Song vibe: MORE — J-hope

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  LYSANDER

  The Courtyard, Firestone

  As the sun dipped behind the western wall, Lysander slipped into the courtyard with Rell and August at his heels. The servants were finishing their chores for the evening, voices subdued, empty buckets clattering as they crossed back toward the hall for supper.

  The perfect time for searching. Lysander kept his pace unhurried; no sudden movements, no reason to draw unwanted attention. If Quintus has hidden something in the courtyard, the last thing we need is gossip spreading before we find it.

  “Inside the well shaft?” Rell’s shadow stretched long across the cobbles—broad shoulders, messy raven hair catching the last edge of sunlight.

  “Underwater? Seriously?” August huffed. “The greenhouse is dilapidated. Could be in there.”

  “Quintus said: put the gold somewhere people expect you to be,” Lysander replied. "He'd never get his hands dirty."

  Dusk pooled in the corners as they moved across the courtyard—past the old trellis with its dormant vines, the scarred training targets, the silent armoury.

  Then, at the same moment, all three of them stopped. Their eyes lifted to the chapel. A small building, tucked in the corner of the courtyard, not connected to the main structure, an afterthought.

  Edwin’s religion; Edwin's chapel. I’ve seen Nox whisper a prayer or two before entering a spawnpit—but not one for church.

  “I went to chapel a few times with Val,” Rell said quietly. “Never saw a secret room.”

  “Quintus isn’t the religious type,” August muttered. “He disliked Thelonius—probably the only person in Firestone who did, rest his soul.”

  I’ve never stepped inside the place—most of the mountain folk hadn’t—they leave little offerings to the Eldritch Spirits of the lands. Lysander exhaled, the weight of grief for every man they lost in Golgog's spawnpit still heavy.

  “I’ve seen Quintus go in there,” Rell offered, jerking his chin toward the barracks. “I've a perfect view from the training yard. I just thought he was nosing around—like he did everywhere.”

  "Thelonius was with us on every contract. Quintus would have had free access to the chapel," August muttered.

  They approached the building, the carved lintel worn smooth by years of weather and neglect. The paint on the wooden doors had peeled away in short curls.

  The doors were chained and locked.

  “I can break it,” Rell offered.

  “Too loud. Let me.” Lysander knelt, taking the hooked tool from his boot and pulling the pin from his braid. His blonde hair slipped over his shoulder. Far too elegant for a man breaking into holy ground.

  Above: Lysander picks the lock.

  The lock clicked free moments later, the chain lifting with a small sound. He held the door open for Rell. “Youngest first?”

  “Nah, strongest first.” Rell strode in, hand on the hilt of his sword.

  Inside, the chapel was small and heavy with dust. It lay thick across the pews; the air was stale, carrying the faint trace of old incense. The altar cloth was grey with neglect, and a single cracked window cast a narrow slant of fading light across the abandoned space.

  “Where do we begin looking?” Rell said, running his hand over the pews. “Secret panel in the wall?”

  “That’s what Quintus suggested—so let’s do the opposite. Start with the floor.”

  “I’ll save us the time.” August's pale hair brushed the tiles as he bowed his head, the stillness of him statuesque. He pressed both palms flat against the stone, eyes drifting shut as the faint scent of magic lifted in the air. “Over there—a hollow space.”

  They followed him to the back of the chapel, into the sacristy—a narrow stone room where Thelonius had once kept vestments and incense. A thin draught slipped through a crack in the window, carrying the scent of Firestone's evening meal. A shelf of warped books sagged against the wall, exactly over the place August had sensed. With a shove, it slid aside more easily than it should have. Beneath it, the marble tile sat without grout.

  Rell crouched, already reaching for his knife.

  “Fye, Rell, you’d jam your sword into any crack,” August muttered.

  “Did once." Rell grinned. "Turned out to be the hole in the training dummy.”

  “And?”

  “Wasn’t bad.” Rell shrugged.

  “Really, Rell?” Lysander muttered, “We’re inside the chapel.”

  August pushed Rell aside. “Let me check—for wards, traps, anything unpleasant.”

  The mage placed his hands on the stone again. This time, the threads of magic around him shivered; a faint shade of black crept up his fingertips. “It’s warded—not as powerful, not like the ones I did inside Firestone. Easy enough to disable… but I couldn’t redraw them. Whoever cast this wasn’t trained like me—not in an academy.”

  “What does that mean?” Lysander asked.

  “Means our mage will know someone’s been in here once they return,” August replied. “I... don't think it's Quintus. I’ve never sensed an ounce of magic in the man. If anything, he's disgusted by my magic."

  "Jealousy?" Lysander suggested.

  “Quintus, Crassus, whoever it is—they can know we’re on to them,” Rell growled, jamming in knife into the crack.

