The air in the chamber hung thick with the cloying sweetness of sandalwood incense, its tendrils coiling around mana-lit chandeliers shaped like inverted wyvern skulls. Astris Doran sat at a mahogany desk, her fingers rolling the enchanted quill absently—its obsidian tip glinting with a hunger that made her skin prickle. The contract before her pulsed faintly, Leclair wolves and Celestaviel wyverns writhing in the parchment's margins as if alive. Across the table, the servant stood motionless, their polished onyx mask reflecting the room's gilded opulence in fractured shards.
"I cannot use this," Astris said, her voice steady despite the Spire's growl vibrating through the floorboards. She held up the unenchanted quill, its nib dripping ink. "I need my Griffon quill. Dragon blood ink."
The servant tilted their head, the movement unnervingly smooth, like a marionette adjusting its strings.
Astris leaned back, her tea-length gown—a practical ivory silk with a nipped waist—rustling against the chair. Somewhere beyond these jeweled walls, her brothers were laughing, oblivious. But here, there were only shifting clauses and a servant's hollow stare.
"My satchel," she pressed, fingertips brushing the silver falcon pendant at her throat—a twin to the one Miles had given her on her sixteenth birthday. "Bring it. Now."
The servant bowed and glided out, their boots silent on the rug's celestial weave.
Alone, Astris rose, her boot's heels sinking into the rug's plush threads as she paced. The chamber was a gilded cage: stained-glass windows depicting wyvern queens, their jeweled eyes following her; bookshelves lined with grimoires bound in chimera hide; a four-poster bed draped in midnight velvet that pooled on the floor like spilled ink. No doors visible, no latches—just seamless walls humming with containment spells.
She paused at a mirror, its surface cracked down the middle. Her reflection stared back—pale, light hair frizzed and free, the hourglass silhouette of her gown mocking her dishevelment. They'll be safe, she told herself. Collan's Glowmarks would flare at the first threat. Miles's falcon would screech a warning. But the voice in her head—her mother's voice, crystalized in memory—whispered: Bargains with shadows demand more than hope.
The servant returned, cradling her satchel. Astris's heart clenched at the sight of its familiar wyvern-leather straps, and it unclasped them with practiced ease.
"Leave," she ordered.
The servant didn't move.
The satchel's weathered leather was warm under Astris's fingers, the lingering scent of the Lower Wards faintly clinging to it—a comforting reek of molten steel and charcoal that clashed with the chamber's cloying sandalwood perfume. She plunged her hand inside, heart lurching as her fingertips brushed cold, familiar steel. Miles's dagger. The blade was unremarkable to most—dungeon-forged and nicked from a hundred skirmishes—but the hilt bore her brother's crude engraving: a falcon mid-dive, wings spread like a promise.
Beneath it lay the grimoire.
Wyvern leather, cracked with age and stitched with celestial sinew, pulsed faintly in her grip. Its pages whispered as she flipped them, runes flaring to life in hues of cobalt and gold—Mana Siphon: Life-Force Crystallization; Voidwell's Hunger; Celestial Anchors. The ink shimmered like trapped starlight, each glyph a relic of stolen university nights spent hunched in black-market archives.
"Leave," Astris repeated, sharper now, the dagger's edge catching the chandelier's sickly glow.
The servant stood statue-still, their onyx mask reflecting the grimoire's awakening light in jagged splinters.
She moved faster than thought—a Doran's instinct, honed by years sparing with her brothers and university tournaments. The blade arced, slicing through the servant's cloak with a hiss. For a heartbeat, the figure wavered, shadows unraveling like smoke, and Astris's breath hitched. Victory.
Then the air thickened.
The servant materialized anew in the doorway, unblemished, their mask tilting as if amused. Astris's dagger trembled in her grip, the falcon's wings glinting with a traitor's gleam.
"Damn you," she snarled, the grimoire's pages fluttering in a sudden draft. The Spire's growl seeped through the walls, vibrating the desk's mana-crystal inkwell until its contents sloshed like blood.
The servant extended a gloved hand toward the contract, the parchment's clauses now writhing violently, wolves and wyverns snapping at each other in the margins. Their silence was a weapon—a void where threats should be.
Astris clutched the grimoire to her chest, its whispers seeping into her bones. Her father would've bartered. Collan would've shattered the mask. Miles would've laughed and set the drapes on fire. But she was neither her brothers nor a fool. The chamber was a puzzle—jeweled, suffocating, alive with containment spells that hummed in her molars.
