The wind slithered through the royal ring, cold and restless, dragging the scent of mud from the river that circled the palace. Floating lamps swayed above the cobbles, spilling their glow over polished brass buttons and gleaming sabres.
A man moved among the knights. His step matched theirs, his coat cut the same,navy trimmed stiff at the collar, brass glinting faintly at the chest. The sabre at his hip swayed as theirs did. To any eye, he was one of them.
He followed the patrol east, boots keeping their rhythm, until the midnight blue wall rose before the trees. He slowed, letting the march carry on without him. When their footfalls faded around the corner, he slipped a silver watch from his waist.
The hour hand ticked at 2. Below it, etched letters curved: 15 of the Serpent.
He watched the dark line of the wall. No sound of boots. No glint of steel. A hole in the watchful ring.
His body rippled. One self peeled away, then another, until a final shadow scaled silently over the wall. The reflections below shattered soundlessly into fragments of glass.
He dropped onto wet grass inside the wall. Branches swayed. His eyes locked on the black sphere ahead, half-shrouded by trees. A lone knight stood before it, hand resting near the hilt of his sword.
He bent, fingers closing on a fist-stone. He spun, threw behind him, to the right. The pebble struck bark with a cracked report.
Steel answered. The knight at the sphere's gate snapped his sword free and strode to the wounded tree, eyes narrow, boots crunching toward the rent in the bark.
The world thinned at the edges for the knight. He reached the tree, hand on the splintered trunk, and a blur ate the room. A last clear thing caught his sight: a sheath, not leather but writhing-tentacles coiling around a blade like hands. His knees loosened. The streetlight of the moon smeared; sound hollowed. He sagged against the wood.
Something slick unfurled over his face. The film slid from nothing, a skin so thin the knight's lips and lashes showed through, yet it sealed and stung like ice. His fingers clawed at it and fell away. He went light. He went down.
Hands did not take his weight. The film lifted as if pulled by breath, peeled from his cheeks and drifted toward the intruder.
The intruder crouched at the fallen man. His fingers closed on the membrane. He pressed it to his mouth, then drew it across his face. It drew tight, smoothed, then something in the lines shifted,nose, jaw and the slope of an eyebrow rearranged like clay. When he eased the film off, he wore the soldier's features: slacked eyes, a certain tilt of cheek, the exact scar along the brow.
He did not pause to relish the change. Shadow moved at the corner of his vision and he split.
One of him folded outward, the same clothes, the same soldier's face freshly fitted, and it stopped at the sphere's gate hands loose, stillness practiced like a practiced knight. The other stepped forward, shoulders narrowing, boots tracing the hall's curve.
The black surface in the chamber shimmered; the sphere rippled and inverted like skin curling inward. The intruder at the gate did not move.
Vaulted stone swallowed him. Frescoes shivered as he passed: men in ragged skins kneeling beneath radiant, smoking robes; seven tiers of torment writhed across the dome,horned things burning and laughing, angels dropping from fractured halos, serpent-tailed men sliding into forests of moving shadow. The stone seemed to breathe under his boots.
Guards turned their heads. One stepped forward, voice sharp, "You there,why aren't you at the outer gate?"
Beads of sweat tracked the intruder's temple. His hand dove into his coat. Fingers closed on a lotus-tipped hairpin. He raised it between two fingers and held it like proof.
"Lady Seraphina sends word for the serving one," he said, voice even.
Suspicion wavered. The soldier fell back into the line. The hall's rhythm swallowed the intruder. He followed the curve of the floor as if the path itself bent to meet his feet. Ahead, a second dark portal waited.
He crossed its threshold. The ground collapsed inward, cold breathing up along his legs until the descent ended at a silvered lake. At its center a violet orb spun, light beading on the water.
He drew his sword. The hilt curled like living tentacles in his hand. He lowered the point; the orb split like silk. The slit widened; he stepped through.
Beyond, a man sat in white, cloak folded about him, lotus blossoms embroidered on the sleeves. His hood shadowed his face. His head tilted up, eyes closed, listening to something none could hear.
High in the spire, Seraphina's hands moved with the same precision as a blade. She held the lotus hairpin between her lips while her fingers gathered braid after braid. The clock's hour hand had just passed eight.
Footsteps hammered the stair and stopped. Marly burst in, breath ragged, knees hitting the floor.
"Lady Seraphina." She spat the words like a cough, palms trembling.
Seraphina did not look away from her reflection. "Calm yourself, Marly."
"The Queen demands your presence." Marly's voice pitched thin; something cold threaded through her bones.
Seraphina slid into a high-collared coat of black and silver, sigils pressed into the weave. She snapped on gloves. The obsidian pin caught the lamplight like a weapon's eye.
"Stay with Celestia," she said. Her gaze sharpened. She stepped from the room. The door closed. Lavender fled the air. Darkness pooled at the threshold.
Change moved through the palace like water finding a crack.