Two days had passed.
The chamber sat three levels below the kitchens, where the palace foundations bit into the living rock of the ridge.
It was a dead place, cold, blind, the stones three feet thick, the mortar between them long since turned to black grit.
Soren's great-grandfather had been a boy when that mortar was still gray, stealing horses from the commons. Now even the memory of that boy was dust.
No sound reached this deep. Above, the kitchens would be roaring with the evening meal, servants shouting, pots clanging.
Down here, the air sat as heavy and still as tallow in a jar.
Old Aldwin had picked this cell for a reason. The ancient mages always went deep when they had difficult business with the old blood.
Stone held magic like iron held cold... the older the block, the better it kept the force from bleeding away.
No stray drifts escaping into the gardens or the stable ditches. No curious servants getting their faces melted off.