She edged toward the cracked mirror, its surface reflecting not her face, but the Spire's distant peak—a jagged silhouette against a storm-lit sky. Her eye lingered on the crack, and her mind began to whisper. There was a fracture. The enchantment was incomplete, rushed. The grimoire's runes brightened, their light pooling in the fracture like liquid starlight.
"Threats are a currency," her mother had once said, tracing a contract's fine print with a jeweler's precision. "Spend them wisely."
Astris spun, dagger raised, as the servant stepped closer. But this time, her strike aimed not for flesh, but the rug's celestial weave—a tapestry of stitched constellations. The blade tore through threads older than the Spire itself, and the room shuddered, the wyvern skull chandeliers swaying as the containment spells faltered.
*****
The air in Collan's office was thick with the acrid tang of hex salt and stale coffee, the Spire's growl seeping through the stone walls like a restless spirit. Maps of Lismore's dungeon-riddled territories cluttered the desk, their edges singed from proximity to mana-crystal lamps.
Collan leaned against the windowsill, his Glowmarks flickering faintly on his rolled sleeves as he glared at a half-empty mug of cold brew. Cassis paced nearby, her riding leathers creaking with each step, the wyvern bracelet on her wrist humming in dissonant harmony with the Spire. Zaiden stood rigid by the door, his wolf pendant gleaming dully under the chandelier's fractured light, while Vadim slouched in an armchair, tossing a dagger absently—its blade nicked from a recent skirmish with a particularly vindictive goblin. Miles perched on the edge of the desk, his fey compass spinning lazily, its needle quivering toward the eastern quarries. Zander, ever the shadow, sharpened his blade in the corner, the scritch-scritch of steel on stone punctuating the tension.
The door slammed open.
"Party's here," drawled Sloan Taner, sauntering in with embers dancing playfully around his fingertips. His uniform was deliberately disheveled, caramel candies spilling from a pocket, and his grin widened as he eyed Cassis. "Princess. Love the leather. Very… form-fitting."
Rainer Vain followed, his boots clicking with militaristic precision. He paused to adjust a crooked portrait of Queen Nayeli, his gloved fingers leaving no smudge on the gilded frame. "If this is about the leviathan wreckage," he said flatly, "tell the prince to take it up with the tide."
Cora Green entered last, her clairvoyant monocle already glowing. She ignored the nobles, her gaze locking on Collan. "What do you need, Commander?"
Collan tossed her the pendant—a silver teardrop crusted with dried voidbloom pollen. "Can you read it?"
Cora caught it, her monocle flaring as she pressed it to her eye. The room dimmed, mana-light bending around her as visions flickered in the lens. "Where the hell did she get this thing? It's genuine sphinx blood."
"Can you read it?" Zaiden snapped.
Cora's jaw tightened. "I can. It's just… loud." The monocle's light fractured, projecting ghostly images onto the wall—hooded figures with wyvern-crested pendants, a cloth soaked in voidbloom pressed to Astris's face, her fingers clawing at a silver falcon pendant before the world went black. The images blurred as Cora searched for presence. Cursing, "there must be an enchantment. I can't…." Smirking, "Clever as always. She lifted the enchantment—mostly."
"Mostly?" Cassis stepped forward, her bracelet's wyvern bearing bone fangs.
Cora yanked a map from the desk, dangling the pendant over it. The teardrop swung violently before jerking toward a jagged mountain range deep in Celestaviel's borderlands. "There."
Cassis' eyes narrowed as she leaned over the map, "The Hulda Cleft. Only accessible by flight—cliffs on all sides, dungeon-mutated briars below. No sane soul goes there."
Vadim whistled. "Extreme even for kidnappers. What's in the Cleft?"
Before anyone could answer, a paper bird—folded from royal parchment and glowing with starlight sigils—zipped through the window. It alighted on Zaiden's shoulder, unfolding itself into a summons.
Attend the Ivory Court immediately. - King Einar & Queen Nayeli
Zaiden crumpled the parchment. "We don't have time for this."
Cassis glanced down at her dust-streaked leathers. "I'm not dressed for an audience."
Vadim nudged her. "Ignore the summons, and the consequences'll be worse than a fashion scandal."
Collan's Glowmarks flared. "Go. We'll plot the route."
As Cassis and Zaiden stormed out, Sloan plopped into Cassis's vacated chair, propping his boots on the desk. "So. Who's volunteering to be wyvern bait?"
Rainer flicked a caramel off his uniform. "The Cleft's swarming with Celestaviel's border patrols. We'll need a distraction."
Miles spun his compass, its needle now pointing steadily east. "Distraction's my specialty."
