Chapter 356: Mausoleum

Chapter 356: Chapter 356: Mausoleum

Four hours after leaving the estate outside Verera, Liam had decided that Mezos’s estimate of a two-hour journey deserved to be formally investigated for fraud.

The cars had taken them as far as the last maintained road in northern Edrava, where the valley narrowed between steep forested hills and the old Nurian infrastructure disappeared beneath decades of neglect. From there, continuing by vehicle would have made them visible from half the mountain, so Severin had hidden both cars inside an abandoned forestry station while Mezos disabled every system capable of broadcasting their location.

They had walked ever since.

The forest was almost entirely dark beneath the dense pines, wet branches catching occasionally against Liam’s jacket while his boots sank into layers of needles and damp earth. He had changed out of his comfortable sweatshirt before leaving the estate, despite Arik’s objections regarding the ears, and now wore dark field trousers, a fitted thermal shirt beneath a lightweight coat, and shoes far better suited to climbing through Edrava’s northern wilderness.

Arik moved several steps ahead of him.

He had used almost no ether since they entered the mountains.

That restraint was becoming increasingly unnatural to watch.

Arik carried enough sovereign power now that Nuria responded when his temper changed, but tonight he kept everything drawn tightly inward, refusing to send more than the faintest trace through the ground whenever they needed to correct direction. If Felix could sense him through the old network, Arik had no intention of announcing how close they were until he was standing in front of him.

Every few minutes, however, Arik reached back without looking.

His hand found Liam’s wrist, his fingers, and once the back of his coat.

Liam had stopped teasing him about it two hours ago.

Severin appeared between the trees ahead, moving quietly despite the uneven terrain.

"Nothing on the eastern ridge."

Mezos emerged from the opposite side of the slope a few seconds later, tablet dark in his hand rather than illuminated.

"The western side is clear. No surface patrols, no recent vehicle tracks, and nothing significant on thermal."

Liam looked up the hill in front of them.

"So either Felix developed confidence in his old age, or everything is underground."

Severin adjusted the weapon secured beneath his coat.

"Felix preserved himself inside another person for decades."

Mezos nodded once. "Underground."

Arik stopped.

The others did the same.

He turned his head toward the slope to their left, where nothing distinguished one section of forest from another except a scatter of exposed rock beneath the pines.

Liam watched his expression change.

"You feel something?"

"Barely."

Arik left the narrow trail.

They followed him through thick undergrowth until he crouched beside what looked like a natural outcrop and pulled away several trailing vines.

Metal appeared beneath them.

Liam stared.

"That is annoyingly well hidden."

The entrance had been built directly into the hill, then covered with stone, soil, and vegetation until the rectangular outline of the doors vanished from more than a few meters away. Whatever defensive ether had once protected it was either dormant or suppressed so completely that Liam could detect only the faintest residue beneath the structure.

Mezos knelt beside the seam and removed a compact scanner.

"No active external alarm."

"That you can detect," Liam corrected.

Mezos glanced at him.

"Yes, Your Highness. Thank you for improving the atmosphere."

Severin smiled.

Arik crouched beside the locking mechanism.

Liam caught his wrist before his fingers touched it.

"No ether."

Arik looked up.

"I know."

"You were considering it."

"I was considering whether the mechanism recognized sovereign blood."

"That sounds suspiciously like ether."

Arik’s mouth moved slightly.

"Fine."

Mezos opened the lock mechanically instead.

It took nearly fifteen minutes.

When the final internal catch released, the enormous doors separated with a low vibration that traveled through the ground beneath their feet.

Cold air rolled outward.

Liam expected dust.

Instead, he felt ventilation.

He looked at Arik.

"Still active."

Arik nodded. ℴℴ𝘮

They entered together.

The first section resembled a military bunker, concrete reinforcement laid over much older Nurian stone while cables and pipes ran along the ceiling toward the interior of the hill. Narrow emergency lights provided barely enough illumination to follow the corridor, leaving long sections buried in shadow.

After fifty meters, Mezos raised one hand.

Everyone stopped.

"Movement below us."

Severin glanced toward his scanner.

"How many?"

"Two confirmed. Possibly more beyond the western branch."

Arik looked toward the branching corridor ahead.

"Stay here."

Mezos’s gaze immediately shifted to Liam.

"You are taking him."

"Yes."

The answer arrived before the objection did.

Mezos seemed to reconsider the usefulness of continuing.

Severin did not.

"If someone comes behind you?"

"You prevent them from reaching us."

"And if you find Felix?"

Arik’s gold eyes caught what little light reached them.

"I will let you know."

Severin gave him a flat look but stepped back toward the junction.

Liam followed Arik deeper underground.

The architecture changed gradually as they descended.

Concrete vanished.

Modern wiring disappeared into narrow channels carved into black stone.

Gold lines emerged beneath their boots, old ether circuitry worked directly into the floor and walls with a precision Liam recognized from Nuria’s oldest structures.

"This predates Edravan independence."

"By a great deal."

"Do you remember it?"

Arik remained silent for a moment.

"No."

Liam disliked that answer.

They reached another sealed door, although this one opened as Arik approached.

Neither of them touched it.

Liam stopped.

"Well. That is welcoming."

Arik’s expression hardened.

The door withdrew into the wall.

They entered.

Liam had expected a laboratory.

Perhaps another chamber filled with stolen ether machinery, bodies, containment structures, or whatever other nightmare Felix considered reasonable.

Instead, he found a mausoleum.

The chamber rose several stories inside the hill, its walls lined with black stone niches arranged in perfect rows and sealed behind slabs bearing names carved in old Nurian script. Pale gold illumination came from beneath the floor rather than overhead, leaving the vaulted ceiling in darkness while casting long shadows behind monuments and funerary pillars.

The air smelled faintly of preservation ether and stone.

Liam stared around them.

"Please let Felix have left his thumb in a jar somewhere and not something weird again."

Arik slowly looked at him.

"What?"

Liam lowered his voice.

"We have had a very unreasonable year."

Arik might have smiled if his attention had not shifted past Liam’s shoulder.

Liam followed his gaze.

At the far end of the mausoleum stood a glass chamber.

A room.

It occupied an elevated platform reached by several shallow steps, every surface so perfectly transparent that the structure almost disappeared beneath the low gold light.

Inside it was a throne.

Black stone.

Gold worked through its arms and high back in elaborate imperial patterns.

Liam knew that throne.

He had seen it in the portrait they found inside Felix’s rooms in Wrohan before the Gate opened.

Someone sat upon it.