"Where are you taking me?"
Her voice echoed through the stone corridors as guards dragged her upward.
Away from the foundation chamber. Away from the crystal that powered the massacre.
"Your chambers. Council's orders."
"But the ritual—Councillor Frost said immediately—"
"Plans have changed."
The sun-stone flickered overhead, its wardlight weakening with each pulse.
Something's wrong.
"Why the change?"
"Equipment malfunction. Three hours to repair."
They reached her door. The same chamber she had called home for seventeen years.
Now it felt like a trap.
"Three hours. Then we return."
The guard unlocked her shackles.
"And if I try to leave?"
He pointed to two more guards taking positions in the corridor.
"Do not."
The door slammed shut.
Alone.
But not free.
. . .
Kaelen pressed her ear to the door.
Heavy breathing. Shuffling feet.
The guards remained outside.
But someone else waited in the corridor. She could feel eyes on the door.
The pendant burned against her chest.
She grabbed her mother's journal from its hiding place. The pages felt warm between her fingers.
Three hours until the guards come back.
Three hours to find another way.
Outside her window, snow fell whilst the sun-stone burned overhead, its wardlight protection failing.
Wrong.
Uneven pulses instead of a steady glow.
The Council wanted her decision: complete her mother's work or face execution.
She had discovered the sun-stone's secret. The orb drained the outer kingdoms to feed Erathil's wardlight protection.
But there had to be more.
What was Mother really researching?
She opened to notes she had avoided.
Entries where her mother's handwriting looked rushed. Desperate.
"Day 1,863." The words came haltingly. "The binding calculations are complete. Ice and flame can destroy the ward, but the cost..."
Black lines scratched out what came next.
Holding the page closer to her lamp, she made out faint words beneath the scratches.
"Ward destruction requires ice magic at lethal levels. The magical consumption rate yields a 90% fatality rate."
The journal slipped from her hands.
"Ice wielders cannot survive the process."
There has to be another way.
"Day 1,864. Tested smaller bindings with ice crystals. Every sample consumed completely."
The next page brought worse news.
"There is no way to protect the ice source during ward destruction."
"Day 1,866. Reports from the northern reaches. A hunter is stalking the remaining ice mages."
The pendant heated further.
"Survivors speak of a shapeshifter—someone who can take any face, any form."
A shapeshifter? Here?
"Day 1,867. The shapeshifter knows our research. The creature killed Mage Torven last night—wearing his wife's face."
"Trust no one."
"Day 1,870. Final calculations complete. If ice magic fails, flame magic alone could redirect the sun-stone's power instead of destroying the ward. But to whom?"
The faded words were barely legible.
"K must never attempt this alone."
A margin note in different ink made her stop.
"Trust no one in the Archive. Not even those who raised you."
Another note, barely visible: "The pendant will warn you. Heat means danger. Cold means truth."
"You were trying to protect me." The warm metal pressed against her throat.
"Even from beyond death."
But protect her from what? The shapeshifter? The Council?
Both.
. . .
Scratching at the window made her look up.
Riven's face appeared through the ice-covered glass.
"Let me in. Quickly."
After everything the Council had revealed, after being trapped in that foundation chamber—
But the guards were outside her door. Not at her window.
She unlatched the lock.
He climbed through, bringing cold air that made her shiver.
The pendant burned hot against her chest.
Every time. Why does the pendant always heat up when Riven approaches?
"We do not have long. The Council is preparing the ritual chamber."
"I thought they had equipment problems. Three hours to repair."
"That is what the guards told you."
He turned away.
"The repairs finished an hour ago."
"Then why—"
"The Council wants you to find specific research. In your mother's work."
Kaelen pressed her hand against the pendant through her shirt.
"Every time we meet, it gets burning hot. So hot I can barely stand it sometimes."
She met his gaze.
"It is burning right now."
. . .
"Perhaps the pendant is reacting to our combined magic."
He avoided her gaze.
"Ice and flame together."
"Perhaps."
Heat means danger.
"What did you find in those pages?"
She showed him the survival calculations.
