Corridors of Glass and Blood

POV: Lady Elena Lorraine

Commander Vance took a step back, his eyes burning with a muffled hatred. Her words had struck their mark; he knew that harming the Lorraine heiress in a hall filled with her father's allies would mean his guards would be hacked to pieces before dawn.

Swallowing his pride, Vance announced loudly for all to hear:

"For the safety of our noble guests until the fleeing servant is found, you will all be escorted to the Eastern Guest Wing. No one leaves the palace tonight."

Elena exchanged a fleeting glance with her father, Lord Oscar Lorraine, who was standing across the hall. He didn't move to help her; he merely gave a slow, subtle nod. His message was clear: You are on your own now. Play your cards carefully.

Escape in the Dark

As the guards began herding the nobles like sheep toward the Eastern Wing, Elena feigned a stumble, the folds of her blue velvet dress cascading to the floor. When Arik bent down to help her up, she whispered quickly into his ear:

"The Eastern Wing is an elegant slaughterhouse. If we go in there, they’ll visit our rooms at night to finish what they started. Follow me."

Taking advantage of the chaos and the shoving crowd, Elena pulled Arik behind a massive marble statue of the First Emperor. With an expert touch, she pressed a protruding stone in the wall behind the statue, and a narrow secret door—barely wide enough for two—swung open. She dragged him inside, and the stone door sealed shut behind them, plunging them into pitch-black darkness.

Elena struck a small match and lit a candle hidden in a wall niche. The weak flickering light reflected off Arik’s tense face.

Arik spoke in a low voice, inspecting the cramped stone corridor that reeked of dampness and mold:

"Secret passages? Does your family build palaces or rat mazes?"

Elena replied, moving forward with swift, light steps:

"My family didn't build this palace, but we paid for it. It would be foolish to buy a castle without knowing its back doors. This passage leads to the lower crypts, and from there, we can reach the stables."

Blood in the Shadows

They descended a spiral stone staircase that seemed to go on forever. The silence was heavy, broken only by the sound of their breathing and the scrape of Arik’s leather boots against the floor.

Suddenly, Arik stopped and gripped Elena’s arm with a force that rooted her to the spot.

"Put out the candle," he whispered strictly.

She obeyed without question, and they were plunged back into total darkness.

Elena then heard what the wolf's ears had caught: the sound of very faint footsteps approaching from the bottom of the stairs. They weren't guards; Imperial Guard armor clanked with metal. These were professional killers.

In the blink of an eye, two shadows emerged from the gloom ahead of them, curved blades glinting in their hands.

Arik didn't hesitate. He lunged at the first assassin with raw brutality. He gracefully dodged a dagger thrust, grabbed the attacker’s wrist, and snapped it with an audible crack that echoed through the narrow passage. He then delivered a devastating knee to the man's chest, sending him crashing to the floor.

The second attacker used Arik’s distraction to charge at Elena. She took a step back and, in one fluid motion, drew her hidden, thin-bladed stiletto from the folds of her dress. As the assassin closed in, she stabbed him in the shoulder. The man scoffed as if the blow didn't hurt, raising his blade to slit her throat.

But his dark laugh quickly turned into a choked rattle. His eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees, clutching his throat as foam bubbled from his mouth.

Arik turned around after knocking his assailant unconscious, looking at the body convulsing at Elena's feet, then at her dripping dagger.

Breathing slightly heavy, he asked: "Poison?"

Elena wiped the blade on the dead assassin's clothes and sheathed it: "I told you, Lord Arik... in the capital, we leave nothing to chance."

The Forbidden Mark

Elena relit the candle, and Arik knelt to inspect the assassin’s body. He pulled the black mask from the man's face and noticed something strange on his neck. It was a dark red tattoo, deeply etched into the skin as if branded by fire.

The tattoo was of a red-eyed raven.

Elena stared at the mark, feeling her stomach plummet.

She whispered, her voice trembling for the first time all night:

"That’s impossible... House Corvus? They were banished to the cursed eastern mountains a century ago. How did Corvus assassins infiltrate the Glass Palace?"

Arik stood up, staring into the dark abyss at the bottom of the stone stairs.

He said, his voice heavy with grim certainty:

"If House Corvus has returned, and the creatures of darkness are attacking our northern borders, it means the Emperor's death wasn't just a struggle for the throne... it is the beginning of the end for the entire Empire of Altaria."

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