The evening of Hollowgate was chilly with a dampness that clung to bone and suggested rot. Kael moved through the winding alleys like an unburdened shadow, cloak pulled in tight, hand always resting by his sword.
Lira followed after him, the pendant now muted on her chest but no less alive. As long as it had been open, she was certain she felt her skin hum deeply, like it knew something was coming well ahead of her mind's capacity to fully understand it.
"Are you sure this is it?" Lira whispered.
Kael nodded. "The broker said it was a safehouse for a forgotten noble house. Off-books. Deleted from the registry after the War of Succession."
"And you trust the broker?"
He brought up a humourless laugh. "I don't trust the people who smile with blood on their teeth. But he was in my debt. Deeply."
They stopped in front of a rusty iron gate. The crest that had been carved over it on the stone above had been chipped away, but the form of a crescent moon still faintly remained.
"Someone's been trying to erase this," Lira said.
Kael shoved against the gate. It groaned open, the sound being muffled immediately by the thick fog rolling up behind them.
Inside, the estate was a husk. Broken columns, scorched walls, shattered stained glass underfoot. But Kael wasn't looking at any of that. His eyes were drawn to the sigil ward etched in old runes on the inner threshold, barely visible, meant to go unnoticed unless you'd seen it before.
"A memory lock," Kael murmured.
Lira glanced at him. "You've seen one?"
He didn't say anything. Simply dipped into his coat and produced a glowingly pale relic shard, one that hadn't belonged to him until last week.
He jammed it against the rune.
The air distorted once, then twice and then the estate shifted.
Not in stone or wood, but in sight.
Immediately the broken pieces lay strewn across something different flashes of the way it once looked. Crystal sconces lighting halls. Painted ceilings. Echoes of music.
A memory echo, Lira breathed.
"No," Kael said. "It's more than that. This place is holding something back."
They followed the faint stream of blazing lights into the center of the estate until they reached it: a room unbroken by decay. At its center, a pedestal. On it, a box swathed in obsidian and veins of silver.
Lira approached slowly. The pendant at her neck flashed once again, quietly, as if in remorse.
"This feels. wrong," she whispered.
Kael was about to respond when the shadows around the room moved.
Not wind.
Not trick of the eye.
Actual motion.
A voice, laced with iron and amusement, echoed from the corners of the chamber.
"You're early," it said.
From the far wall, a man stepped forward. His boots were polished, his robes imperial gray trimmed in wine red. A face Lira had never seen.
But Kael had.
"Marshal Ferin," Kael said coldly.
"Didn't think the Hollow Court would send someone so well-known."
The man bowed at the waist, a shallow inclination. "We don't care for loose threads. And you two are quite a thread."
Lira gasped. The Hollow Court. Here.
Kael did not hesitate. He stepped in front of her, body guarding, sword half-drawn.
"Touch the girl," Kael said, voice hard as cold iron, "and I leave you digging under this ruin."
Marshal Ferin smiled. "Still playing the knight? But you don't play the entire game, Kael. That shard that you carry it was from the Viremont line. It stirred because of her. You're just a… vessel."
Lira's eyes were constricting. "Then you'll have no objection if we depart with it."
"You're welcome to attempt it," Ferin said. "But every action you take now is already set. The Court doesn't play at chances. We design outcomes."
He retreated into shadow and vanished like smoke winding into air.
The room trembled as Kael tugged Lira's arm. "Run."
The box behind them groaned open, and the one inside screamed.