Cora slumped into a seat, rubbing the scar on her wrist—a relic of her first clairvoyant vision. "Just keep the 'distraction' from involving explosions. Or glitter."
In the hall, Cassis and Zaiden hurried toward the palace's opulent heart, the Spire's growl echoing their silent fury.
*****
The blade bit into the tapestry's celestial weave, threads older than the Spire itself snapping with a sound like breaking harp strings. The room shuddered, wyvern skull chandeliers swaying as their mana-light fractured into jagged shards. Astris slashed again, the dagger carving through embroidered constellations—Lyra's harp split, Orion's bow severed—and the illusion rippled, revealing a hairline crack in the mirror behind her. The servant lunged, its gloved hands passing through her like smoke, and for a heartbeat, Astris saw her own reflection splinter into a thousand fragments. Then the glass exploded.
Cold, damp air slapped her face, reeking of wet stone and ancient incense. The opulent chamber dissolved into a cavernous underworld, its vaulted ceilings supported by pillars carved with the weathered faces of forgotten gods. Cybele's visage dominated—her stern eyes chipped but still watchful, stone lions coiled at her feet, their manes matted with moss. The walls, honeycombed with tunnel entrances, subterranean labyrinths, boring faded frescoes of processions: priestesses in flowing robes carrying pomegranates and crescent moons, their features eroded by centuries of seepage. Underfoot, the floor sloped into a network of channels, remnants of an ancient aquifer system, now dry and choked with rubble.
Astris stumbled, her boots crunching over shattered pottery etched with cuneiform prayers. Somewhere in the shadows, water dripped, the echoes pooling into a hollow chorus. The crystal ball—now dull, its smoky veins inert—rolled toward a dais at the chamber's center. She snatched it, tucking it into her satchel beside the grimoire, its wyvern leather bristling as if sensing the dungeon's pulse.
"Where the hell am I?" she muttered, her breath frosting in the chill.
The ruins whispered back.
To her left, a staircase spiraled downward, its steps worn smooth by millennia of footfalls, flanked by niches that once held oil lamps. To her right, a collapsed archway revealed a chamber lined with stone benches—a council room, perhaps, or a scriptorium, its walls etched with tablets depicting Cybele's rites: harvest dances, blood offerings, and the binding of chimeric beasts. A shattered altar lay ahead, stained black with old sacrifices, its surface pocked with hollows where gemstones had once been pried loose.
But it was the air that unnerved her—thick with the weight of buried time, carrying the faint, metallic tang of long-dried blood and the musk of rodents nesting in forgotten alcoves. Somewhere deeper, a draft moaned through the tunnels, carrying the distant, rhythmic clank of chains.
Astris gripped Miles's dagger tighter, its falcon hilt biting into her palm. "Think," she hissed. The grimoire's pages rustled in her satchel, as if eager to answer. She knew these ruins echoed the subterranean cities of Old Lismore—refuges carved during the Godswars, where devotees of Cybele hid from celestial wrath. But this place felt older, darker. A sanctum not just for hiding, but for worship.
Her toe kicked a clay tablet half-buried in debris. She crouched, brushing off dust to reveal a bas-relief of Cybele enthroned, her hands cupping a sphere—not unlike the crystal now weighing down Astris's satchel.
"Clever," she murmured. The crystal was no mere scrying tool—it was a relic, a key.
A skittering sound echoed from a tunnel mouth. Astris spun, dagger raised, but saw only shadows. The grimoire's whispers grew urgent, its pages glowing faintly as she withdrew it. Runes flared—"Voidwell's Maw," "Pathwalking"— before settling on a sigil shaped like Cybele's crescent crown.
"Fine," she muttered, pressing the crystal to the grimoire's page. The orb ignited, casting jagged light down a narrow passage where the frescoes shifted: here, Cybele's priests led shackled figures into the depths. Here, the earth itself bled black ichor.
Astris followed the light, her pulse a drumbeat in her ears. The ruins deepened, the air growing colder, until she emerged into a circular chamber where a shaft of pale moonlight speared through a crack in the ceiling far above. Below it lay a dry well, its rim carved with serpents swallowing their own tails.
And there, nestled in the dust, a single fresh footprint.
"Not so abandoned after all," she whispered, tightening her grip on the dagger.
*****
The air in King Einar's study was thick with the cloying sweetness of honeyed candies and the sharp undertone of ink-stained parchment. Celestial motifs adorned the vaulted ceiling—constellations etched in gold leaf, their stars dimmed by centuries of candle soot. Einar leaned against his mahogany desk, silver hair glinting in the flicker of mana-lit chandeliers, his cerulean eyes sharp beneath a facade of geniality. A half-folded candy wrapper—a crane, its wings precise—sat beside a map of the Midnight Trench, its inky depths marked with crimson Xs.