  The false tile lifted far too easily—light enough for Lysander alone to raise. A dark hole yawned beneath. Cold, stagnant air rose from below, thick with the dry, chalky smell of old stone and closed spaces.

  “Still think you’re the strongest sword, Rell?” Lysander muttered.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “The biggest, too. Wanna measure?” Rell chuckled with bravado as he dropped onto the ladder. A moment later, his boots crunched on stone as he hit the bottom. “Air’s stale—dead end. Dry as a bone.”

  “Fitting,” August said, descending next.

  Lysander followed. August whispered a few words, a fireball blooming in his hands.

  Light spilled across the chamber—and tombstones emerged from the dark.

  “A crypt,” Rell breathed, hand hovering over the hilt of Ignis Solaris. “Never knew Firestone had one.”

  “Mountain folk bury their dead in their soil,” Lysander replied. “This would’ve been Edwin’s, back when Firestone was first built.”

  Before Crown Prince Barden died, Lysander thought, before Edwin was forced to sit on his brother’s throne.

  “There’s only one grave,” August murmured, brushing dust from the name chiselled into the headstone. “Godric of Lux. Huh—I never knew the name of Edwin’s son.” He shrugged. “Shall we open it?”

  “Fye, gramps.” Rell scratched at his neck tattoo. “Even I’m not that cold. Say a prayer first.”

  “We're not grave robbing," August reminded. "I already tested it—this is hollow.”

  Above: Rell and August examine the grave.

  Lysander knelt before the grave. That’s the child the oldest servants whisper about—the wild child, the one born wrong from Edwin’s spawnslaying days, no mountain blood to purify the spawntaint. He looked at the dates. Godric. He only survived three years. He would have been king—if the taint didn’t poison him.

  "There's no dust on here." Lysander’s gloved hand brushed over the ledger stone. “Someone’s cleaned off any fingerprints.”

  Rell dropped into a squat, muttering a prayer under his breath. He gripped the stone—and it shifted easily.

  “It’s light,” he said. “Light enough for one person to lift alone.”

  “Light enough for an old man like Quintus?” Lysander murmured.

  He and the others stared down into the pit. The air rising from the chamber below was colder than the crypt, tinged with purpose. Evidence waited down there—answers. Lysander felt his heartbeat sharpen.

  “I’ll let you both fight for the honours,” Rell said, patting both of them on the head. “Shortest first.”

  “That ain’t me,” August said flatly. “Go on, Lye.”

  “Bastards,” Lysander muttered as he gripped the wooden rungs and climbed down.

  As Lysander’s boots touched stone, August dropped beside him, the fireball in his hand swelling to life.

  “Well-kept torches,” August muttered. “Someone’s been tending this place.”

  He lit the torches one by one. They flared eagerly—fresh oil, recently set, waiting.

  The chamber bloomed into a muted golden glow—bars upon bars stacked neatly against the walls, gleaming like a dragon’s nest.

  “The gold,” Lysander breathed. “Fye… it’s here. It was below us the whole time.”

  “Fye, we could buy half of Himmleburg,” Rell whispered. “He put it here...instead of somewhere else—why?”

  Lysander stepped forward, fingers brushing cold metal. Something pressed hard beneath his ribs—sudden, sharp, impossible to brace for. His eyes stung; not from dust, but from the sheer release of it. Weeks of uncertainty, of being overlooked, of smiling through it—now the weight of all of it broke loose at once.

  I was right. By the pits, I knew it.

  He drew a breath and stepped deeper into the square chamber. Rell’s height made the low ceiling feel smaller, while Lysander—the shortest of the three—moved through the dark with catlike ease.

  The room revealed itself bit by bit: shelves, ledgers, crates stacked neatly, a desk pressed against the far wall. Rell went straight to the small box on top of it, opening it without hesitation.

  “What in the pits—?”

  Inside the box lay three glass vials with thick red liquid. Two were almost empty. The third remained full.

  “August, get here,” Lysander whispered, taking a step back.

  “Don’t let that be what I think it is…” August’s face hardened. He uncorked the fullest vial, inhaled once, sharply. “Rell. Opinion.”

  Rell took the vial, sniffed. His expression changed—first confusion, then something colder. “That’s… me.” His voice dropped. “That’s my blood.”

  Lysander felt something twist inside him—a cold, clean slice of revulsion.

  “This one’s Nox.” August closed one vial and opened the last. “And this…” His jaw clenched. “This one’s me.”

  “Why… would Quintus need your blood?” Lysander’s stomach hollowed.

