Chapter 1119: The Forgotten Palace [Part 6]

Chapter 1119 – The Forgotten Palace [Part 6]

Cyrinne closed her eyes like she hated him and whispered in the dead guard’s voice. "All clear. Mirror distortion only."

Silence.

Lux did not move.

The guards outside waited.

Then one said, "You triggered light."

Cyrinne’s jaw tightened.

Lux slowly picked up the broken flare stone.

He crushed it in his fist, letting a faint red glow leak between his fingers. Then he tossed the dust toward one of the mirrors.

The cracked mirror reflected the glow wrong, scattering it like residual magic.

Cyrinne spoke again in the stolen voice. "False bounce. The old glass is unstable."

Another pause.

Lux could feel the seconds burning.

Every moment here was an unpaid invoice.

Finally, the outside guard cursed under his breath. "Keep alert."

Footsteps receded.

Lux waited until they faded fully.

Then Cyrinne released the green veil and exhaled.

The flare died in her palm.

For two seconds, neither of them spoke.

Then Lux looked at her. "Nice voice."

Cyrinne glared. "Nice mess."

"That was controlled risk."

"That was nearly catastrophic."

"Nearly catastrophic is still within budget."

She stared at him. Then, despite herself, smiled.

The gallery behind them smelled like cracked magic and old fear. Lux wiped his daggers again, slower this time. His hands were steady. His face calm. But inside, his thoughts were moving faster.

They had almost triggered an alarm.

Already.

And they were not even at the chamber.

Time was bleeding.

He checked the internal sense tied to the Envy path.

Another half hour had passed.

Meaning they had been here one full hour.

One hour gone.

One hour left.

Lux looked down the next passage. It sloped deeper into the palace, toward a set of doors carved with erased names.

The whisper returned, closer this time. "Little Greed..."

Lux’s grip tightened around both daggers.

Cyrinne stepped beside him. "You heard?"

"Yes."

"She knows we’re coming."

Lux’s smile darkened, but his eyes stayed cold. "Good."

His heart, if his body had been here, would have been beating harder.

Not fear.

Urgency.

He hated urgency. Urgency made people stupid. It made kings reckless, angels desperate, demons honest. But one hour left meant every second had weight now. Every guard between him and the legendary demon was no longer just an enemy.

They were operating costs.

Lux stepped forward. "Then let’s reduce expenses."

Cyrinne smiled beside him, shadow dagger forming in her hand. "And here I thought romance was dead."

Lux moved into the dark. "Not dead. Just aggressively budgeted."

Cyrinne’s smile followed him like a knife with lipstick.

The passage sloped downward, and the palace changed again.

The same broken marble. The same ancient pillars. The same erased names carved into arches like someone had tried to murder memory itself with a chisel. But the air grew tighter. Heavier. Every step deeper felt less like walking through a corridor and more like moving down the throat of something that had swallowed a kingdom and still had indigestion.

Lux hated that image.

Mostly because it was accurate.

The walls were closer here, carved with old reliefs of demons kneeling before a faceless woman whose crown had been scratched out so violently the stone around it had cracked. On some panels, that woman held scales. On others, chains. On one, she held a blade over a kneeling king.

Interesting.

Very interesting.

Lux wanted to stop and study them.

He did not.

Because the guards were thicker now.

Not many at once. Kaelmor was too careful for that. Too many guards in one place meant too many witnesses, too much sound, too much risk of one idiot tripping over another idiot and ruining the whole quiet-prison aesthetic. Instead, they came in layers.

Two at the arch.

Three beyond the broken shrine.

One hidden above the doorway with a crossbow sigil aimed downward.

Another pair walking opposite patterns, timed so there was never a clean gap longer than three breaths.

Lux stopped behind a cracked statue.

Cyrinne pressed close to the opposite wall, green-black shadow curling around her shoulders. Her eyes flicked toward the far end of the passage.

There it was.

The chamber door.

Huge. Black. Carved from something that looked like stone but breathed like bone. It stood at the end of the corridor beneath an archway carved with erased script. Royal seals pulsed over its surface in slow red-gold rhythm, layered like locks on a vault no one wanted opened. On either side stood two elite guards, still as execution statues.

The chamber was right there.

So close.

Too close.

Lux felt impatience crawl beneath his skin.

Not the reckless urge to sprint forward and kick the door open like a hero with unpaid medical bills. This was worse. This was strategic impatience. The kind that whispered, every second costs you, every delay increases risk, every guard you leave alive is a future alarm.

His hand tightened around his daggers.

Cyrinne’s voice brushed his ear, barely sound. "Don’t rush."

Lux glanced at her.

Her face was calm, but he saw the tension near her jaw. She felt it too. The pull of the goal. The stupidity of wanting to run because the prize was visible.

"Yes," he murmured. "Because rushing toward a heavily guarded sealed chamber in a forgotten palace is bad accounting."

"Exactly."

"Still tempting."

"That is how traps make money."

Lux almost smiled.

The guards getting tighter meant two things.

One, they were in the right place.

Two, this was absolutely a trap.

Hopefully more of the first one, since the legendary demon had already whispered to him twice like an ancient horror with a personal invitation list.

But traps could also speak.

Lux had learned that the hard way.

The hidden guard above shifted his weight.

Tiny sound.

Almost nothing.

Lux’s eyes moved up.

There.

A narrow ledge running above the corridor, half collapsed, barely wide enough for a boot. The crossbow guard crouched behind a broken gargoyle, the weapon aimed toward the center path. Below him, two guards stood near the shrine. Three more patrolled the middle.

No clean route.

So they made one.

Lux lifted two fingers toward Cyrinne, then pointed at the shrine guards.