Kaelen didn't speak as he pulled me through the palace gates. His grip was iron, his pace unrelenting. We bypassed the main halls entirely, taking narrow service corridors lit by flickering sconces.
The guards we passed bowed, but their eyes followed us, sharp, wary, almost… pitying.
"Where are you taking me?" I demanded, half-running to keep up.
"Somewhere they can't reach you," he said.
"They? Who"
"Not here." His voice dropped to a blade's edge.
We descended a spiral staircase so tight I had to press my shoulder to the wall. My breath echoed off the stone, the air growing colder with each step. At the bottom, Kaelen unlocked a thick iron door with a key that glimmered faintly under the torchlight.
The chamber inside was round, low-ceilinged, and utterly windowless. Runes crawled across the walls like living things, their faint blue glow thrumming in my bones.
"This place is shielded," Kaelen said, finally releasing me. "No eyes. No ears. No magic but ours."
I crossed my arms. "Good. Now explain why someone just tried to melt my skull."
He hesitated, and that was worse than any answer.
"The Council met tonight," he began. "They've been… watching you. Measuring you. And the vote was not in your favor."
"In my favor for what?"
"For living past the next full moon."
The world tilted. "You can't be serious"
Before he could reply, the torchlight flickered, once, twice then snuffed out entirely, plunging the chamber into black.
I heard it then. A sound no shield should have let through.
The slow, deliberate scrape of metal on stone… coming from inside the room.