They hit the ash-wind and the world got thinner.
Nysa's seal bit into her skin with every step. The city behind them blurred into a line of stone and smoke. In front, the track narrowed between blackened hedges and bones of dead stalls. Ilias kept his head down. He moved like someone who expected trouble and wanted to meet it with as little fuss as possible.
They did not have to look for trouble. Trouble found them first.
A strip of robes rose out of the wind like a moving shadow. Voices came. Torches like small teeth. Dozens of figures stepped onto the path, blocking the way. Their banners were plain: a ribbed heart stitched in burnt thread. It was not a friendly symbol.
The lead man stepped forward. He was lean, older than his robes let on, eyes like broken glass. He didn't smile. He looked at Nysa and her wrist and the iron ring that hummed there.
"You brought the king's iron," he said. Not a question. A fact.
Ilias put a hand near his knife. Nysa kept the scroll under her shawl and did not move her wrist. "We're passing," she said.
The man looked at the seal. He glanced at the strip of leather on Nysa's arm as if it were a brand. The way he looked told Nysa that the seal was not simply a leash to the palace—it was a signpost.
"You wear a crest the Heart remembers," he said. "That is not something to walk by and forget."
Nysa cut the nonsense. "We have nothing for you. We are headed for the burned island and in search of records. We'll leave quietly."
The man laughed—no humor. "Everyone says they will go quietly," he said. "Until the fire wants more."
"What is the Heart?" Ilias asked. He kept his hand loose at his side. He wanted facts.
The leader's eyes cut over him. "The thing under your stones," he said. "A hunger and a rule. It eats names and sleeps on the city's forgettings. It has its own priests. We guard it because once we fed it we learned how it always asks for more."
Nysa did not like metaphors. She wanted a map. "You guard it? Or you feed it?"
A small silence. The man's face tightened. "Both," he said. "Once. Long ago our elders learned to bind the Heart with a crest. They took the family mark, carved it into stone, and tied names to it. It bought the city time. That crest is not new. It is the same as the crown's seal."
The sentence dropped like a stone.
Ilias went white. The seal at Nysa's wrist hummed like something that heard its own name spoken. "You mean the king's sigil?"
The leader nodded. "The same. Not his invention. An old binding. A blood-cut. The families who bore it fed the Heart until the bargain wore the land thin. Your king wears their crest now. He thinks himself a keeper. He is the latest binder."
That was worse than treason. It was history.
This wasn't just about the King making a bad choice. It was systemic. The leader pulled a charred slab from a sling at his side. On it, under a scorched surface, the same ribbed heart sat. Beside it, faint lines scratched into stone. Old names. A list of lovers. The slab smelled of ash and old sweat.
"Look," the man said. "Your king never made this. He inherited it. Long before this house was put on gold, someone bound names into the ground and promised sleep. We keep the altars from being fed openly. Some of us pray. Some of us watch who carries the old crests."
Nysa's skin prickled. She thought of Serene's scrap. The word Sentinel finally had weight: not only a monster but a thing maintained by an old contract. The King's bargain, then, wasn't invention. It was inheritance.
"Why tell us?" Nysa asked. "Why not leave us to the King's bargains?"
"Because you carry a living thing and the seal." The leader's jaw worked. "Because palace ropes are thin here. Because many who pass the ash think themselves alone. You're the kind who brings trouble by not understanding its roots."
Ilias's hand tightened on the knife in his belt. "We don't bring palace men," he said. "We're not bait."
The leader's eyes narrowed. "The Heart knows crowns." He tapped the slab. "It knows the mark. Take a crown to the Heart and it sings a name. The more names sing, the hungrier it gets. Your king thinks he tames it by giving it pieces. But pieces breed appetite."
This was the part Nysa needed to hear. If crests had been used before, then the archive and its scrolls were not neutral ledgers. They were bindings. The living pages were part of an old economy that traded lovers and years for silence.
"Do you help or block us?" she asked.
The leader's face was a map of old choices. He raised a finger and pointed down a narrow track that hugged the shoreline. "There's a safer path to the burned archives. It avoids the oldest altars. But you do one thing for us: you do not bring any soldiers. Not the king's men. Not Halvor's. Promise us that and we'll give you the map."
"We're not taking soldiers," Nysa said finally. "We're not sending the crown. We'll go alone. But if you stand to help and then ask us to betray our own, we cut you out."
He accepted that. The leader nodded once. "Good. Then we show you the path we keep in memory. Keep your mouths shut. Do not touch the carved stones. Do not speak the names aloud."
They followed. The robed crowd parted like wet cloth. The leader moved ahead, slab tucked into his arm like a relic. The path was tight, high over black sand and broken roots. The ash wind scraped. The air tasted thin.
As they walked, the leader began to talk in low words that sounded like a map. He told them of families who once signed their names into the stone and of lovers who were given to the Heart so the city did not drown. He said the King's house took the crest not in malice but in duty twisted by fear. He said the Sentinel's appetite only grew when it was fed small pieces over time.
"It will take more if fed less," he said. "That's a law of hungry things."
Nysa kept her jaw tight. Every step was a small negotiation. The leader stopped at a hollow where burned pages lay like black leaves. He bent and picked one up carefully. The ink was gone in places, but traces of lists remained. Names in columns. Marks that meant "given," "sealed," "claimed." It was technical in the same cold way archives always were. Names as transactions.
"You see?" the leader said. "This is the ledger that proves the crest is a binding. The history of bargains. It's older than your king and dirtier than his promises."
Ilias pressed his lips, thinking through the angles. This was not just rebellion or palace games. This had teeth deep in history. It meant that any strike at the archive would ripple through a system older than any of them.
They left the hollow and walked on. The leader pointed to a narrow inlet: a place where the old records had collapsed into the sea but also where a path over black rock led to a remaining tower. "We can get you to the tower," he said. "But after that you're alone. And know this—if you wake names in that tower without care, you will not just free history. You will feed the Heart."
Nysa's hand stayed on the seal at her wrist. The metal hummed like a small animal that wanted to bolt. She felt the pull of the ledger Serene had given her at her side. The weight of choices pressed on her like a palm.
"Why help at all?" Ilias asked blunt. "If they hate the King, why not let him feed the Heart and reap what he sowed?"
The leader's expression was flat. "We were once the binders. We fed it because we thought binding was the only way to keep the ocean from swallowing the city. Now we watch to make sure those binds do not become a banquet. We help those who come without crowns because sometimes a person without a crest is a better torch than a kingdom."
They reached the spit where a smoldered tower jutted from black sand. The leader put the slab back into its sling and looked at Nysa one last time. "Be careful what names you wake," he said. "Some sleeps are cheaper than others. Some wakes chain you tighter."
Nysa said nothing. She had a map, a narrow path, a new truth: the King's seal was not a proud invention but an inherited brand of a system that had bought the city with lovers. The Heart Beneath was older, costlier. And now they had to choose whether to walk into the burned archives or turn back and face a King who expected results.
They moved down the spit. The sea was dark and still. The tower waited like an old tooth. Behind them, the robed ones melted back into the ash. Their torches went out.
Ilias looked at her. He didn't say anything. He was saving the words for later. Nysa tightened her grip on the scroll and felt the lullaby hum like a splinter in the dark.
They had a map. They had a promise. They had a warning. The island's tower stood black as a wound ahead. The ash wind cut like a blade. The Heart was older than any king. The bargain had roots deep enough to rot the city.
They moved forward anyway.