RHEIN'S POINT OF VIEW
The realization sent a chill through me. Whatever was concealed here wasn't meant to be stumbled upon. It wasn't an accident or an oversight. It was buried deliberately, layered beneath stone and silence and normalcy.
We scanned the corridor more carefully this time.
At first glance, there was nothing out of place. The walls were seamless, smooth, uninterrupted by doors or markings. The floor was unbroken, the stone polished to a dull sheen. Even the air felt controlled, as though nothing unexpected was allowed to exist here.
But the presence didn't fade.
It pulsed faintly, in rhythm with something I couldn't hear.
"Help me look. Not with your eyes. With your senses."
Dylan nodded and closed his eyes briefly, extending his awareness outward—not through time, but through space. His brow furrowed as he concentrated.
"There's interference," he said after a moment. "Subtle. Not temporal. More like… suppression."
"Like someone tried to make this place forget itself," I said.
"Yes."
We separated slightly, careful not to stray too far, running our hands along the walls as we moved. I let my fingers trail across the cold stone, feeling for anything... an uneven surface, a shift in texture, a place where the palace hesitated.
At first, there was nothing.
Then my fingertips brushed against something that didn't feel like stone.
I froze.
Slowly, carefully, I retraced the motion.
There.
A section of the wall was just slightly warmer than the rest.
My heart began to race.
"Dylan," I whispered. "Here."
He was beside me in an instant. "You found something?"
"I think so."
I pressed my palm flat against the wall, closing my eyes again. The presence below us responded immediately, stronger now, like a held breath finally released. My mnarill stirred instinctively, light brushing against the surface beneath my hand.
The wall trembled.
Just barely.
Dylan sucked in a sharp breath. "That's not structural. That's a seal."
I swallowed. "Can you feel what's behind it?"
He shook his head slowly. "No. Whatever it is, it's shielded. Thoroughly."
Of course, it was.
I slid my fingers along the edge of the warmed section, feeling for seams, for breaks, for any hint of how it might open. There, just beneath my thumb, a faint groove, almost imperceptible.
A trigger.
"This isn't meant to be opened with force," I murmured. "It's meant to be recognized."
"Recognized by whom?" Dylan asked quietly.
I didn't answer.
Because the presence below pulsed again, unmistakably responding to me.
A knot formed in my stomach.
Whatever lay beneath the palace wasn't just hidden.
It was waiting.
And somehow, impossibly, it knew I was here.
The wall yielded a soundless shudder.
Stone slid aside not by force, but by surrender, folding inward as though it had been waiting centuries for permission to move. Cold air rushed out, carrying with it a scent: old metal, dried mnarill, or something faintly organic, like wilted leaves left too long in shadow.
The passage beyond sloped downward.
Each step we took felt heavier than the last, as if the palace itself were pressing against us, urging us to turn back. But the presence beneath my skin pulled forward, steady and insistent, guiding me deeper.
The corridor opened into a vast underground chamber.
I stopped breathing.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of capsules lined the circular room, embedded into the walls like veins frozen in stone. Inside each one floated a naked body.
Mnarillazas.
Their eyes were closed, faces pale, expressions caught somewhere between sleep and pain. Tubes coiled around them like translucent serpents, burrowed into their arms, their chests, their spines. The capsules glowed faintly, each pulsing with its own weak, uneven rhythm.
Above the chamber, suspended at its center, was a sphere of blinding light.
It hovered unnaturally still, a massive orb of condensed mnarill, rotating slowly, silently. From it extended countless tubes—thin, luminous conduits—each one connecting down into a capsule.
I felt sick.
My knees nearly gave out as the truth slammed into me all at once.
"It's a processing chamber," Dylan said, his voice tight.
The mnarill from the orb is being fed into the capsules. The bodies inside convulsed faintly, as though resisting what was being forced into them.
The imbalance was obvious even to me.
"The transfer rate…" Dylan murmured, stepping closer to one of the control sigils etched into the floor. His fingers hovered above it, not daring to touch. "It's unstable."
"How unstable?" I asked.
He swallowed. "Less than a third of the meithi mnarill is actually integrating."
My chest tightened. "Thirty percent?"
He nodded grimly. "At most. The rest dissipates. Burns out. Or…" His jaw clenched. "Damages the host."
My gaze drifted back to the suspended mnarillazas.
Some of them were children.
A sharp, furious ache tore through me.
The sphere above us flared suddenly, reacting to my rising emotions. The tubes glowed brighter, the chamber humming with strained energy, like a scream trapped just below hearing.
Dylan exhaled slowly, disbelief lacing his voice.
I knew he could sense the mnarill of his clan members and family.
"Is it even possible," he said, barely above a whisper, "to transfer magic from one mnarillaza to another?"
I stared at the chamber... the suffering, the failure, the arrogance carved into every stone.
My mnarill responded violently, surging against my chest, burning black and white beneath my skin.
"They thought it is," I said.
And somehow, deep down, I knew the cruelest truth of all.
It is possible.
I sighed.
After a moment of silence, I called Dylan's attention. "Try to break rules sometimes," I told him.
Dylan glanced at me, startled. "That's random. That doesn't sound like you."
My eyes were in the small sphere.
"Look around. See if anyone's watching."
He stiffened instantly, instinct kicking in. A few seconds passed, he gave me the signal, "All clear."
I smiled. Not because it was funny.
Because I know.
The Deorcanen Clan haven't proven it here yet. That mnarillcan be transferred, torn out, condensed, or repurposed. But it isn't permanent. It burns fast, like stolen breath. Once it's depleted, there's nothing left.
What is stolen always demands its due.
I raised my hand.
My mnarill surged outward. White light unfurled from my chest like roots snapping free of the earth.
The condensed meithi mnarill shuddered, then broke apart cleanly, folding inward as it detached from the network of tubes. The chamber screamed in silent backlash as the conduits dimmed, their glow fading one by one.
The orb shrank rapidly, compressing into something small enough to hold.
I caught it in my palm.
It was warm. Too warm. Like a living thing with a heartbeat that wasn't its own.
Dylan stared at me in horror. "Rhein, do you have any idea what you just—"
"Take it," I said, closing my fingers around the compact sphere and pressing it into his hands. "This will be enough. Use it to get us back to the present."
His eyes widened. "That's stolen mnarill."
"Yes and it will burn out, no matter how we keep it." My voice was steady. "But it'll last long enough to bring us back."
The chamber groaned around us, systems failing, sigils collapsing into dead stone. Somewhere far above, the palace shifted, as if uneasy with what we had just undone.
A ripple tore through the air behind us, sharp and cold. Space folded inward, and shadows spilled into the chamber like ink poured into water.
Fortunately, we're fast enough to hide ourselves behind one of the capsules.
"Well," a voice drawled smoothly, amused and cruel all at once, "this is… earlier than expected."
My blood ran cold.
From the rift stepped the leader of the Deorcanen Clan, his presence swallowing the light, bending it toward darkness. Behind him followed another figure - thin, sharp-eyed, etched with sigils and calculations. He seemed to be the man who had turned living mnarillazas into numbers.
The Deorcanen leader surveyed the chamber with satisfaction, eyes lingering on the damaged sphere and the dimmed capsules.
"Perfect timing," he continued. "Just in time for the beginning of our attack."
Dylan mouthed, "We must leave. Now."
I nodded.
Then I felt a familiar presence...
I saw her.
She stood just behind the two masterminds, half-swallowed by shadow. Her eyes were wide, frozen in disbelief, as if she had walked into something she was never meant to witness.
Audrey.