Kael tugs once on Elyssara’s wrist.
“Now,” he murmurs.
And this time, she goes.
She doesn’t hesitate.
The sword dancers’ clashing blades draw every eye in the hall.
Under the cover of the performance, Kael guides her through the shifting crowd toward the shadowed corridor beyond the ballroom.
Elyssara glances back once.
Across the hall, Maireth still stands exactly where she was before. Watching. The queen’s neutral face has not changed.
And Elyssara finally understands.
She had not been tested.
She had been shown: the rules of the game.
And who wrote them.
And she suspects Maireth is the kind of woman who changes the rules midway through the game simply to prove she can.
For the first time since leaving Virellin, Elyssara understands what it feels like to be completely outmatched without a single blade being drawn.
Everything here is an illusion.
And illusions only work when people desperately want to believe them.
Kael’s grip tightens slightly as they slip into the darkness beyond the hall.
“Come on,” he whispers.
“We have Orbs to find.”
One chance to shatter them—and return history to Dravara.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The hunter stalks with patient tread
Beware the trap that hunts instead
The corridorbeyond the grand hall is almost… empty. Elyssara notices it immediately. No guards. No courtiers drifting drunkenly between rooms. No servants hurrying between lanternlit alcoves. Just silence.
Their footsteps echo softly against polished floors as Kael leads them deeper into the palace, the music from the ballroom fading behind them until it becomes nothing more than a distant pulse of drums.
Too easy.
The thought coils through Elyssara’s stomach like a tightening knot.
Azhareth is a fortress. A monument to control. A kingdom built on precision and domination. And yet the path to the vaults lies open before them like a godsdamned invitation. Elyssara has spent her whole life clawing for scraps of survival. Nothing valuable has ever been this easy to reach.
Her gaze flicks to the high ceilings, the carved beams, the shadowed corners where lanternlight fails to reach.
Waiting.
