Chapter 18: The Traitor's Trail
Their new quarters were a world away from the dungeon, but still within the palace walls a clear message. They had a comfortable suite, resources, and access to the imperial archives. It was a gilded cage, just as Elara had feared, but now the door was unlocked. The expectation to perform was the true lock.
For days, they combed through records. Vorlan had vanished without a trace. He had no known family, no favorite haunts outside his official duties. He was a man who existed only as the Spymaster.
"He's a spider," Kaelen growled in frustration, pushing away a stack of property ledgers. "He spent his whole life building a web. He wouldn't just run. He'd retreat to the center of it."
"The center is gone," Elara said, pacing. "The Black Hounds are disbanded or arrested. His safehouses are compromised." She stopped, a thought striking her. "What about before? Before he was Spymaster. You said he found you. Where?"
Kaelen looked up, his eyes distant with memory. "The Iron Quarter. The worst part of the slums. He had a… a squat there. A place he used to observe the city. I hadn't thought of it in years. It's probably rubble."
"Or it's the last place anyone would look for the most powerful man in the empire," Elara countered.
Disguised as common laborers, they slipped out of the palace and back into the familiar stench of the slums. The Iron Quarter was a graveyard of abandoned industry, a skeleton of rusted metal and collapsed brick. Kaelen led them to a derelict clockmaker's shop, its windows boarded, the sign hanging by a single nail.
Inside, it was a tomb of dust and silence. Gears and broken timepieces lay scattered, frozen in time.
"There's nothing here," Kaelen said, his shoulders slumping.
Elara closed her eyes, letting her senses drift. She reached out with her mind, not for a specific memory, but for a feeling. The echo of ambition. Of a brilliant, ruthless mind plotting its ascent. She walked slowly through the wreckage, her fingers trailing over dusty workbenches.
Then she felt it. A cold, sharp pulse from behind a massive, overturned lathe. It wasn't a memory of joy or sorrow, but of pure, focused intent.
"Here," she said.
They shoved the heavy machine aside. Behind it was a section of wall that looked no different from the rest. But when Elara pressed her hand against it, the brick felt like ice.
"There's a hidden door," Kaelen said, running his hands over the mortar. "But there's no latch, no mechanism."
"It doesn't need one," Elara whispered. She placed her palm flat against the center brick. She didn't pull an echo from an object; she pushed her own will against the magic guarding it. She thought of Vorlan's arrogance, his belief in his own superiority. She imagined herself with that same certainty, deserving of entry.
A series of faint, silvery lines glowed around the edges of the brick, forming a complex glyph. There was a soft click, and a door-sized section of the wall swung inward, revealing a steep staircase descending into darkness.
The air that wafted up was not damp and earthy, but dry and cool, smelling of ozone and old paper.
They looked at each other, a shared dread and excitement passing between them. This was it. The spider's nest.
Kaelen drew his sword. Elara clenched her coin, ready to draw on any echo she could find.
Together, they stepped into the darkness, leaving the world of dust and decay behind. The reader is on the edge of their seat: What horrors or secrets has Vorlan hidden in his lair? And is he waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs?