I stepped through the doorway and left the palace behind.
Stone swallowed me whole. The stairs spiraled downward, narrow and slick, carved from bedrock older than the palace itself. Each step pulsed faintly beneath my feet, as if the mark on my wrist was answering something buried below.
The light faded.
And then the silence broke.
A soft voice echoed up from the dark:
"Took you long enough."
I froze. My breath caught.
The chamber opened at the stair's end vast and circular, lit by orbs of violet flame that hovered without chains. The walls were covered in inked sigils faded, cracked, some still glowing faintly. Tables lay scattered with broken vials, melted glass, and half-burned scrolls. The air buzzed with static and something bitter like lightning and regret.
And there at the far side of the room stood a figure.
Cloaked in black. Face veiled.
Not a guard. Not a court official. And definitely not the shadow I met before.
"Who are you?" I demanded, keeping my voice sharper than my fear.
The figure didn't move. Just cocked their head and said:
"You don't remember binding your soul to ink, do you?"
"That's how they erased you."
My pulse slammed. The mark on my wrist seared with light, casting shadows across the floor. The figure stepped forward, slowly, as if approaching a wild animal.
"I saw you before they sealed the lab. You screamed for three hours. No one came."
"Liar," I whispered. But part of me knew he wasn't.
The figure stopped at the edge of the glowing circle etched into the floor the same one from my vision.
"Open the rest," he said. "Or they'll keep using you without your consent. Again."
And then he vanished.
Not walked. Not ran.
Vanished.
I was alone again.
But not the same.
Because now I knew the truth wasn't buried.
It was waiting for me to read it.