  “Hyland blood magic.” August’s cold eyes fixed on the glass, on the smear of red inside. “Someone summoned a pit of spawn at Hawthorne’s Rest using Nox’s blood.” His voice was low, dangerous. “But mine… I don’t know where it’s been used—or what else they’ve done with it.” He exhaled. “This is bigger than Quintus. There’s another hand in this. Find them.”

  They spread out through the room.

  Lysander opened the ledgers—page after page written in a coded script, symbols curling like thorns and vines. This will take months to decode. His hand brushed the hilt of his dagger. Unless we persuade that vulture to decode it.

  Rell cracked open a chest near the wall. His hand dove in, metal clinking as gold coins stamped with the Renatii dragon shone in the light.

  “Nox never gets paid in Renatii coin,” Lysander said. “Always solid gold bars.”

  Silence hit the room like a stone dropped in still water.

  Lysander’s gaze shifted to a single folded sheet—different parchment, different ink, newer than anything else. He opened it. He read aloud, voice thinner than he expected:

  “The blossom has rotted in the bud. The claw struck deep, just as you wished. Soon enough, the vines will choke the roots. We await your next shipment.”

  “Riddles?” Rell asked, tossing a Renatii coin in the air and pocketing it.

  “Code,” Lysander murmured. He read it again. Something in the words trembled at the edge of memory. “The claw…”

  His breath hitched in his throat. He saw it—the cane in Crassus’ hands, the dragon’s claw, driving into Saphira’s shoulder. He heard her stifled sobs in the apothecary. The loss. The grief.

  The blossom rotted in the bud.

  Lysander looked up, hazel eyes dark with rage. “Crassus killed Nox’s son.” He swallowed. “And he’s working with Quintus. Sabotaging us.”

  Above: Lysander reads the note.

  “I’ll put a sword through Quintus’ heart.” Rell bit down on his lip piercing, drawing blood. “That bastard.”

  “We’ll lock him in the dungeons until Nox returns,” August said, voice dropping to a cold, clinical quiet. “Truthstone. Peel the lies from him. If he refuses…” A small shrug. “I’ll make him talk.” He pocketed the blood vials. “But you must consider: finding this room—everything laid out like this, all pointing to Quintus—it’s too neat. Too convenient.” His mouth twisted. “I hate neat.”

  “You think Quintus wanted us to find this?” Lysander asked. “Or that someone framed him?”

  “Someone wanted us down here,” August replied. “Don’t mistake me—Quintus is a snake, and he’ll pay for every crime.” His finger traced the edge of a gold bar. “But the two figures Rell fought? That’s the part that scares me. The unknown.”

  “If one of them was Quintus, then we trust Dusty,” Lysander murmured. “She'll know who attacked her. If not, we use Quintus to find them."

  The three of them fell silent, their gazes sweeping the shadowed chamber—the gold, the blood, the coded letter. The weight of it pressed around them. A truth uncovered… and deeper threats still waiting in the dark.

  Rell hesitated. “Who’s gonna tell Saph?”

  “I will,” Lysander said quietly. “I’ll tell her everything. Except this.” He held up the coded letter. “Her knowing what her father did to their child won’t bring him back. She should hear it from Nox—let her grieve when he’s here. She deserves that kindness.” He drew a breath. “But Nox must know before the conclave. He’s already fighting Crassus’ rumours. This… this could change the entire outcome.”

  Rapist. Kidnapper. Crassus says he's a monster, but here's the truth—a father who had his child taken from him. Lysander tucked the note into his pocket. Dukes don't like other Dukes who target heirs. This could sway them.

  “Two days,” August informed. “A silvark could make the flight with perfect winds. I know a spell to keep it awake. But the journey will kill it.”

  “We don’t have an hour to lose,” Lysander said. “I’ll write the note.”

  “I’ll seal this tomb, ward it tight. And prepare the silvark's spell,” August replied. “The gold stays. But the blood, the ledgers and letters—we take them. They’re proof we don’t want disappearing.”

  “Oh, I’m kicking that castle creeper's door in.” Rell cracked his knuckles as he climbed. “Straight to a cell, strung up naked, and I’ll check him for Dusty’s bite marks.” He laughed darkly, teeth flashing. “I’ll guard it myself. Saph’ll think a Djinn left her a bloody present come morning.”

  “Rell, son, try not to break him in half,” Lysander said, tucking away the letter. “Nox can’t afford another clan feud. And I’d rather not negotiate peace while you’re still wiping blood off your boots.”

  “He’ll live,” August said flatly. “Rell’s too lazy to kill him properly.”

  Then Lysander climbed back up the ladder—dust, cold, and secrets falling away beneath him. Not a moment too late.

  Let them call me charming; let them laugh at me. But threaten my brothers? Harm the Lady of Firestone? They’ll see what a true Sunfire is. We don’t forgive—we burn the rot out at the root.