Before ascending the stairs, Selene paused.

  The Wild Fire had obeyed her, pulled from blood-memory, shaped by will. The veil had adapted to Aldric's form without instruction. Both responded to something deeper.

  “If the blood remembers… the fiber must, too,” Selene thought.

  She looked down at Aldric’s coat, unmistakably scholarly. It wouldn’t work; she needed to look like the Baron’s men: rough leather over coarse wool, smelling of sweat.

  Closing her eyes, she didn’t command the fabric. She didn’t beg. Instead, she reached for that cold, liquid sensation in her veins.

  Not a scholar, she projected, recalling the friction of cheap tunics, the stiffness of cured hide. A soldier.

  She gripped the lapel. Change.

  Nothing happened. The dark green wool remained stubbornly distinct.

  Selene’s lips pressed thin. She broke the mental connection, frustrated. Trying to force veil like a locked door wouldn’t work. It wasn’t a tool; it was a parasite that lived off memory.

  She exhaled, centering herself. She stopped thinking about the clothes and thought about the life of the man who wore them. Long hours standing guard. The itch of wool on the neck. The anonymity of a uniform.

  Show me what I need. The thought rang clear and sharp.

  The fabric rippled under her fingertips.

  It moved like water catching a new current, flowing, reshaping, darkening. The fine scholarly weave dissolved, knitting itself into a rougher, looser grain. Gold trim tarnished and faded into plain iron buckles. The cut shifted, broadening at the shoulders, losing the tailored elegance of the Athenaeum for the crude utility of the barracks.

  When she opened her eyes, she was wearing a soldier's tunic. Stained. Worn. Perfect.

  A laugh burst from her throat. She turned her hands over, watching the rough leather gloves flex with Aldric’s fingers.

  “I did it,” she whispered.

  She smoothed the coarse wool, feeling the alien weight of the fabric. It felt real. Solid.

  Her hand moved instinctively to the pocket watch resting beneath the transformed illusion, tick-tick, tick-tick. Still there.

  A spear leaned against the corridor wall, propped carelessly beside an overturned stool. She took the weapon, testing its balance.

  She climbed the narrow stairs, the air growing warmer with every step.

  At the top, she pushed a heavy wooden door ajar and stepped into a corridor.

  Plain floors, whitewashed walls. A woman knelt near the far end, scrubbing the wood with methodical, angry strokes. She wore a patched dress and the weary set of shoulders that belonged to someone who had scrubbed this floor a thousand times.

  She glanced up as Selene emerged, eyes sliding over the tunic without a flicker of recognition.

  Selene fell into a casual stride, the spear’s butt-cap tapping a rhythmic click-clack against the floorboards.

  The woman didn't look up again.

  “Heh… oi,” Selene said, pitching Aldric’s voice into a rougher, flatter cadence. “Where’d they take the prisoner?”

  The servant didn’t pause. "I ain't goin' to no inn with ya," she said to the floor. "So don't bother askin'."

  Selene gained a step, blinking. "What? No, I'm not—"

  "Good. 'Cause I got work." The woman sat back on her heels, finally looking up with eyes hard as flint. She wiped a line of sweat from her forehead.

  "I need to know about the prisoner," Selene pressed, leaning on the spear. "Where they took her."

  The servant’s eyes narrowed, shifting from weary to guarded. "Prisoner? Don't know nothin' 'bout no prisoner."

  She returned to scrubbing, the brush moving in tight, aggressive circles.

  Selene shifted her grip. "There was noise," Selene said, letting a note of impatience bleed into the rough voice. "Heard it. Thought maybe—"

  "Noise, yeah." The woman cut her off. "Plenty of that from the dinin' hall this mornin'. Shoutin'. Crashes. Don't know what about, don't want to know neither."

  Selene forced her features to remain neutral. "Right," she said slowly, scratching the back of her head. "The dining hall. That's... which way again?"

  The servant stopped scrubbing. She looked up, her expression shifting from suspicion to pure, exhausted disbelief.

  "You serious right now?"

  Selene offered a sheepish shrug.

  The woman sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of her life. "Two corridors down, turn left at the portrait of the first Baron—big ugly one, can't miss it—then straight through the double doors. You'll hear 'em soon enough."

  She dipped her brush back into the bucket, muttering, "Swear to the architect, Baron hires 'em for the muscle 'cause there sure ain't no brains included..."

  "Thank you," Selene said.

  She walked past, the spear resuming its steady tap against the floor. Behind her, the servant’s muttering faded into the background, complaints about mud, men, and the unfairness of existence.

  Selene focused ahead.

  She followed the directions, passing the stern, oil-painted gaze of the first Baron Arvane. Two corridors. Left turn.

