Chapter 34: The Grand Duke Enters the Lower Vault (1)

The door opened with darkness waiting beyond it.

And for the first time since arriving in the Capital, I felt the faintest sensation that I was not the only one watching.

Hah. How very impolite.

I stared at the open doorway with a pleasant expression, because if one must walk into an ancient vault possibly containing forbidden historical records, misfiled relics, royal secrets, and whatever dreadful thing that had the audacity to stare back from the dark, then one must do it with elegance.

Fear was understandable. Showing it was amateur work.

And I certainly am no amateur.

The corridor beyond the door did not resemble the polished halls above. The walls were older, carved from dark gray stone that carried faint veins of gold beneath the surface.

They were not decorative gilding. They were natural veins that threaded through the rock like trapped sunlight, dimly glowing where the runes touched them.

The air that spilled out was cold, not winter-cold. That would have unpleasantly reminded me of Boleoti and its tendency to make humans willingly live in ice like stubborn preserved meat.

No, this cold was dry, weighty, and old enough to feel as if it had forgotten warmth existed.

Abi stood beside me, unusually quiet.

That alone was enough to make any sensible person reconsider entering.

Unfortunately, I had never claimed to be sensible in matters concerning old things.

Empress Lyrien stepped forward first, calm and composed beneath the blue-white lamps.

Lord Keeper Marcellus followed half a step behind her, one hand resting lightly over the serpent key hanging from his neck.

The Crown Prince walked after them, his expression controlled but his shoulders a touch too stiff.

I don’t think he was afraid.

Rather, he looked like a man who had finally been allowed to see a room everyone had been whispering about behind his back.

That was not fear. That was offense ripening into resolve.

Quite a good flavor.

I stepped in after him, with Abi trailing at my side.

The moment we crossed the threshold, the runes along the wall brightened. The door closed behind us with a low groan that sounded far too dramatic for stone. I glanced back once.

No visible handle on the inside.

How charming.

A sealed lower vault, an empress, a prince, a keeper with suspiciously smooth speech, a Jinn who had decided silence was appropriate, and myself.

A fine beginning to either a historical discovery or a future murder investigation.

Possibly both.

"Do not worry, Your Excellency," Marcellus said, as if sensing my glance. "The vault can be opened from within by authorized personnel."

"How reassuring."

"Naturally, safety is of the utmost importance."

"Indeed. Especially when one is locked underground with history."

The Crown Prince’s mouth twitched.

The empress did not react, but her eyes briefly moved toward me. She had sharp eyes, this woman. Not the loud ones or the sort that looked sharp because the owner wished to be feared.

Hers were quieter and precise. The kind of eyes that measured a person and filed the result away without seeking permission.

No wonder the Crown Prince had learned unnatural caution.

He grew up beneath that kind of gaze.

The passage sloped downward. Slowly at first, then steeply enough that the cold deepened around us. The golden veins in the walls became thicker, twisting beneath the stone like roots. Every few steps, preservation arrays glowed faintly, layered over older markings that did not belong to modern Yarina.

I recognized some of the as early imperial.

Others were much, much older.

Ancient Paravel, yes, but not the formal script used in court tablets. This was rougher, more primal, and closer to invocation than record-keeping. Several characters looked incomplete, as if the hands that carved them feared finishing the words.

How melodramatic and fascinating.

I slowed near one wall. Abi stopped with me.

The empress noticed, of course. "Does something interest you, Your Excellency?"

"Many things interest me, Your Majesty. This, unfortunately, is one of them."

I lifted a hand but did not touch the carving.

The words were damaged. Intentionally, perhaps. Scratched lines broke across several symbols, but enough remained for me to identify a repeated phrase.

Do not call beneath the sealed dawn.

I frowned.

Sealed dawn.

Now that was new.

"Can you read it?" the Crown Prince asked quietly.

"Parts of it."

"And?"

I looked at him.

He looked back.

This kid was too obvious with his curiosity.

Impatient and unwise enough to ask in front of his mother and the keeper.

It was so inconvenient to have a pig teammate.

"It is a warning," I said.

Marcellus spoke smoothly. "Most old vault inscriptions are. Ancient builders had an unfortunate habit of dramatizing their storage spaces."

I turned toward him with a smile.

"Do you often dismiss things you cannot read, Lord Keeper?"

A pause.

The Crown Prince looked away, but not before I saw the faint amusement in his eyes.

Abi coughed. Suspicious creature that he is.

Marcellus bowed his head slightly. "Not dismiss, Your Excellency. I prefer to contextualize."

"Ah. A sophisticated word for filing danger under the guise of inconvenience."

The empress finally smiled. It was small, but it existed.

"House Konstantin remains direct, I see."

"My mother did her best to make me polite, Your Majesty. Directness survived as an unfortunate defect."