Queen Nayeli perched on a chaise nearby, her petite frame swallowed by silk cushions embroidered with wolves. A sparrow flitted around her head, its movements unnervingly synchronized with hers—a flicker of her Vesselbond magic. She hummed a folk tune while sketching a garden labyrinth in her smudged notebook, though her storm-gray eyes never left Cassis.
"Wedding jitters," Einar drawled, popping a honeyed candy into his mouth. The crinkle of the wrapper echoed like a blade unsheathing. "Your mother's words, not mine. Though I must say, Princess, fleeing your own betrothal feast is… dramatic. Even for Celestaviel."
Cassis's wyvern bracelet hissed faintly, its bone links tightening around her wrist. She stood rigid in her riding leathers, dust from the Lower Ward still clinging to her boots. Zaiden, ever the statue beside her, flexed his scarred hand—a tell Cassis had learned meant he was weighing truths like dagger throws.
Nayeli giggled, twirling a lock of her flowing silver hair. "Oh, but the Midnight Trench raid! Such excitement! Tell me, dear, did you see the leviathans? I've always wanted a pet one. Imagine the fountains we could flood!" Her sparrow dive-bombed Einar's crane, scattering the candy wrapper.
Einar's smile didn't reach his eyes. "The contraband," he said, tapping the map. "Hybrid rifles. Celestaviel's sigil on the barrels, but dungeon ore in the alloy. Curious, no? Almost as curious as my son leading the raid that retrieved them."
Zaiden's jaw tightened. "The rifles are a threat to both kingdoms. I acted."
"Acted," Nayeli echoed, sketching a rose with thorns as long as daggers. "And yet, you neglected to mention this little adventure to us. Or to your betrothed." Her gaze slid to Cassis, the sparrow now pecking at a sapphire brooch on her gown—a trinket stolen from a long-dead diplomat.
Cassis stepped forward, the Spire's growl vibrating through the floor. "What exactly are you accusing us of, Your Majesties?"
Einar chuckled, twirling another candy wrapper into a star. "Accusations are so… inelegant. Let's call it concern. You vanish from a royal event, consort with Lower Ward riffraff, and intercept weapons that could ignite a war." He leaned in, the scent of burnt sugar clinging to his breath. "All while your dear brother Corin spreads rumors in my parliament about dungeon tariffs. Coincidence?"
Zaiden's Echohold scars flickered, a silent warning. Cassis touched her bracelet, the wyvern's teeth pricking her skin—steady. "The rifles were destined for Kaufmann's fleet. If you'd rather we let him arm pirates—"
"Oh, we're grateful," Nayeli interrupted, snapping her sketchbook shut. The sparrow froze mid-flight, then dropped lifelessly into her palm. She pocketed it, her smile saccharine. "But gratitude fades faster than perfume, darling. Especially when one's future queen and prince are… sneaking."
The unspoken threat hung like a chandelier chain—we know more than you think.
Zaiden met Einar's gaze. "What do you want?"
Nayeli clapped her hands, a child's delight lighting her face. "Transparency! A chat with your delightful spy-master, Cedric. And, perhaps, a double date—you, Cassis, Einar, and me! We'll picnic by the dam crypts. I'll bring dumplings!"
Einar's laugh was a velvet knife. "What she means is: Celestaviel's involvement complicates things. The cult of Cybele already whispers that this alliance is a farce." He nodded to Cassis's bracelet. "Your little stunt in the Lower Ward won't silence them."
Cassis stiffened. Stunt.
Zaiden's voice cut the tension. "The rifles are secured. The Trench is patrolled. What else?"
Nayeli sighed, twirling a dagger from her sleeve—a gift, Cassis recalled, from a spy who'd underestimated her. "The 'what else' is you, my dears. Parading through slums, dodging summons… It's tacky. And tackiness," she purred, plunging the dagger into the desk, "breeds mutiny."
Einar rose, his celestial aura dimming to a mortal's shadow. "Return to your duties. Smile at feasts. Stop poking Kaufmann's hives. Or next time," he added, plucking Nayeli's dagger free, "we'll let the cultists ask the questions."
As they were dismissed, Cassis glanced at Zaiden. His nod was imperceptible—play along.
But as the door shut, Nayeli's sparrow stirred in her pocket.
Somewhere in the palace, a clock struck the hour, its chimes drowned by the Spire's ever-present growl. The game had shifted.