The Annex was Lyra's world now, a cramped, suffocating chamber of iron and decaying parchment, a single, flickering oil lamp her only defense against the absolute dark. The air inside smelled of mold, dust, and something else, something ancient and metallic that prickled the hairs on her arms, the lingering, cold residue of the palace's immense power. She was surrounded by history, imprisoned by it, and her hatred of King Kaelen Rys crystallized into a focused, desperate intent: find the Chronicles, secure her family's safety, and escape this gilded tomb.
Lyra worked methodically, clinging to the familiar routines of scholarship as a sanity line. She cataloged the untouched scrolls, her hands moving with meticulous care, constantly aware that the iron door behind her represented the only barrier between her and the immortal predator who now owned her time. Do not panic. Do not give them fear, she instructed herself, her heart beating a ragged rhythm against the silence.
The true difficulty of the Annex was not the lack of light, but the sense of scrutiny.
The first time it happened, Lyra was examining a scroll detailing the taxation of the Western provinces during the early conquest period. The coldness she had felt upon entering the room suddenly intensified, pressing down on her like a physical weight, forcing the air out of her lungs. Her small lamp dimmed without warning, as if its fuel had instantaneously cooled. She didn't hear footsteps or a door creak; she felt an absolute presence, vast and chilling, positioned just outside her field of vision, near the iron door.
It was the King.
Lyra froze, her body rigid with terror. She knew, with the chilling certainty of instinct, that this was not residual magic. This was Kaelen Rys, the four-steps-ahead tyrant, making his initial, silent inspection of his new acquisition. His presence was a subtle, invasive magic that permeated the stone, tasting her fear, analyzing her stillness.
He prefers to observe unseen, Alistair's warning echoed in her mind.
Lyra forced herself to remain still, her muscles screaming with the effort. She dared not turn, dared not flinch. She simply waited, counting the slow, deliberate seconds. After what felt like an hour, the pressure eased, the lamp regained its flicker, and the air returned to its normal, cold state. Kaelen was gone.
This became Lyra's daily routine for the next week: the intense work, the sporadic, terrifying moments of intense scrutiny, and the desperate relief when the pressure lifted. Kaelen was not testing her knowledge; he was testing her mind, measuring the elasticity of her human will.
Meanwhile, in the high, mirrored halls of the administrative wing, a wing Lyra was entirely unaware of, Lord Valerius watched the thermal readings from the Annex. Valerius was currently in an immense, dark chamber designed for absolute, silent surveillance, surrounded by arcane measuring instruments, not telescopes, but devices keyed to track magical and bio-energetic output across the palace.
Valerius, Kaelen's most trusted shadow, was executing the King's specific, subtle commands. He tracked Lyra's heart rate, her body temperature shifts, and the subtle, energetic emissions of the Weaver's Thread whenever she touched the ancient scrolls. Kaelen had issued a clear order: Observe every fluctuation, Valerius. Do not interfere. I wish to know the depths of her resilience.
Valerius reported via silent psychic link to the King, who rarely left his own wing during the day. Her heart rate is elevated, Sire. She is aware of your presence. She holds her position.
Does she flee? Kaelen's mental voice was silver and cold, devoid of inflection.
No, Sire. She resists the instinct. Her focus returns to the primary scroll. Her fear is intense, but her hatred is stronger, Valerius confirmed, observing the precise, determined movements of her quill on a newly unrolled document.
Hatred. Excellent. Fear is fleeting, Valerius. Hatred is a commitment. It will keep her anchored here, Kaelen concluded.
The King had not been physically near the Annex; he had projected his concentrated aura, a deep, ancient form of surveillance magic he rarely used, to deliberately test Lyra's nerve. He needed a Weaver with a mind unbreakable by fear, a mind hardened by defiance.
One afternoon, during a particularly heavy rainfall that made the silence of the Archives feel oppressive, Lyra found her first genuine clue. She was translating a common ledger, a list of materials used in the palace's early construction, when her fingers brushed against the raw edge of the parchment. A faint, residual pulse ran up her arm.
It was not magic, but a subtle, structural error. The ledger was double-layered.
Lyra waited for the familiar chill of Kaelen's inspection to pass, then worked meticulously. She used her fingernail and a tiny, sharpened piece of silver she carried, the only non-iron tool permitted, to separate the layers. Beneath the mundane list of stone and mortar, a thin, almost invisible sheet of compressed, silvery paper was revealed.
It contained a single, small passage in a forgotten, coded dialect Lyra only vaguely recognized from her advanced scholarly texts, the language of the original, conquered human rulers.
She spent the remaining hours translating the passage, working until her eyes burned and the lamp oil dwindled. The message was not grand or political; it was personal and cryptic:
"The heart of the Obsidian Throne is a lie. The Blood King's crown is woven, not inherited. The First Weaver knew the price of the Oath."
Lyra's hand trembled as she finished the final word. The Blood King. Kaelen Rys. The Weaver. Her ancestor. The passage was a direct, dangerous contradiction of the official history, confirming that the throne was founded on a colossal lie, a lie that implicated her own bloodline. The truth of Kaelen Rys was not that he was indifferent, but that his entire eternal reign was a calculated deception.
The sudden cold returned, fiercer this time. Kaelen was back, and he sensed the disturbance.
Lyra did not panic. She crushed the tiny piece of silvery paper into a minute ball and swallowed it with a desperate gulp of water from her jug, just as the presence solidified by the iron door. She looked directly at the door, her heart hammering, her face pale, but her eyes burning with a dangerous new fire.
You want history, King? she thought, meeting the invisible, projected gaze with sudden, raw defiance. You want the truth? You will have to break me first.
The pressure held for several long minutes, testing the absolute limits of her nerve. Kaelen was observing the spike in her energy, the frantic determination in her stillness. The King was searching for a break, a fissure of weakness. He found none. He found only the hardened steel of intellectual defiance.
Satisfied, Kaelen withdrew his surveillance. Lyra sat alone in the Annex, the chill slowly receding, the knowledge of the "Blood King's lie" now a fiery, secret core inside her. She had survived the first phase of the cage.