"How fortunate for us."

Was that praise?

No. With women like her, praise and warning often shared a wardrobe.

We continued downward.

The passage eventually opened into a circular chamber surrounded by several sealed alcoves.

Each alcove had a different crest, some imperial, some noble, others so worn that they had become little more than ghosts of authority.

At the center of the chamber stood a round stone table etched with a massive array.

Above it, suspended without visible support, floated a pale crystal lamp filled with silver-blue light.

It definitely was not a decorative lamp.

It was a stabilizer.

The array beneath it pulsed in time with the light, slow and steady, like a sleeping heart.

Abi’s gaze fixed on it. His face changed.

Not much, but enough for me to notice.

I had known him for a short time, but his usual expressions were already unfortunately familiar to me.

Be it amusement, irritation, delight, false innocence, or unbearable curiosity. It was easy to those from him, surprisingly.

But this was none of those.

This was recognition and rage.

The sort that did not make one smile.

"What is that?" I asked.

Marcellus answered. "A preservation core. It stabilizes the lower vault and maintains the containment conditions necessary for fragile relics."

Lie.

Not entirely, perhaps, but enough that the scent of it reached me.

A preservation core would not require invocations carved into old rune stones. It would not feel like a pulse. It would not make the ring on my hand colder.

And it would certainly not make Abi stare as if he were looking at a grave that has been desecrated and wanted to smite those that have done it but was unable to.

"How old?" I asked.

Marcellus hesitated.

The empress answered instead. "Older than our empire."

Oh? At least someone in this palace still respected facts.

"I see. Then it is not imperial."

"No," she said. "It was here before the palace was built."

Hmm. That was a rather large admission.

The Crown Prince turned toward his mother.

"Before?"

She looked at him. "Yes."

His expression remained calm, but the silence beneath it was sharp tinged with a falsj of pain.

Apparently, he had not been told.

Again.

The imperial family seemed to have a delightful tradition of hiding important things from its heir.

No wonder he was so cautious. If people kept blindfolding me in my own house, I would be intolerable too.

Well. More intolerable. Bordering on unbearable.

"What was this place originally?" the Crown Prince asked.

Marcellus lowered his gaze. "The oldest records are incomplete, Your Highness."

"What a convenient excuse," I murmured.

The empress’s gaze shifted toward Marcellus.

The keeper remained composed, but I noticed the faint tightening around his eyes.

Aha. I hit a nerve again. It was somehow fun.

The chamber had several paths leading away from it. Marcellus guided us toward the eastern alcove, unlocking it with the serpent key.

The door opened without sound, revealing a narrower room lined with shelves and display drawers.

The air within was even colder. Protective glass covered several tablets, scroll cases, sealed boxes, and fragments of carved bone.

Bone. Quite typical. Nothing said respectable archive like labeled bones in a basement.

"These are the eastern fragments you wished to view," Marcellus said. "They are not part of the public collection due to poor condition and uncertain provenance."

"Uncertain provenance," I repeated.

He smiled. "Their origins are contested."

"By whom?"

"Scholars."

I looked at him.

"Living ones, I presume."

A beat of silence.

Abi made a soft sound that was either amusement or approval. He seemed to have recovered from his previous loss of composure a while ago.

Marcellus smiled a touch thinner. "Naturally."

I stepped inside.

The first case contained broken tablets written in Ancient Paravel. Several lines matched the terminology from the exhibition hall.

But here, the language had more urgency and less ceremonial polish.

A record written by people who believed time was running out.

Those were always more honest.

I bent over one fragment, reading slowly.

...the dusk-born crossed the western wound...

...their mouths full of borrowed voices...

...do not answer when the dead call sweetly...

I stilled.

Borrowed voices. Dead call sweetly.

What ominous things.

My fingers flexed at my side.

Abi stood behind me. I did not need to turn to know his expression had darkened again.

The Crown Prince moved closer. "What does it say?"

"Old nonsense," Marcellus answered before I could.

I straightened. The room froze.

Slowly, I turned to the keeper.

"Lord Keeper."

He met my gaze. "Your Excellency?"

"I was not aware you could read Ancient Paravel."

His smile held. "I have some familiarity."

"Then you must know that dismissing this as nonsense is either ignorance or deliberate concealment."

The Crown Prince looked sharply at Marcellus.

The empress remained silent.

Ah. So she was listening with no intention of interfering.

Here I thought they were on the same side.

Marcellus bowed slightly. "I meant only that the text is fragmented and mythic in nature."

"Fragmented, yes. Mythic, perhaps. Nonsense, no."

I looked back at the case.

Dusk-born. This word was becoming a frequent encounter.

Borrowed voices and the dead calling sweetly.

Now that was new.