The ward-stone became a secret heartbeat against my side, its low hum a constant reminder of the corruption festering beneath my feet. Inquisitor Greyford's parting warning echoed just as persistently. He was waiting for me to make a mistake, to give him a righteous reason to clamp down further, or worse, to declare my soul tainted by the very secrets I was chasing.
My probationary life became a performance of tedious piety. I wrote excruciatingly bland reflections on humility for Greyford, filled with quotes from the Canticles and empty promises of spiritual devotion. I attended every dawn service, kneeling until my legs went numb, mouthing prayers while my mind raced through the puzzle of the foundation.
Below the heart of learning.
The academy's "heart" was its Central Library. But the foundation? The academy was built upon the ruins of an older structure, a monastery dedicated to Saint Theodora the Wise. The historical placards in the main hall said so. It was common knowledge, and therefore, the last place anyone would look for a real secret.
I needed a map. Not a cartographic one, but an architectural plan. The academy's original blueprints would be in the headmaster's private archive or the Royal Office of Works. Both were utterly inaccessible to me.
There was another way. The east wing's collection included donor ledgers and construction manifests from the academy's founding. Buried in lists of stone shipments and artisan payments might be a clue about sub-levels, crypts, or "sealed chambers."
Returning to the east wing was a risk. Greyford would be watching my movements even more closely now. I needed a new cover. I went back to Master Fenwick with a request to study "The Use of Sacred Geometry in Early Academy Architecture" for my spiritual reflections. He sighed, logged it, and waved me through with a weary look that said I was the most boring troublemaker he'd ever met.
The donor ledgers were as dry as dust. I spent hours in a cold, blue-lit alcove, turning brittle pages filled with columns of numbers. Fifty tons of limestone from the White Quarry… two hundred oak beams from the Sunwood… payment to Master Carver Alaric for "the keystone of the eastern vault…"
I stopped. Master Carver Alaric. The name is from Lucian's note. The retired surveyor in the Thorne March. A coincidence? Unlikely. Lucian had pointed me to a man who worked on the academy's original construction. He'd known I would need this.
The ledger entry was brief, but it referenced a "sub-foundation schematic" held by the Office of Works, a copy filed under "Vaulted Reinforcement, East Wing, Lower Level." Lower level. So there was a confirmed space below.
But how do you get there? The public areas had no obvious staircases leading down from the east wing. The entrance, if it still existed, would be hidden.
My only advantage was my ability to see things that others could not. The green threads of corruption I'd seen had plunged down near Stack 7. The nexus was there. The entrance had to be nearby.
I began a painstaking, seemingly random survey of the east wing floor. I would pause, kneel to tie my bootlace (a skill I'd learned from watching soldiers), and press my palm flat to the cold flagstones. I sent the faintest, most controlled trickle of holy power into the stone—not enough to glow, just enough to feel.
Most of the floor was inert, just rock and mortar. But as I neared the junction of Stacks 6, 7, and 8, the stone began to feel… hungry. It drank the tiny pulse of my power and echoed back a faint, resonant coldness. The ward-stone in my pocket grew warmer.
I was close.
The problem was the proctor. A new, stern-faced woman with the bearing of a retired soldier now stood at the entrance to the east wing stacks. She watched me like a hawk. My frequent kneeling would be reported.
I needed a distraction.
Elara was my only willing accomplice. I found her in the music room, aggressively playing a northern dirge on a zither. "I need a diplomatic incident," I said without preamble.
She grinned. "My specialty. What kind?"
"In the east wing. In about twenty minutes. Something that requires the proctor's full attention and, ideally, the summoning of a higher authority. But nothing gets you into real trouble."
She plucked a final, discordant note. "Leave it to me."
Twenty minutes later, I was pretending to study a massive tome on archways when I heard the commotion. Elara's voice, loud and dripping with aristocratic outrage, echoed down the stone corridor.