  Ahead, tall double doors of dark wood loomed, brass handles gleaming in the sconce-light. Through the gap beneath the frame, a golden glow spilled out onto the floorboards.

  And voices.

  Not the murmur of a meal, but the sharp, jagged rhythm of an interrogation.

  Selis was beyond those doors.

  Selene tightened her grip on the spear . She adjusted the lie of the tunic, took a breath to steady the pounding of a heart that wasn't hers, and kept walking.

  Selene stopped before the double doors, her hand hovering near the brass handle.

  Voices carried through the gap. She pressed her ear against the wood, listening.

  “—still don't understand why you won't just tell me what you found.” Dalen's voice was edged with frustration.

  A pause. Then Selis, calm and measured. “I've already explained, Captain. The chamber was remarkable in its construction, yes. The architecture alone suggests—”

  “I don’t care about bloody architecture.” A chair scraped violently against the floorboards. “The journal mentions four people entering that vault. Everything after is ash. You were one of them, …Selis. Everyone died except you two.”

  Through the gap beneath the doors, Selene heard a sound. Drip. Drip. Drip.

  “What kind of sickness makes a person weep blood?” Dalen’s tone shifted—genuinely disturbed now. “And what happened to your shoulders? Your coat's torn to ribbons at the back. Those look like claw marks.” A heavy pause. “What did you find down there?”

  “I don't know what you want me to say.” Selis's voice remained steady, but there was a tremor beneath it now. Strain. Exhaustion. “The chamber existed. We documented it. That's all.”

  “That's all?” A bitter laugh. “The entire camp burns. Everyone dead. And you expect me to believe it was just... what? Bad luck? An accident?”

  “I expect you to believe what the evidence shows.”

  “The evidence shows you're lying.”

  “Look,” Dalen said, touching the pommel of his sword, his tone shifting again—softer. “I can help you. Get you out of this mess. The Baron wants someone to blame, and right now, he’s got two survivors sitting in his dungeon.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  A pause. The sound of him moving closer.

  “But if you help me understand what happened—give me something real, something I can use—I can make sure all this falls on the other one. The scholar downstairs. You walk away clean. Back to your precious Athenaeum. Back to your life.”

  Silence from Selis.

  “Or,” Dalen continued, voice hardening into stone, “you keep lying to me, and when the Baron asks who's responsible, I tell him it was both of you. Your choice.”

  Another silence—longer this time, heavy with tension.

  Selene pulled back from the door slightly, her mind racing.

  She glanced down the corridor. It was empty for now, but that could change at any moment. The morning watch would discover her escape soon. Bent bars. Empty cell. The alarm would spread through the manor like a fire. Wait—fire?

  Wildfire.

  The thought came suddenly, reckless and seductive.

  She looked at her hands, Aldric’s hands, and remembered the flames dancing across them in the dungeon—the way the fire had obeyed, bent to her will through blood-memory. She closed her eyes, reaching again for that blood-sense, the memory of fire, of heat willed into existence. Her heartbeat quickened, and with it, that familiar singing in her veins.

  She opened her eyes and looked at her palms.

  Burn.

  Flames erupted from her hands.

  Not the gentle, dancing fire from the dungeon. Not controlled. Not small.

  A torrent of wild flame—violet bleeding into searing green, then flashing white-hot—burst forth like a dragon’s breath. It roared down the corridor, consuming everything in its path. The whitewashed walls blackened instantly. The wooden floor ignited. The portrait of the first Baron vanished in a sheet of fire, the ornate frame cracking and spitting embers.

  “Wait—no—no!” Selene stumbled backward, trying to pull the flames back, but they spread hungrily along the walls, climbing toward the ceiling with a deafening roar.

  Inside the dining hall, movement.

  “What in the—” Dalen’s voice cut through the noise, sharp with alarm.

  Selene didn’t think. She grabbed the brass handle and burst through the doors.

  “Captain! Fire!” she shouted, Aldric’s voice cracking with genuine panic. “Fire in the corridor—we need to—!”

  The dining hall stretched before her, a long polished table, tall windows letting in morning light, and candlesticks still burning from the night. And there, near the far end, Selis sat bound to a chair, blood streaming down her face, crimson tears dripping onto her silver-gray coat.

  Dalen was already moving, his scarred face tight with urgency. The smell of smoke grew stronger, and orange light flickered menacingly through the open door.

  “Stay here with her!” he barked, already heading for the exit. “If things get out of hand, get her to safety. Don't let her burn!”

  He pushed past Selene and disappeared into the smoke-filled corridor, shouting for water, for men, for someone to wake the bloody Baron.

  The door slammed shut behind him.

  Silence returned, heavy but hot.

