood behind the book section, sealed by wards rather than locks. A glass panel in the door allowed him to peer through.
Beyond the glass barrier stood a single bed. A man lay motionless upon it, covered in layers of preservation wards that pulsed faintly. The wards shimmered across his face, obscuring his features, but Thorne recognised the golden circlet on his brow.
The Flamebearer's crown.
"Rhaedor." He whispered.
Tubes ran from the man's arms to glowing vessels filled with liquid light.
The wardlight, keeping him alive.
Footsteps sounded behind him. Thorne turned round.
Kaelen stood in the doorway, wrist bindings hanging loose.
"Halden sent you a key as well."
Thorne's hand went to the journal beneath his cloak. "How did you—"
"Because he sent me one as well." She moved closer, her gaze dropping to where his hand pressed against the hidden journal. "You found Elena's writings."
Not a question. She knew.
Thorne nodded towards the shadows behind her. "And you found hers."
"What did Elena's journal tell you?"
"That one of us must burn to break the binding." Kaelen turned towards the glass barrier. "What else did you find in her writings?"
He could lie. Should lie.
Instead, he met her eyes. "That if your power overwhelms mine, we both die."
Kaelen stepped away from the doorway. "Then we already knew the most important part. The binding makes us each other's executioner."
Thorne pulled out his mother's journal. "There is more. She wrote about your magic—how it grows with every spell you cast. By eighteen—"
"I shall be unstoppable." Kaelen finished the words. "I know. Maera wrote the same thing in her writings. That is why she wrought the Heartfire Pendant—to slow the growth."
"Which you no longer possess."
"Which someone took from me." She pressed her palm against the glass barrier. "Someone who wished to hasten my reaching that breaking point."
Thorne stood beside her, following her gaze to the figure beyond the glass.
"Your grandfather."
"You knew he was down here."
"Not until I saw him." Thorne watched the slow pulse of light through the tubes. "The guards call this the medical ward. They are keeping him alive."
Kaelen stared at her grandfather's still form. "Or imprisoned. Which is it, Thorne? Are they saving him or using him?"
"I do not know."
Her hand remained against the glass. "Then we must find out. Because if the Council has been keeping the Flamebearer alive for twenty years, they had a reason. And I believe that reason involves me."
Thorne moved between her and the door. "We cannot just—"
"Free him? Why not?"
"If we disconnect him from the wardlight and you are right—if he is powering the barriers—"
"They will fall. I know."
Kaelen's hand remained against the glass.
"Elena's journal warned me."
"Then you understand what that means. Erathil will be vulnerable."
Kaelen turned back to face her grandfather, who was behind the glass. "I understand. But I also understand what it means to be used as a tool by the Council. We need to know the truth. What they are really doing to him. What they plan to do to me."
. . .
Two hundred miles north, Riven approached the gates of Shadowland. Black towers rose from barren earth—no grass, no birds, no living thing.
Captain Korrath met him at the outer walls.
"Riven Drae. Verrian said you might come."
"I have the pendant."
Korrath gestured for the gates to open. "Do you? He will decide that."
They walked through training yards filled with warriors from every corner of the realm—deserters, exiles, outlaws.
"How many?" Riven asked.
"Five thousand, swelling daily. Men made desperate become loyal warriors."
"Until they are not desperate anymore."
"By then, their loyalty shall matter not."
Korrath gestured towards the dark towers. "Come with me. Verrian awaits you in the great hall."
The throne room was carved from black stone. Verrian sat on a chair wrought from dragon bones, studying dispatches from his scouts.
He did not look up. "Riven. Have been expecting you."
He finally raised his eyes.
"The girl lost mastery. As you foretold."
Riven pulled out Kaelen's pendant. The crystal caught the torchlight, throwing red patterns across the black stone walls.
Verrian descended from his throne and took the pendant, turning it in his palm. The red light pulsed—once, twice—then steadied to a faint glow.
He studied the pendant. "The pendant answers. After twenty years, it finally answers."
"And the scroll?"
