The receiving hall of the Royal Palace had been built to impress. Vaulted ceilings soared forty feet above marble floors inlaid with precious metals that traced the lineage of kings. Tapestries depicting five centuries of Vire rule hung between columns that could have supported the sky. Everything about the space was designed to make visitors feel small, insignificant, and properly awed by the weight of imperial majesty.
Lady Ilyana Pendragon made it feel cramped.
She strode through the massive double doors with the controlled fury of a storm barely held in check. Her silver hair, normally bound in an elaborate crown of braids, fell loose around her shoulders. Scorch marks darkened her traveling cloak, and the scent of ozone and burning metal followed in her wake. The Pendragon mark along her neck pulsed with a faint blue glow, the echo of transformation still singing in her blood.
Every servant in the hall found urgent business elsewhere. Even the royal guards, trained to stand immovable in the face of any threat, shifted uncomfortably at their posts.
Juno felt his stomach drop. He'd seen his mother angry before, but this was something else entirely. This was the fury that had broken the siege of Velcrin. The rage that had carved the Pendragon name into the empire's history with fire and blood.
But beneath the fury, he caught something else. Something that made his chest tighten with unexpected emotion.
Fear. His mother was afraid.
"Juno," she said, her voice softer than he'd expected. The dragon's thunder was gone, replaced by something that sounded almost vulnerable. "My son."
Her pale green eyes, so like his own, swept over him, not checking for wounds but searching for something deeper. Signs of corruption. Evidence that he'd been drawn too far into something he couldn't escape.
"These two have had their hooks in you for days," she continued. "Time enough to fill your head with dangerous ideas. Time enough to make you forget why some doors should never be opened."
Alaric stepped forward with diplomatic grace. "Lady Ilyana, welcome to the capital. Your son has been our honored guest. We would never..."
"Never what?" She turned to face the prince, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. "Never manipulate a nineteen-year-old boy with pretty theories and promises of significance? Never dangle forbidden knowledge in front of someone too young to understand the cost?"
"We've treated Juno with the respect his name deserves," Elysia said, though her usual musical confidence carried a note of defensiveness. "He's made his own choices."
"Has he?" Lady Ilyana's gaze flicked between the twins, reading something in their expressions that made her mouth tighten. "Tell me, children, what have you told my son about the old kingdom? About the sites? About what happens when certain doors are opened?"
"We've shared what we've learned," Alaric said carefully. "Knowledge that could reshape our understanding of..."
"Knowledge that could kill him." The words cut through the hall like a blade. Lady Ilyana took a step toward her son, her expression shifting from anger to something that might have been desperation. "Juno, listen to me. There are things in this world that should stay buried. Truths that are not meant for mortal minds. The old kingdom fell for a reason."
"You know about the network," Lyra said quietly. It wasn't a question.
Lady Ilyana's eyes fixed on her, and Juno saw his mother's expression soften slightly. Not with warmth, but with something like pity.
"I know more than these children have told you, girl. I know what happened to the last person who tried to fully activate that network. I know what it costs. And I know that you..." She stopped herself, shaking her head. "You have no idea what you're walking into."
"Then tell us," Juno said, frustration bleeding into his voice. "Stop speaking in riddles and threats. If you know something, share it."
His mother looked at him for a long moment, and he saw decades of secrets weighing behind her eyes.
"The old kingdom wasn't destroyed by conquest," she said finally. "It was destroyed by its own knowledge. They built something they couldn't control. Something that consumed them from within. The memory chambers aren't just repositories of information, Juno. They're fragments of that thing. And when enough of them activate..."
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.
"That's why the Pendragons have spent a century containing them," Alaric said, understanding dawning in his voice. "You've been suppressing the sites not to hide the truth, but to prevent a catastrophe."
"Every generation, we find more of them," Lady Ilyana confirmed. "Every generation, we make the same choice. Bury them. Hide them. Keep them from those trying to piece together what the old kingdom was attempting." Her gaze fell on Juno again. "It's a burden I'd hoped to spare you from carrying."
Juno felt the weight of revelation settling on his shoulders like a lead cloak. The memory chamber at Azmere suddenly felt less like a discovery and more like a trap they'd willingly walked into.
"The blade," he said, his hand drifting to Ashthorn's hilt. "It reacted to the chamber. You said it was..."
"One of the Sundered Seven," Lady Ilyana finished. "Weapons forged by the old kingdom's champions. When their civilization fell, we broke those weapons rather than risk their power falling into the wrong hands. Some fragments we destroyed entirely. Others..." She looked at the sword with something like regret. "Others we allowed to be reshaped into safer forms. Better to have them contained within Academy walls than lost in the world."
