The iron key was cold and heavy in Andrea's palm, a brutal contrast to the faint, lingering heat of the red leather book she now tucked securely beneath her thin shift.
She had seconds to choose her fate: follow the King's directive into the Forbidden Library a deep chasm beneath the Obsidian Throne or attempt a desperate, magicless escape into the burning, guarded citadel.
She chose the library.
Escape was impossible; knowledge was her only weapon.
She left the Lesser Archives, slipping past the panicked servants and smoke-choked guards racing toward the blaze.
The sight of King Theroren's soldiers fighting an unholy fire with buckets of mundane water was a stark, almost pitiful testament to the power of the magical strike
The route to the private library of the former King, Ilyana and Theron's father, was a calculated sequence of betrayals.
The entrance was not a grand archway, but a heavy, concealed slab of black granite disguised as part of the throne room's foundation.
Andrea waited for a lull in the chaos, then slid the key into the stone.
The lock mechanisms groaned not with age, but with disuse.
It was an ancient, mechanical seal, not a magical one, suggesting the room was meant to be isolated from all supernatural influence.
The slab hissed and retracted, revealing a narrow, spiraling staircase that plunged into suffocating darkness.
The air that rushed out was dead and frigid, carrying the scent of petrified wood and an intense mineral sharpness.
As she descended, Andrea pulled the hidden red book The Carcalidum Curse A Critical Analysis from her shift. She needed to hide it better than any simple shelf.
She knew this library was her safe house.
When she reached the bottom, she found herself in a perfectly circular, windowless chamber.
The walls were not lined with books, but with interlocking obsidian panels that housed individual, sealed compartments.
In the center was a single, massive reading table carved from white marble, upon which a strange, bronze lamp sat.
Before she could light the lamp, an internal vibration shook the room.
A soft, crimson light flared to life near the ceiling, casting the room in a permanent, bloody twilight.
The light of the Burning Heart.
A low, resonant voice Theroren's echoed from the walls, making Andrea jump.
"Welcome, Keeper of Truth. I have sealed the chamber behind you. You are safe from the flames, and safe from fleeing."
Andrea looked up, realizing the room was equipped with a discreet, highly advanced surveillance system.
The crimson light was the glow of the Burning Heart's power source, feeding the sensors.
"Your Majesty," she called out, her voice surprisingly steady, "Did you expect me to flee into a burning castle?"
"I expect a Stiltwort to always choose treachery, Andrea," Theroren's voice replied, devoid of warmth.
"But I also expect a scholar to be drawn to forbidden knowledge. You are now in the archive of my father, the only library whose contents were never inventoried after the Sundering. Find the source of the ash leaf poison. Find If that nixorath is connected to the fire, I will grant you your freedom."
Andrea turned her attention to the forbidden texts.
She placed the red book under the heavy marble table, hiding it among the shadows of the support leg.
She then lit the bronze lamp, bathing the table in a circle of mundane, yellow light.
She opened the nearest obsidian panel. Inside, the scrolls and codices were sealed in crystal casings, perfectly preserved.
Her fingers brushed against the first document.
It wasn't a treaty or a royal ledger. It was a single, large, parchment, titled in the former King's heavy script.
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT OF THE BURNING HEART
it said We shall never trust those who seek to heal us, for the greatest power resides in the most intimate vulnerability.
The Carcalidum heart does not freeze, but ignites with malice. The only power that can bypass the Burning Heart's defense is a poison consumed in trust.
Andrea pulled the crystal case out, placing it carefully on the marble table.
The words chilled her more than the room's atmosphere.
Her family hadn't been targeting a king's strength; they had been targeting his vulnerability.
And the former King knew it.
She moved to the second panel.
Inside was a small, leather-bound volume, unlike any court text.
It was a journal, clearly belonging to Queen Ilyana, the King's mother.
The title: Daily Restoratives and Notes on the Nixorath Threat.
Andrea felt a wave of adrenaline.
This was not a history of betrayal; this was a history of a war they were all fighting, one where the Stiltworts and Carcalidums had been on opposite sides of a secret battle.
She cracked open the Queen's journal.
The pages were delicate, the ink faded. The Queen had meticulously recorded her daily medicinal draughts provided by the Stiltworts the very restoratives that Theroren claimed were poisoned.
Entry: The 4th of the Blood Moon. Stiltwort delivered the Moonpetal. The Earth Witch claims it aids the inner fire, but I feel an increasing chill in the core of my heart. Worried that the Nixorath's influence is growing.
Discussed with them on countermeasures. He believes the Stiltworts are unaware of the parasite they are cultivating.
A parasite they are cultivating.
Andrea looked at the ancient, preserved texts, then up at the ceiling, where the faint crimson glow monitored her every move.
She had stumbled into the hidden records of a paranoia so deep, it spanned two lineages. The fire was an act of war, yes, but the target was not the King; the target was this truth.
She had minutes to determine
Did her ancestors knowingly cultivate the parasite the Nixorath that poisoned the King, or were they victims of the same creeping threat that was now leveraging the chaos of the Great Archives fire?