Riven produced the map. Verrian unrolled it across the war table, weighing the corners with daggers.
His finger traced a path north through the mountains. "Here. The Sundered Peaks. Three days' hard riding."
Korrath moved closer to examine the map. "Those are barren lands. Nothing there but stone and ice."
Verrian tapped a point where the mountain range formed a natural fortress. "On the surface, nothing remains. Beneath..." He traced deeper into the mountain range, then looked back at the pendant.
"Kaelen shall come looking for the pendant. She has no choice—not if she wants answers about her mother's death. Not if she wants to understand what the Council has hidden from her."
"What makes you certain she will find us?" Riven asked.
Verrian held up the pendant. The red light pulsed again, stronger this time.
"Because the pendant calls to power far greater than the girl herself. Power that has been sleeping for two score years." He set the pendant down carefully, as though it might shatter. "And when it wakes, Kaelen Virelle shall have no choice but to come north."
Korrath reminded him, "The Council has her in custody. The binding ceremony is in three days."
Verrian rolled the map and handed it to Korrath. "She shall escape. Prepare the northern camps. When she arrives, I want everything ready."
Riven watched Verrian pocket the pendant. "And the boy? If she dies—"
"Then we solve two problems at once."
Korrath left to relay orders. Riven remained.
"You have not told me what you intend to wake with that pendant."
Verrian smiled. "Because you have not yet earned that knowledge, Riven Drae. Bring me the girl, and perhaps I shall tell you what sleeps beneath the Sunken Vaults."
. . .
Footsteps thudded in the corridor above. Thorne tucked Elena's journal inside his cloak and turned to Kaelen.
"You need to get back to your cell. Now."
"But—"
"If they find you missing, they will lock down the entire Archive. We cannot risk being seen together."
Kaelen's palm pressed against the glass once more.
"I think..." She looked at the figure on the bed. "I think he is trying to reach me."
Thorne moved closer. "What do you mean?"
"He stirs. I can sense it." Her hand remained flat against the barrier. "But I cannot understand what he wishes to tell me."
Thorne glanced towards the corridor. "You need to leave. Now. There is no time."
She nodded and turned back towards the hidden passage.
Thorne pressed against the cold stone as voices carried from above.
"—sealed the eastern breach—"
"—not a breach, you fool, someone opened it from inside—"
"—impossible, all the prisoners are accounted—"
The voices faded as the guards moved past his hiding spot. Then, fainter:
"—power levels in the medical ward—"
"—spiking in the last hour. Elder Graves wants a report—"
"—if it continues, we shall need to evacuate the lower—"
Footsteps descended the stairs. Thorne held his breath.
One guard paused at the bottom. "Have you felt it? The air down here?"
"Indeed. Changed since we last came down."
"Not changed. Woken."
Silence. Then the second guard spoke, quieter: "That is not possible. Nothing down here has moved in twenty years."
"Tell that to the ward-stones. Three of them cracked in the last hour."
The footsteps resumed, moving away from Thorne's position and deeper into the vaults. He waited until their voices disappeared entirely before moving.
Someone holds Kaelen's pendant and means to wake Rhaedor Virelle.
He looked back at the glass barrier, at the Flamebearer lying motionless upon the bed, at the tubes connecting him to the wardlight.
Thorne moved towards the way out, Elena's journal tucked inside his cloak, his path clear—until fingers clamped round his arm.
He froze.
Elder Graves stepped from the darkness, ward-rod glowing. "Going somewhere, boy? Did you truly believe I would not know you were here? What did you find behind that glass?"
Thorne remained silent.
Graves raised the ward-rod. "No matter. You shall tell me soon enough—right after we deal with the girl."
. . .
End of Chapter 18
. . .
Next in Chapter 19: The Stirring
Thorne discovers Rhaedor has fed the sun-stone for twenty years—and Kaelen is next. Councillor Frost offers her flight north with a map in her mother's hand, revealing she carries Ashborn blood the Council has smothered. Miriam's cell shows signs of violent removal whilst the wardstones crack. Verrian's pendant goes dark as someone else enters the race.