Ashthorn pulsed at his hip, as if responding to her words. The blade's echo-script began to glow, but Lady Ilyana held up a hand.
"Don't draw it," she said sharply. "Not here. Not with so much concentrated echo energy around us. The fragments remember, Juno. They remember what they were meant to do."
"And what was that?" Elysia asked, leaning forward with scholarly intensity.
Lady Ilyana's expression went hard. "To unlock the final chamber. The heart of the network. The place where the old kingdom stored its greatest achievement." She paused, letting the weight of her words settle. "And their greatest mistake."
The hall fell silent except for the faint humming of the echoes around them. Juno felt as though he was standing at the edge of an abyss, looking down into depths he couldn't fathom.
"This is why you summoned him," Lady Ilyana said, turning back to the twins. "Not for his insights or his abilities. Because he carries one of the keys. Because that blade will open doors that should remain sealed."
"We need to understand..." Alaric began.
"You need to survive," Lady Ilyana cut him off. "All of us do. And that means some knowledge stays buried." She reached out and placed a hand on Juno's shoulder, her touch warm despite the chill in her voice. "I've protected this empire from threats you can't imagine. I've made choices that cost me sleep for decades. All to ensure that my son could grow up in a world that wasn't ending around him."
Juno looked into his mother's eyes and saw the weight of those choices, the burden of secrets kept for love rather than power. She wasn't trying to control him. She was trying to save him.
But he also saw the fear there. The knowledge that despite all her efforts, the choice might not be his to make anymore.
"The network is already activating," Lyra said softly. "We felt it at Azmere. If what you're saying is true, then whatever's coming is already in motion."
Lady Ilyana's shoulders sagged slightly. "I know. Which is why we need to contain this now, before it spreads further. Before more chambers activate. Before..." She looked at Lyra again, and Juno caught something in her expression that he couldn't quite name. "Before certain individuals attract too much attention from things better left sleeping."
"You think I'm connected to them," Lyra said. "To the old kingdom."
"I think you're dangerous," Lady Ilyana replied, but there was no cruelty in it. "Not by choice. Not by design. But dangerous nonetheless. The chambers respond to you in ways they shouldn't. That makes you either a key to understanding them or a trigger for activating them. Either way..."
"Either way, she needs to be protected," Juno said, surprising himself with the firmness in his voice. "Not hidden away or contained. Protected."
His mother's eyes softened as they fell on him. "My son, always trying to save everyone. It's your greatest strength and your most dangerous weakness." She sighed, suddenly looking older than her years. "You cannot save someone from their nature, Juno. And you cannot save the world from truths it isn't ready to bear."
"But we can try," Elysia said quietly.
"Yes," Lady Ilyana agreed. "We can try. The question is how." She straightened, and Juno saw the weight of command settling back onto her shoulders. "The chambers that have activated can be contained. We have methods developed over generations. The network can be dampened, put back to sleep. But it will require cooperation. It will require trust."
"And if we refuse?" Alaric asked.
Lady Ilyana smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "Then you'll learn why the Pendragons have served as the empire's shield for five centuries. And why some of us still remember that sometimes, the greatest service is saying no."
The threat hung in the air like smoke from a dragon's breath. Juno felt the political currents shifting around him, felt the weight of choices he wasn't ready to make pressing down on his shoulders.
"I need time," he said finally. "To think. To understand what we're dealing with."
His mother nodded, relief flickering in her eyes. "Time I can give you. But not much. The longer we wait, the stronger the network's resonance becomes. And others know about the sites, Juno. Others who won't hesitate to use you and your companions for their purposes."
"Who?" Lyra asked.
"People who believe the old kingdom's knowledge is worth any price," Lady Ilyana said. "People who think they can control what consumed an entire civilization." Her gaze swept over all of them. "People who are willing to sacrifice anyone and everyone to satisfy their curiosity."
As if summoned by her words, the sound of footsteps echoed in the corridor outside. Not running or rushing, but measured, careful steps that spoke of someone moving with deliberate dignity despite obvious difficulty.
Lady Ilyana's expression shifted, the hard edges of anger softening into something that might have been concern. "Aldwin," she breathed.
Alaric and Elysia exchanged glances, their earlier confidence wavering. They had not expected their father to involve himself directly in this confrontation.
The massive doors opened slowly, and Juno felt the weight of the moment settle on his shoulders like a physical presence. Whatever came next would determine not just his own fate, but the future of everyone he cared about.
The network was awakening. Ancient powers were stirring. And the people he loved most were choosing sides in a conflict that might tear apart everything they had sworn to protect.
But as the footsteps grew closer, Juno realized that perhaps the most dangerous truth of all was the simplest one:
Sometimes there were no good choices. Only the necessary ones.
And he was about to discover which choice would be asked of him.