“If this is a trap?—”
“Oh, it definitely is.”
Elyssara stops walking.
“So why are we still fucking going?”
Kael turns toward her then, the obsidian mask catching the lanternlight as a slow grin curls at the edge of his mouth.
“Because,” he says dryly, “if Maireth wanted us dead, we’d already be corpses. And what are our other options, El? Wait and try to infiltrate the palace another time with hundreds of guards patrolling every inch of this place? We’re inside. We’re here.”
His eyes flick toward the bronze doors waiting at the end of the hall.
He’s not wrong. With the sheer numbers in Maireth’s guard, the advanced nature of their weapons… they’re never getting back in.
Elyssara doesn’t nod exactly, but she hums a noncommittal noise.
“She also doesn’t know we have the amulets. Seren. A way out,” he adds.
She nods then, more confidence finding its way to her chest. “She doesn’t want us dead. So we just need to shatter the Orbs, and leave through the Gateway,” she repeats, trying to convince herself.
Kael’s mouth kicks up into a smirk. “Exactly. And whatever game she’s playing…” his voice lowers, “…we’re about to find out which pieces we are.”
Elyssara looks at the doors. At the silence surrounding them. At the path that feels far too simple. At the invitation that could restore her kingdom or just as easily become a short path to her grave.
Perception is such a fragile thing.
Her stomach drops.
“Fucking Stars,” she mutters.
Kael follows her gaze.
“Yeah,” he says.
Then, after a beat?—
“We are absolutely fucked.”
And together they push the doors open.
The bronze doors swing inward with a slow groan of metal.
Cool air spills out to meet them.
Not the warm, perfumed air of the ballroom above—older. Still. Untouched by music or lanternlight.
Elyssara steps across the threshold first. The doors close behind them with a heavy, echoing thud—a reminder that they are inside the trap. Not entering it. Sealing it.
She flinches despite herself.
The corridor beyond is narrower than the halls above. The polished gold splendor of the palace has vanished here, replaced by bare stone walls veined with iron bands that run the length of the passage like the ribs of a giant beast.
Lanterns hang at wider intervals now, their light dimmer, the shadows deeper.
It smells faintly of blood and mildew, and Elyssara fights the urge to think of Kryntar. Of Vessira. Of Maldrak. Of her mother. Of that godsdamned blade of nightmares.
“Stay here with me, El,” Kael murmurs, noticing the way her muscles clench.
