The east wing of the palace was colder than the rest.
Not just in temperature—but in feeling. The moment I crossed its threshold, the air changed. Heavier. Older. There was a hush here, as if even the walls had been sworn to silence. Gone were the polished columns and proud Kaerethian tapestries. Here, the stones were darker, unpolished, damp with secrets.
Serra's directions had been clear: follow the hall past the broken sundial, descend two flights, and look for the door with no handle.
I found it. Or rather, it found me.
The black stone key pulsed warm in my palm as I approached. I hadn't expected it to glow—but it did. Faintly, like embers under ash.
I pressed it to the door.
A click.
Then silence.
Then—wind. Not from behind the door, but from within me. A sudden pulling sensation, like something ancient stirring in my bones.
The door groaned open.
Beyond it: darkness.
Not the soft dark of night, but the heavy, cloying dark of something that did not want to be seen. But I stepped in anyway.
The chamber inside was circular, carved from obsidian stone. The walls were etched with runes—some familiar, some not. A single pedestal stood in the center, and on it, an open book.
It was not dusty.
I approached, heart pounding. The pages were written in a script I recognized from childhood training: Old Solmiran. Forgotten by most, preserved only in the royal archives.
Who brought this here?
I turned a page.
The diagram hit me like a slap. Two figures—mirrored—bound by a circle of fire. One labeled Essence. The other, Shell.
It was a spell. A soul transfer.
The kind outlawed in every kingdom, punishable by death.
My fingers trembled. There, scrawled at the bottom of the page, in ink that shimmered faintly red:
One must burn for the other to live.
The words pulsed in my mind like a drumbeat. Burn. Live. Burn. Live.
I stepped back from the pedestal, heart racing. The runes on the walls seemed to flicker—no, breathe—with some old awareness I couldn't name. It felt as though the chamber itself was watching me now, waiting for me to make a choice I didn't understand.
I turned in a slow circle, searching for something—anything—that could explain more. But the walls gave nothing but silence. The obsidian swallowed sound like a grave.
My hand reached out to touch one of the runes. It flared under my fingers, not in heat but in memory. A soft whisper curled into my ear, not in words, but in feeling: sorrow. Betrayal. Fire.
I snatched my hand back.
Whatever magic had been used here… it wasn't clean.
It was desperate.
And ancient.
Whoever wrote this spell hadn't meant to preserve a life.
They meant to exchange it.
And suddenly, I wasn't sure if I had come here of my own will—or if something had drawn me from the moment I died.
His footsteps echoed down the obsidian hall.
I spun around, my heart leaping to my throat.
But it wasn't a guard.
It was him.
Ronan stepped out from the shadows, cloaked in black, tall and still as stone. His eyes—cold, sharp, unreadable—locked onto mine. There was no anger in his face. No warmth, either. Just silence. And something trembling beneath it.
"I followed you," he said, voice low and rough. "Since you left the east wing."
I clenched the edge of my cloak. "Why?"
His gaze swept the chamber, then came back to me. "Because you don't walk like her. You don't look at things the way she does. You don't even breathe like her."
I didn't answer.
He stepped closer. His eyes drifted downward—then froze.
His gaze locked onto my arm. The fabric had shifted when I touched the rune, revealing a small, curved scar just above my elbow.
He went still.
"You're not supposed to have that," he said quietly. "Not in that body."
I looked down, biting back the panic.
Ronan moved closer, slowly, as if afraid to break the moment. His hand hovered near the scar.
"This… this is the same mark. I remember it." His voice was soft, almost broken. "Back at the border camp. That night—the one where she nearly died saving a water boy from a collapsing barricade."
My chest ached.
"I never told anyone," he whispered. "Not even my mother."
His eyes now held no suspicion—only fear.
"What happened to you?" he asked. "Who… who are you?"
I bit my lip, struggling to find an answer.
"Lyara's never even held a sword properly," he went on. "But you… you touch the hilt like it's always belonged to you."
I closed my eyes for a second.
"There are other people with scars like this," I said quietly. "Why are you so sure it's hers?"
Ronan shook his head, stepping back just slightly.
"Not like this," he said, voice shaking. "There's a hook at the edge—like melted metal burned the skin when she dropped her shield over that child. That kind of scar only happens if you save someone the stupidest way possible."
I tried to hold his gaze, but my eyes burned. "Something got in my eye… I'm sorry," I muttered, turning away.
"How is that possible?" His voice cracked, thick with disbelief. "Even the way you lie—that's how she lies."