  Selis looked up, blood still streaming from her bright eyes. For a long moment, she just stared at the figure in the soldier's uniform.

  Then, quietly: “Selene.”

  Not a question. A certainty.

  Selene's throat tightened. “Selis, I—”

  “You came for me.” Selis's voice was soft, reverent. Blood dripped from her chin as she spoke. “My god came for me.”

  “Don't—” Selene moved closer, kneeling beside the chair and fumbling with the ropes. “Don't call me that. I'm not—”

  “You are.” Selis reached out with trembling hands, as if to touch her face, then stopped, unworthy. “I'm not worthy. Not worthy for you to risk this—”

  “Stop it.” Selene grabbed her hand, feeling the shock of warm skin and the sticky wetness of blood. “I'm not leaving you here.”

  She cut the last knot and pulled Selis to her feet, gripping her hand tightly.

  “I think I know a way out,” Selene said. “Back through the dungeon. There's a passage. But we have to move. Now.”

  Selis nodded, looking at Selene with that terrible, unwavering devotion.

  They moved toward the door together.

  Selene kicked it open.

  Outside, the corridor was an inferno. Flames climbed the walls, consuming everything. Smoke billowed in thick clouds, making it nearly impossible to see. The heat hit them like a physical blow.

  “What have I done?” Selene thought. There was no way back to the dungeon. No other path.

  Selene raised her hands, feeling the Wild Fire pulse through the blood-memory.

  The flames responded.

  They parted like curtains of living light—flames peeling back from an invisible center line, creating a tunnel of clear air while the inferno raged on either side.

  “Stay close,” Selene said, gripping Selis’s hand tighter.

  They ran.

  Fire roared around them, a living tunnel of violet, green, and white. The heat pressed close, the smoke thick enough to taste, but the flames didn’t touch them. The path held.

  They burst past the spot where the servant had been scrubbing. The woman was now on her feet, staring wide-eyed at the inferno consuming the corridor, her bucket of soapy water clutched uselessly in her hands.

  She looked at Selene as they ran past—at the “soldier” sprinting through parted flames with a blood-weeping woman in tow—and her expression shifted from terror to weary resignation.

  “Told ya,” she muttered, gesturing vaguely at the chaos with her scrub brush. “Dumb as bloody posts, the lot of ya.”

  She hefted her bucket. “Might need this water over there, I reckon.”

  And she turned toward the flames with the same determination she’d shown scrubbing the floor.

  Behind them, Dalen’s voice shouted orders. Men scrambled with buckets. The manor descended into chaos.

  But Selene and Selis kept running, through the burning corridor, down the stairs toward the dungeon.

  The dungeon corridor stretched before them. Selene led the way, Selis’s hand still gripped tightly in hers, moving past the empty cells toward the corridor’s end.

  Past her own cell, iron bars still glowing faintly from the heat she’d used to bend them.

  The pull grew stronger with each step.

  It wasn’t a sound or a voice. It was a pressure in her veins, her heart pounding faster. When she faced the solid stone at the end of the hall, the blood in her body settled, calm and expectant.

  This way.

  The corridor ended in a dead end of rough-cut stone. But between the rocks, the mortar had turned to dust, leaving eager black gaps.

  "Here," she said, releasing Selis's hand.

  She raised her free hand. She didn’t need to force the memory this time; the fire was waiting. Flames licked across her palm, casting twisting, sickly shadows against the rock.

  With her other hand, she gripped the spear and jammed its tip into one of the larger gaps.

  “This better work,” she said.

  She pulled. Hard.

  The spear shaft groaned. Aldric’s muscles tensed, but the leverage felt wrong; his center of gravity was too high, his shoulders broader than she was used to. She adjusted her stance, gritted her teeth, and hauled back.

  Crack.

  A heavy stone shifted, grinding against its neighbor. Then it tumbled free, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.

  Dust billowed, thick and dry. Selene didn't wait. She jammed the spear in again. Another stone fell. Then another.

  The gap was wide enough now.

  She held up her burning hand, peering into the void beyond.

  It wasn't just a crawlspace. It was a passage violently carved through the hill's roots. Natural stone pressed close, turning into a throat of rock.

  "Come on," she said, glancing back.

  Selis nodded. The blood tears hadn’t stopped; they slicked her chin and dripped onto her clothes, but she didn’t seem to notice. She wiped her face with a casual motion and followed.

  They squeezed through the gap.

  The air on the other side was different, stagnant, cold, and smelling of something dry. Like old paper and dead earth. Selene’s flame pushed back the dark, revealing walls that transitioned from rough cave to worked stone.

  The rhythm in Selene’s blood spiked. Faster.

  They walked in silence, the only sound the scuff of their boots. The passage widened, the ceiling vaulting upward into shadow.

