Lucian did not slow after leaving the archive hall.
The corridor outside was already shifting with early movement, staff changing shifts, documents being carried between sections, but none of it registered as important anymore. The structure of the palace had started to feel less like a place and more like a system running on repetition. The kind of system that looked stable only because no one interrupted it long enough to see what changed underneath.
Lucian kept walking.
The record entry was still in his mind, not as text, but as structure. A clean interruption inside continuity. Something removed, then replaced with language that did not explain, only covered.
Alaric caught up beside him without needing to be called.
No formal spacing. No adjustment for rank. Just movement aligning naturally as they exited the corridor intersection together.
Lucian spoke first without turning.
"That entry wasn't missing." A brief pause as they kept moving. "It was overwritten."