Riven read once. Twice.
At the ninety percent fatality rate, he stopped breathing.
"You knew, did you not?"
"I suspected."
His fingers touched her pendant—cold skin against warm metal.
"Your mother was trying to find alternatives when the Council killed her."
The pendant cooled at his touch.
Her mother's note echoed: Cold means truth.
"That is strange." She studied the pendant, then his face. "The whole time you have been here, it has burned hot enough to sear. But the moment you touched it..."
A warning layered beneath another warning.
"Ice magic can be unpredictable."
He turned to the window.
"The binding will kill me."
He shrugged. "After what the Council did to my family? I can live with those odds."
"No." She pulled the pendant free from his fingers. "I will not let you."
Snow tapped against the window.
. . .
"Mother mentions other research. Notes about the sun-stone's source."
She showed him the page.
"She writes about redirecting the sun-stone's power using flame magic instead of destroying the ward. But she warns against attempting the binding alone."
"Redirecting where?"
"That is what I cannot work out. The writing gets strange after that."
The timing was wrong.
"How long have you known a shapeshifter was hunting ice mages?"
"I suspected a predator was stalking our people. Too many disappearances."
He glanced towards the window.
"And you never thought to mention this before?"
Boots struck stone in the corridor outside.
Multiple people. Moving fast.
"The guards are coming."
Riven moved to the window. "Meet me in the old archives. Sub-level three."
The footsteps stopped outside her door.
"Remember, the binding is more dangerous than the Council is telling you. There are aspects about ice magic the Council does not understand."
She waited.
"Ice magic is not just cold—ice magic consumes heat to survive. In a binding that strong—"
"Hide."
Keys rattled in the lock.
But when she looked back, Riven had already vanished.
Like he was never there.
. . .
Her door swung open.
High Senior Scribe Halden stood there. Robes dishevelled. Ink stained his fingers.
"Kaelen. Thank the wardlight—you are here."
She gripped her mother's journal.
"The prisoner. He has been asking for you."
"The ice mage. By name. Your full name—Kaelen Virelle."
Halden stepped inside, taking in the research spread across the bed.
"How would an outlander prisoner know your family line?"
"I do not know."
"Neither do I. But there is more."
He picked up one of the pages.
"The prisoner knows details about your mother's research. Specific formulae."
He paused.
"Wants to see you. Says you are walking into a trap."
Halden set the page down.
"Claims only he can explain how to avoid it."
The torch flame guttered.
. . .
"His exact words: 'The girl thinks she knows who her enemies are. She is wrong.'"
Halden placed both hands on the bed frame.
"Have you had any contact with this prisoner?"
"No."
The lie came easily. But she looked down at the journal in her hands.
"The prisoner described the binding ritual in perfect detail. Including elements we have not shared with anyone."
Her mother's warnings echoed.
Trust no one.
"The magical transfer process. How flame magic can be redirected instead of destroyed."
"The prisoner knows details about tonight that even I was not told."
Halden moved to the window.
"The Council has been holding closed meetings. Private sessions they exclude me from, despite my position."
"Planning what?"
"That is what worries me. This prisoner knows the Council's preparations. Knows they moved the timeline up. Knows about equipment being moved."
Halden pressed his palm against the ice-covered glass.
"The prisoner even knows about the magical disturbances—disruptions I have been trying to contain quietly."
Magic is destabilising everything.
"Sealed artefacts responding to unauthorised magic. Ancient texts glowing without activation."
He turned from the window.
"Ward-stones cracking in the lower levels. Magic is destabilising the Archive's protective systems."
. . .
"So what do I do?"
"See the prisoner. But with guards present."
Halden paused.
"There is another concern. We moved the prisoner an hour ago. Security reasons."
"Where?"
"Deep archives. Sub-level three."
The same place Riven wanted to meet.
Too convenient to be a coincidence.
"Why there?"
"Better containment. The walls have built-in wards."
Halden returned to the bed, gathered the loose pages.
"But Kaelen? When you go—and you must go—be careful who you trust."
