Sabina’s fingers dug deeper into the hem of Gavril’s smock as her mind cycled through logistical margins. Tomorrow. The canonical date. Her gaze dropped to Gavril’s cheekbones, where his slitted pupils tracked her pulse. He leaned into her shoulder, basking in the catastrophe.
“Substantial,” Sabina repeated, flat. “We’ll see about that. First, we inventory the counter-strategy.” She set him down on his boots, ignoring how he swayed into her skirt to fake a tremor. “Mirela,” Sabina said, turning to her lady-in-waiting, who was already wiping down a dusty stone bench with a square of linen. “Report. Access points to the Leviathan’s Skull. Security rotations. Any known wards or blood-seals.”
“The Skull,” Mirela began, crisp, slipping effortlessly into tactical assessment, “is the heart of the labyrinth's arcane defenses. There are two primary entrances: the Grand Artery, heavily guarded for ceremonial access, and the Cranial Vein, a service passage only used by the Royal Scribes. Both require a blood-pact key, specific to the House of Miroslavia, and are under constant surveillance.” She paused, lifting her chin. “The Harrowing Ledger is kept within the central vault there, sealed by a secondary, older magic.”
Sabina nodded, her mind already mapping out a plan. “Gavril, your familiarity with the structural marrow will be invaluable. Mirela, your efficiency with quiet ingress and egress will be critical. My role will be management, execution, and, if strictly necessary, culinary diversion.”
Gavril pushed himself off the stone wall he’d been leaning against, a faint smirk playing on his lips. “You intend to break into the Skull tonight? Before the ball?”
“Of course,” Sabina said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The ball is a distraction. They’ll be too busy with preparations and pre-celebration rituals. Tonight, the focus is on logistics. Tomorrow, it’s mass destruction. We’re simply expediting the paperwork.”
Hours later, beneath the cover of dense midnight mist, the trio moved through the labyrinth's forgotten service conduits. The air grew colder, thick with the scent of ancient bone and dried ichor. Dust motes danced in the dim light of Mirela’s hooded lantern, revealing colossal fossilized ribs arching overhead, their surfaces slick with condensation.
“The Cranial Vein,” Mirela whispered, pointing to a circular door, almost seamless with the surrounding bone-wall. It was marked only by a faint, glowing sigil that pulsed with a dull, crimson light. “A lesser blood-pact. But still anchored to the Queen’s lineage.”
Sabina examined the sigil, a tangle of ancient runes that writhed with faint, hungry energy. A complex, organic lock. Most would attempt to brute force it with magic or an ancestral blood-key. Sabina, however, reached into her apron, pulling out a slim, polished tool. It was a digital-grade meat probe, its steel needle glinting. She had always found it useful for far more than poultry.
“Blood magic,” Sabina mused, her brow furrowed in concentration. “It’s simply a biometric latch with unnecessary theater. It measures charge, conductivity, and mechanical resistance.” She slid the stainless tip into a hairline seam within the sigil, her knuckles steady as if testing the core of a terrine. Mirela exchanged a baffled look with Gavril. The battery-lit gauge on the casing flickered, rolling through erratic thermal readings. Sabina ignored the numbers, centering her attention on the physical feedback of the tumbler.
“Ah, there,” she murmured, detecting a faint give. She twisted the probe, just so, adjusting the angle. A soft click echoed down the hollow duct. The crimson sigil dimmed, then winked out entirely. The circular door hissed open, revealing a dark corridor beyond. Mirela stared at the steel needle in Sabina’s hand with baffled reverence. Gavril’s lips were pressed into a thin, unreadable line. He was beginning to realize Sabina’s practicality extended to things far beyond cooking.
The corridor beyond curved sharply through damp shale. Sabina took the lead, soles padding against grit. They had barely advanced ten yards when a sentry detached from an alcove, moving with drilled precision. It was an elite sentinel, clad in dark, bone-plated armor, his gauntleted hand already reaching for the horn at his belt to sound an alarm.
Before Sabina could even register the threat, Gavril moved. It bore none of his usual limping frailty. He lunged noiselessly, fast as striking vipers. He was suddenly behind the guard, a tendril of inky shadow coiling around the man’s neck. There was a sickening, wet snap. The guard’s body crumpled, a heavy thud against the stone. Gavril caught him before he hit the ground entirely, easing him down with practiced ease. His face, illuminated by Mirela’s lamp, was no longer soft or fragile. It was sharp, cold, and utterly devoid of mercy.
“No one,” Gavril breathed, his voice a low, chilling whisper, his eyes fixed on the prone guard, “touches what is mine.”
Sabina turned, her brows furrowed. “Did he trip?” she asked, peering down at the collapsed guard. “Atrocious ergonomics. We’ll need to file a formal request for structural safety if Marrow Court patrols are this clumsy. Always keep your center of gravity balanced in low light.” She stepped around the body, already assessing the path ahead. Gavril stared at her back, his expression a complicated mix of possessive fury and something that looked suspiciously like doting adoration. He hadn’t even registered her dismissive assumption about the guard’s ‘trip’.
They reached the central vault: a slab of black basalt chiseled with agonized, open-mouthed faces. This was the final barrier guarding the Harrowing Ledger. Sabina scanned the mortise, running numbers.
Just as she raised her metal probe, the basalt slabs shivered, swinging inward with a grinding groan to reveal a vaulted cavern soaked in pulsating violet phosphor. And there, standing in the center, her figure regal and terrifying, was Queen Oana. Her hand was raised, crackling with dark magic, and held aloft, by the throat, was Sabina’s father, his face ashen, gasping for breath.
“Well, well, my dear Sabina,” Queen Oana purred, her smile a cruel twist of triumph. “Fancy meeting you here. And you brought the Ledger’s rightful heir.”
Sabina froze, her eyes fixed not on the Queen, but on the desperate, pleading gaze of her father.