The royal vault was cold.
Seren stood before the iron door, the key heavy in her hand. Behind her, Kael waited with a torch. He had insisted on coming. Not because he didn't trust her, but because he didn't trust the dark.
"You don't have to do this alone," he said.
"I'm not alone. You're here."
"That's not what I meant."
She turned the key. The lock groaned. The door swung open.
The vault smelled of old stone and older secrets. Shelves lined the walls, filled with artifacts from centuries of royal history. Crowns. Swords. Scrolls. And there, on the bottom shelf, wrapped in oilcloth, was the old healer's journal.
Seren picked it up. The leather was cracked. The pages were yellow.
"Back to the study," she said.
She read until dawn.
The old healer's handwriting was cramped, obsessive, full of crossed-out formulas and desperate scribbles. But slowly, patterns emerged.