That made no sense.
"The deep archives do not just contain books. There are sealed artefacts down there. Experiments we could not destroy safely."
He stacked the pages carefully.
"Some artefacts have been stirring lately. Magical objects that have been dormant for decades."
She took the pages from his hands.
"Binding stones. Soul mirrors. Failed ward-cores. Your mother helped create some of the experiments. Before she had doubts."
Before she discovered the truth.
"The deep archives play tricks on the mind. Reality becomes... flexible down there."
. . .
After Halden left, Kaelen sat alone with her churning thoughts.
She touched the pendant that still burned against her skin.
"Heat means danger, cold means truth." She paced her small chamber. "So why did the pendant burn the whole time Riven was here?"
Think, Kaelen.
"If he was telling the truth about the binding, about the danger—why did the pendant warn me?"
She stopped at the window.
"Perhaps it was not warning me about him. Perhaps it was warning me about another threat."
But what other threat had been in the room?
"Halden says he does not know about the Council's meetings. But I saw him there. I saw Halden in that chamber with Councillor Frost."
The memory did not match the man who had just left.
"Either he is lying to me, or—"
She stopped at the window.
"Or someone else was wearing his face."
The shapeshifter in her mother's notes.
. . .
Looking up at the sun-stone, she stopped pacing.
The magical orb flickered in uneven bursts—behaviour she had never seen before.
Through her window, she could see other towers. All the sun-stones flickering in the same unstable rhythm.
"The whole system is failing faster than the Council is admitting."
Outside, snow struck her window with violent force.
Not natural weather. Magical interference.
"A storm is coming."
The pendant's heat intensified.
"A magical storm."
Footsteps approached in the corridor. Different from before. Heavier. More purposeful.
The guards posted outside were gone.
Who is approaching now?
Her hand moved to the small dagger hidden in her belt.
The footsteps stopped directly outside her door.
Silence.
Then a soft knock. Too polite. Too careful.
"Miss Virelle? The Council requests your immediate presence."
A voice she did not recognise.
Since when does the Council send polite messengers?
. . .
"I shall be right there."
She tucked the journal and loose pages inside her robes.
The pendant pulsed against her chest. Not burning hot, but warm with warning.
Three hours was a lie. The Council is ready now.
She opened the door to find six guards in full armour.
And standing behind them, Captain Marcus in his worn leather armour.
"Senior Scribe Virelle."
Marcus nodded curtly.
"High Senior Scribe Halden has instructed me to escort you."
The guards stepped aside.
"The deep archives. Sub-level three. The prisoner awaits."
Marcus gestured towards the corridor. His hand rested on his sword hilt.
"Halden's orders are clear—you are not to speak with him alone."
Marcus began walking. His boots echoed in the stone corridor.
"The prisoner is dangerous, miss. More dangerous than you realise."
"He knows things he should not know. About you. About your family."
They descended the winding stairs.
"About your mother's death."
Kaelen said nothing.
. . .
"Halden warns the prisoner has been... persuasive with others who have questioned him."
"Three guards have requested transfers after speaking with him. Two scribes refuse to enter his chamber."
They passed through heavy iron doors marked with ward symbols.
Marcus stopped at the entrance to sub-level three.
"He tells them that everything they believed about the Archive was a lie."
The door before them bore fresh scratches.
As if something had clawed at it from the inside.
"And miss?"
Marcus drew his sword.
"Whatever he tells you about your mother—do not believe a word of it."
From beyond the door came the sound of slow, deliberate applause.
Everything I believed was a lie.
Trust no one.
The door swung open.
The prisoner waited in chains.
But his face—
She knew that face.
. . .
End of Chapter 4
. . .
Next Chapter Preview: The Shapeshifter's Game
In the deep archives, Kaelen discovers that nothing is as it seems. The prisoner she thought she knew has never met her before—and someone has been wearing his face. As magical disturbances tear through the Archive's foundations, she must work out who to trust before the shapeshifter's deadly game reaches its final move. The Council's patience has run out. And the real binding ritual is about to begin.