That’s what it feels like. Like the palace itself is holding its breath. As if it already knows how this ends.
Beside her, Kael slows slightly.
“Tell me you’re thinking what I’m thinking,” he murmurs.
Elyssara exhales through her nose.
“That this is a trap?”
A beat passes.
Then Kael huffs a quiet laugh.
“Good,” he says. “Because if you were feeling confident right now, I’d be deeply concerned about your sense of judgment. We’d have to rethink the whole queen thing.”
Despite herself, Elyssara’s mouth twitches. Relieved, perhaps, that the fragment of Decay still lies quietly in wait.
They continue down the corridor.
A pair of towering bronze doors waits at the far end, their surfaces etched with spiraling patterns that catch the light.
No guards.
No locks.
Just… doors.
Elyssara’s skin prickles.
Maireth’s voice drifts through her memory like smoke.
Most people lose not because they fail to see, Elyssara. They lose because they mistake the rules of the game.
Her jaw tightens. Because right now, the rules of the game are entirely Maireth’s.
“I don’t like this,” she mutters.
Kael’s gaze sweeps the corridor again, stormlight eyes calculating every shadow.
“I hate it,” he corrects.
Another step.
Another.
Still no resistance.
Rhaema’s warning echoes in Elyssara’s mind.
Wherever you’re looking is exactly where she wants you to look. Wherever you’re not looking is exactly what she wants you to miss.
Her pulse begins to pound.
She knows she’s playing Maireth’s game. Knows she’s doing exactly what Maireth expects her to do, and that knowledge sits like curdled milk in her gut.
“Kael,” she says quietly.
“Mm.”