"—absolutely unacceptable! This is a historical document! The marginalia is clearly in the Old Frost Tongue, and this… this person claims it's 'doodling' and wants to confiscate it for defacement! I demand to speak with the head librarian! This is an insult to the cultural heritage of the Northern Duchy!"
The proctor's voice, trying to be firm, was drowned out by Elara's rising volume. As Elara hurried toward the noise, I heard the clatter of the proctor's stool and her rapid footsteps. This was my chance.
I slipped to the area near Stack 7. The floor here was comprised of larger flagstones than elsewhere. I dropped to my knees, not pretending this time. I placed both palms on the stone where the resonance was strongest. The wardstone was burning hot. I closed my eyes and pushed.
Not a trickle this time, but a focused, seeking thread of power. Golden light, invisible to anyone not touching the stone, flared from my hands. The holy energy seeped into the mortar, tracing a pattern.
And I saw it. A faint, glowing line of silver—a dormant magical seal—forming a perfect rectangle about three feet by two. A hidden door. At its center was a depression, a lock with no keyhole. The shape was familiar. The circle with a vertical line. The convergence sigil.
My heart hammered. The wardstone was the key.
I pulled it from my pocket. Its blue glow intensified as I brought it near the floor. I pressed it into the faint, ghostly outline of the sigil on the stone.
There was a sound like a deep, distant chime. A section of the flagstone, defined by the silver lines, shimmered and then became insubstantial. Not an opening, but a nullity. A space I could pass through.
The sounds of Elara's argument were fading. The proctor would return any second.
I didn't hesitate. I grabbed the ward-stone, shoved it back in my pocket, and, holding my breath, stepped into the shimmering rectangle on the floor.
It felt like passing through a curtain of cold water. The world blurred, the sounds of the library vanished, and then my foot met not empty air but a rough-hewn stone step. I was on a steep, narrow staircase spiraling down into absolute darkness. The opening above me solidified back into solid stone, sealing me in.
Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at my throat. I was trapped below, in the dark.
But the ward-stone in my hand pulsed, and its soft blue light brightened, just enough to illuminate the steps immediately ahead. It was leading me down.
The air changed. It was no longer the dry chill of the library but a damp, earthy cold that smelled of wet rock and something else… something metallic and old, like stagnant magic.
I descended, one careful step at a time, the circle of blue light my only guide. The staircase seemed to go on forever, coiling deep into the earth. My senses stretched thin, and the threads of fate around me became a tangled, oppressive web. The silver-blue thread to Kaelen, stretching far above and north, felt like a lifeline. The green threads of corruption were now a suffocating presence, pulsing from below.
Finally, the stairs ended. I stood in a low, vaulted tunnel. The walls were the rough bedrock of the foundation, but they were etched with faded, complex runes—ward-song sigils. They were broken in places, scratched through as if by giant claws.
This space was a prison. Or it had been.
The blue light of the ward-stone stretched ahead, drawn toward the source of the green corruption. I followed, my every footfall echoing in the profound silence.
The tunnel opened into a circular chamber. In its center was a dais. And on that dais…
The object in question was not a monster. Not a treasure.
A skeleton.
It was human, mostly, but the bones were unnaturally blackened, as if stained by ink. It was shackled to the dais by manacles of pure, dull silver that still glowed with a faint, sickly light. Ribbons of that same venom-green energy I'd seen in my vision pulsed from the bones, crawling up the walls to seep into the foundation of the academy above.
This was the nexus. The source of the corruption.
And clasped in the skeleton's bony fingers was a book. Its cover was pale, almost flesh-like, and it radiated a cold, intelligent malice that made the holy power within me recoil.
I took a step closer. The green threads pulsed violently.
The skeleton's head slowly, impossibly, turned on its vertebrae. Empty eye sockets fixed on me. A voice, not a sound but a thought forced directly into my mind, dry and ancient as crumbling parchment, spoke.
"Ah… A new key has finally turned in the lock. Have you come to renew the seal, little saint… or to break it?"