Chapter 35
With wand tips glowing, they pressed into the suffocating hallway.
The passage ended at a blank stretch of stone, with a wall that was smooth and unbroken, as if no door had ever been there.
Imani’s fingers brushed the rough rock. Her eyes focused on a spot no one else noticed, already convinced of what was hidden below.
I know this door, Imani reminded herself.
The others hung back, sensing the wards. Esa exhaled, a low, tight sound. “That’s Kiran’s work.”
Lore angled his head, studying the barrier. “Layered. Defensive. Meant to stop us in our tracks.”
“Or worse,” Esa added.
“It won’t stop us,” Imani whispered.
Esa arched a brow. “It might. You’ve seen what Kiran can do with this kind of magic.”
“Yes,” Imani said, her voice steady as she reached for the stone again. “I have.” She paused, then added louder, “And I’m still here.”
Imani lifted her hand, and shadows spilled from her skin.
Her focus narrowed onto the ward until everything else receded, and the shadows responded to that concentration, thinning into searching strands as they flowed over the stone.
She directed them into the seams with small movements of her fingers, keeping each strand separate as they probed for weaknesses in Kiran’s spellwork.
In her other hand, her wand shimmered with light and magic. She raised the Drasil, channeling its raw energy into the shadows to counter Kiran’s layered spells.
The wards flickered and pushed back instantly, but Imani maintained the pressure. She carefully directed the force into each layer, gradually dismantling the connections instead of ripping them apart.
Irritation stirred when the wards resisted, and several shadows thickened in response before she forced her attention back onto the individual layers.
Anger would give them more force, but less restraint, and ripping blindly through Kiran’s magic could trigger whatever protections he had buried beneath it.
One by one, the defenses collapsed. The magic receded into the stone, and the wall moved. A thin crack appeared along the center of the rock, exposing a plain door embedded seamlessly into the stone.
“This can’t be it,” Esa muttered.
“Trust me,” Imani said.
She gripped the knob, turned, and pulled. The hinges squealed as she confronted the narrow corridor beyond. Cobwebs clung to the upper corners and stretched across recesses no one had disturbed in years, but the center of the passage was clearer. Whatever moved through here stayed to the same path.
The others followed, panting behind her, but she didn’t turn. “It’s this way.”
Imani guided them farther in, stopping before a pair of ornate double doors that were surprisingly pristine.
The lack of age had nothing to do with recent care; everything she remembered of Zorah had survived with the same unnatural preservation.
Kiran’s wards were the newer evidence. He had been here recently enough to protect the entrance, but that did not mean he walked through the library itself.
More wards cloaked the library entrance, dense and syrupy.
Imani raised her hands, holding the Drasil, and cast once more.
Shadows flowed across the floor in slithering ribbons, winding up the carved wood and slipping into the locks.
The urgency beating through Imani threatened to send them spreading farther than she intended, but she kept her focus on the mechanisms beneath the wards.
The shadows obeyed that concentration, remaining confined to the locks while the Drasil broke through the magic protecting them.
A gust of stale wind blew her hair back.
Behind her, the group’s collective shoulders dropped.
They crept over the threshold into the massive main hall.
It yawned around them, a vast sweep of space, with shelves rising in tiered galleries that vanished into the gloom.
Esa slowed mid-step; Lore tipped his head back to take in the sheer height; and Meira stopped completely, her lips parted as she swept her eyes over the towering rows.
A profound silence fell over them, filled with awe and disbelief at how much of the city’s structure the mountain had spared when Zorah fell inside it during that catastrophic Fabric event thousands of years ago.
For Imani, the awe disappeared instantly.
She had been here before, and it was a barrier to overcome.
They had entered Zorah with less than an hour before their absence triggered a search.
Nearly fifteen minutes had already disappeared, breaking through Kiran’s wards and reaching the library.
That left them roughly forty minutes to find Saevel, free him, and get back aboveground before anyone noticed they were missing.
The group fanned out, moving swiftly between the towering shelves.
Esa and Lore peeled off into adjoining study rooms while Meira pushed toward the archives, scanning doorways and corners for signs of recent use.
Imani took the center path, tracking their progress, but every room provided the same answer: empty.
A thin veil of dust coated the tables, unbroken except where their boots disturbed the floor near the entrance.
No older footprints lay between the shelves, no chairs had been moved, and no sign suggested anyone had crossed the library in recent memory.
That ruled out the route Imani had expected.
If Kiran or his guards were coming here regularly, they were doing it another way.
Nearby, a preserved map caught Imani’s attention.
She picked it up and studied it. The parchment mapped the Under in dense, unfamiliar detail.
It showed territories, routes, and boundaries Imani had never seen recorded aboveground, with several regions marked in symbols she could not immediately decipher.
She had no idea why someone had left such a map in Zorah’s library, but anything that charted the realm beneath them was too valuable to abandon.
She folded it carefully and slipped it into her pocket, then continued the search.
There would be time to examine it later, when surviving Kiran mattered less than understanding the realm her father came from.
The last room offered nothing. No trace of Saevel remained.
