The cavern expanse was dark and narrow—too deep, too precisely carved. No intruders could have burrowed this far recently, not with the kingdom's security on high alert.
Unless the person in charge of security had allowed it.
The other possibility was that the cave had existed for far longer than anyone suspected, its entrance blocked and unblocked as needed, hidden in plain sight for years.
In the darkness, a ghostly blue light ignited.
The space it revealed should not have existed here. Not buried in raw stone beneath a mountain.
It was a sitting room fit for a merchant prince. The flooring was metallic, polished to a golden sheen that the blue flames twisted into something spectral. Crimson cushions ringed the walls like offerings at an altar. A round center table that might have been solid gold sat at the heart of the space, and against the far wall, a fireplace had been carved directly into the cavern stone—the flames within burning the same eerie blue.