He stepped in again. Closer. Too close.
"What are you hiding? Why can't I stop looking at you since yesterday? Why do you move like her… feel like her?"
His hand grabbed my arm—tight, trembling.
"That hurts, Ronan," I hissed. "Let go. I'm Lyara. Wake up."
He flinched, letting go like he'd touched fire. He stepped back, jaw clenched.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
I shook my head slowly.
Then he said, softer than ever—like speaking to a ghost:
"There's something she said to me. Right before she passed out in my arms."
I stared at him, every muscle frozen.
He repeated it, voice barely holding together.
"If I die… let me die standing."
My world shattered.
That was Adelaine's final vow—my vow. Words no one else had heard. No one but him.
"There's only one person who ever said that to me..."
Ronan's voice cracked, but he didn't finish the sentence. He shook his head, stepping back like he'd seen a ghost.
"You can't be her. That's impossible."
Ronan didn't speak again.
He stood there for a long second, then turned and walked out of the rune chamber without another word. His footsteps echoed like hammers in my chest—slow, deliberate, final.
When the door shut behind him, I collapsed to my knees.
I was shaking. Not from fear—but from what almost happened.
He almost knew.
Or maybe… he already did.
I sucked in a breath, trying to calm the storm in my chest. But something had shifted between us. The way he looked at me. The way he couldn't—wouldn't—leave without an answer.
And I couldn't give him one.
If I confessed now, everything would unravel. Velkhar. The council. This fragile peace holding the world together. I had to find the truth first—and maybe, a way out.
For me. For Lyara. For every soul trapped in the wrong skin.
Outside, the world was preparing for war.
But inside this palace, a quieter war had already begun.
And I wasn't sure who would survive once all the masks fell.
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I stared at the obsidian shard in my hand, fingers trembling. For a long moment, I couldn't breathe. That wasn't just a vision—it was a memory. Or worse… a transmission. A glimpse of Lyara's imprisonment, wherever or whatever that place was.
She had screamed my name.
Not just screamed—begged.
There was no satisfaction in seeing her suffer. No victory. Only a deep, nauseating confusion. She was supposed to be dead, or displaced like I was. But if she was still alive, still aware, then…
What did that make me?
A thief?
An invader?
Or something even more cursed?
I clutched the shard tighter, half-afraid it might show me more. But nothing came. The warmth had faded. Now, it was just a cold rock. Unremarkable. Silent.
"Study it in private," Velkhar had said. Had he known what it would show? Had he seen her?
And why give it to me?
I carefully tucked the stone back into the pouch, wrapping it twice before placing it under a loose tile in the floor near the hearth. I needed time. Time to think. Time to decide what this meant—not just for me, but for the war. For Solmira. For the girl whose face I now wore.
Because if she was trapped, there had to be a way to set her free.
And if there was a way to set her free…
What would happen to me?
I didn't sleep that night.
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The next morning brought no clarity. Only fog.
The halls buzzed with subtle movement—servants preparing the delegation, guards sharpening blades, Arven issuing quiet commands with all the cool precision of a seasoned general. I watched them all from the edge of the garden balcony, my mind still tangled in the memory of the screaming girl.
Serra found me as I was lacing up my boots, her arms full of travel linens and cloaks.
"Will it be a long journey?" she asked.
"About a week each way," I replied without thinking—then caught myself. "That's what I heard from the council."
She tilt ed her head. "You've never gone south before."
"I haven't?" I feigned innocence.
"No. You always said it was too hot for you."
Right. Of course Lyara had. Southern Kaereth was humid, rough, unpolished—everything the real Lyara would've disliked.
But for me… it was closer to home. Solmira had once touched the Southern borders, before the war redrew every map. Perhaps I'd find fragments of familiarity. Or danger.
Arven approached before I could overthink. His armor gleamed in the morning sun.
"You've packed light," he noted, eyeing my single satchel.
"I prefer to travel fast," I said.
That earned me a faint smirk. "Since when?"
"Since I stopped fainting every time the wind changed," I replied, letting the sarcasm slip in like acid.
To my surprise, he chuckled.
"Maybe the fever fixed more than just your lungs."
Or maybe it replaced them.
As the horses were brought forward and the envoy assembled, I cast one last glance at the towering spires of the palace. Somewhere in those cold stone walls, Velkhar moved his pieces on a board I couldn't yet see.
And far below, in some prison of glass and shadow, Lyara Kaereth was still screaming.
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