Then, Meira stopped abruptly near a window. Her hand clamped hard over her chest, her breath hitching.
“He’s here,” she gasped, her gaze fixed past the glass and into the dark expanse beyond. “But not in the library.” She stepped closer to the pane, her focus locking outward. “He’s in the city.”
Imani estimated the time again. They had burned several more minutes searching the library, leaving little more than half an hour to free him and retrace the entire route before the parley began.
Esa and Lore exchanged a knowing glance. The uncertainty instantly drained from the room. On instinct, Imani checked the bond, reached for Kiran, and found only distance. Without hesitation, she pivoted toward the exit.
Outside, the library vanished as Zorah’s vast expanse unfolded.
The city’s immense scale made Meira’s jaw drop and Esa’s hand go to her mouth.
Towering stone buildings stood in commanding formations, with smooth walls and dark, intact windows.
Broad avenues stretched out, perfectly free of debris or destruction.
No sound carried. No life stirred. It was perfectly preserved, held in eternal stasis, waiting for someone to claim it.
They spread out along the main road, adjusting their spacing to make up for the lack of cover. Branching alleys passed by rows of empty homes. Doors hung open, exposing interiors untouched—tables set, objects in place. The scene felt paused.
Meira’s pace quickened. Her path was no longer a search but a pursuit, guided by a pull only she sensed. Imani let her lead, letting the bond carry them faster than any plan would.
Signs of recent passage appeared only once they left the library district. Dust had been disturbed along one edge of the avenue, and several sets of boot prints overlapped in the same direction. Near the palace, the marks became clearer: regular traffic, always following the same route.
Imani frowned as she followed them. Whoever tended Saevel was not coming through the library at all. They must have had another entrance into Zorah and a direct path inside.
At the end of the avenue, the central palace loomed, larger than the one aboveground.
Refined stonework conveyed a quiet, undeniable authority that the mountain’s weight had never diminished.
Imani recognized it instantly: the original seat of joint rule, where both monarchs had once governed Essenheim.
Pale stone rose in perfect lines, capped by tall turrets of dark rock that drew the eye upward.
It had sat untouched for ten thousand years, yet nothing had degraded. Its pristine perfection hit Imani like a punch to the chest.
Their pace slowed as they drew nearer, feeling the structure’s immense weight and size bear down on them.
“He’s inside,” Meira said, her voice certain.
Imani’s stomach dropped as she judged how much time remained. Twenty minutes, perhaps less. The return through the palace, city, library, and royal vaults would consume most of that even if nothing else went wrong. Whatever waited behind this door had to be Saevel. She prayed her sister was right.
The massive doors swung open with a deep groan, revealing a grand expanse of space that seemed to stretch into eternity.
The ceilings were a tapestry of intricate arches and soaring vaults, the craftsmanship of a long-lost era.
Every column, every arch, every detail was in perfect condition, as if time itself had stood still within these walls.
The group moved along the sightlines, guided by the magnetic pull of the core of the building, the beating heart of a forgotten kingdom.
Meira practically vibrated with urgency. Her hand flew to her chest again, her breaths short and shallow as the pull intensified.
The corridors shrank and merged into a single straight path, leaving no room for detours. The air thickened as the space contracted, culminating at a sealed door at the end of the hall.
Esa lifted a hand, stopping them short.
Thick, overlapping bands of wards extended outward, blending ancient magic with recent, potent spells. Power flowed through the stone.
Kiran, Imani thought. Her heart fluttered at the thought of him being here, and the shadows reacted before she consciously called them back, pooling thicker around her feet.
Imani drew in a breath and fixed her attention on the damaged wards.
The shadows were always available to her; the danger came when emotion started directing them before judgment could.
She forced the anticipation surrounding Kiran into a single purpose, and the dark mass constricted into controlled strands.
Pushing those shadows into the fissures Esa and Lore had opened, her Drasil advanced with them, its raw strength breaking apart more layered barriers one by one.
Esa attacked the outer layer first, and Lore moved with her before she gave him any instruction. Her wand struck one seam while his magic landed against the adjoining point at almost the same instant, the two spells meeting exactly where the ward was weakest.
A violent pulse rebounded from the stone. Lore caught Esa by the forearm and pulled her half a step toward him before the magic could strike her full in the chest. Her shoulder hit his, and for a moment neither moved away.
“I had it,” Esa muttered.
“You did not.”
She looked up at him, annoyance flashing across her face. “You seem very invested in whether I get myself killed.”
Lore’s hand remained around her arm a fraction longer than necessary. “Someone has to be.”
Esa’s mouth parted, whatever reply she had prepared disappearing before it reached her tongue. Then she pulled free and turned back toward the wards.
“Left seam,” she said.
Lore was already aiming there.
Her Drasil advanced, its raw strength breaking apart the layered barriers one by one. Resistance escalated to a scream, the last layer straining and finally breaking under pressure.
Kiran’s magic collapsed.
Imani pushed the doors open. They swung open to reveal a throne room.
Does he want us to find whatever was here?
She didn’t know, but the question made her scalp prickle.