  Then the first carving appeared.

  Selene paused, lifting the flame.

  A relief was cut into the wall, geometric, impossibly precise. Interlocking circles and angular lines that seemed to suggest movement even in stone.

  "Remarkable," Selis whispered.

  Selene looked back. Selis was staring at the wall with a mix of academic hunger and religious awe. Her fingers, stained with her own blood, reached out to trace the groove of the carving.

  "This style..." Selis murmured, her voice steady but breathless. "It matches the main site."

  She turned to Selene, her eyes bright and wet with red. "Professor Halvern had a hypothesis. He thought the ruins weren't separate sites. He thought they were limbs of a single body." She gestured down the dark tunnel. "If this connects the Manor hill to the Veilspine base... he was right. The city is sitting on top of a single, massive complex."

  Selene felt a chill that had nothing to do with the damp air. If the ruins were this vast, what purpose did they serve?

  "We keep moving," Selene said, though she felt the weight of the stone pressing down on her.

  They pressed on. The architecture grew grander. Carved panels depicted faceless figures observing stars that didn't match the current sky. The floor smoothed into seamless flagstones.

  Then the passage ended.

  They stepped out onto a ledge, and the world dropped away.

  Selene’s breath hitched. Her flame was a speck of light against a cavern so vast it swallowed the darkness. This wasn't a cave; it was a cathedral of the earth.

  Massive stone temples rose from the cavern floor below, arranged in concentric rings. Thousands of columns, stepped pyramids, and triangular pediments stood in silent defiance of the crushing weight of the earth above. Some were intact; others were collapsed, spilling rubble like broken bones.

  And covering everything, the floor, the steps, the temple roofs, was a thick gray carpet.

  It looked like snow.

  Selene squinted, lowering the flame to see better. The gray drifts weren’t uniform. They had texture. Shapes.

  Here, the curve of a ribcage. There, a femur crumbling into powder.

  It wasn't soil. It was ash. And the ash was people.

  Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. A city of dead, ground down by time until they were nothing but a gray sea surrounding the silent temples.

  "So many of them.." Selis whispered. The sound echoed too loudly in the silence. "Is this... is this where they went?"

  “This looks like a graveyard,” Selene said, her voice grim.

  The thought cut through her horror. Her attention snapped to the far side of the cavern.

  A glint of black movement. A river—swift, deep, and silent—cut through the necropolis, emerging from one dark tunnel and vanishing into another.

  The tide in her blood surged toward it.

  “There,” she whispered, pointing. “The river. That’s the way out.”

  Clack.

  The sound was sharp as a gunshot. A boot striking stone.

  Selene snuffed her flame instantly. Darkness slammed down on them, absolute and suffocating. She grabbed Selis’s arm, pulling her back against the rock face.

  Below them, light flared.

  Torches. Three, four, five of them. They were moving through the ruins below, winding between the temples and the drifts of ash.

  Voices drifted up, amplified by the acoustics.

  "—wasting our time," a man’s voice echoed, tight with frustration. "Months we've been down here. It’s just bones and dust."

  "The Circle doesn't care for opinions," a second voice cut in. Detached. Authoritative. "We have to find the crown."

  "We've cleared the southern sectors," a third voice argued. "If it was here, we would have found it. The text says 'where thousands fell,' right? Well, look around. They fell everywhere."

  Selene froze. The Circle?

  “The Luminars believe the connection is structural,” the leader said. “Check the ground floor; that crown could be beneath the ash. And be careful with it—breathing too much of it rots the lungs.”

  Selene pressed herself flat against the cold stone, shielding Selis. The Luminars—Eldric’s colleagues—had people down here, scouring around for something. A crown?

  “What about the smoke?” the first man asked. “I smell burning. Coming from the upper vents.”

  “That useless Fuck probably knocked over another candelabra into the curtains,” the leader sneered. “Fat bastard can’t even sit at a table without setting his own house ablaze. Ignore it.”

  “And if we find nothing?”

  “Then we dig deeper. You know the price of failure.” A pause. “Or would you rather explain to them that you let the Baron’s incompetence distract you?”

  Selene felt Selis trembling against her side.

  “Let’s move,” the leader commanded. “Northern quadrant. And spread out.”

  The torches began to separate, moving away from the river, sweeping toward the far side of the massive chamber.

  Selene leaned close to Selis’s ear, her lips barely brushing the terrifyingly familiar hair.

  "They're moving away," she breathed, barely voicing the words. "We need to reach the water before they turn back."

  Selis nodded. In the gloom, her eyes glowing with a faint, wet luminescence.

  Moving like shadows, they crept down the ancient stairs, stepping over the dust of the forgotten dead, toward the black water that promised escape.