The Weaver's mouth thinned into a smile, carving lines into skin I had believed buried under river silt years ago. “Indeed, Chailai. It has been far too long since we spoke, truly spoke. Though I admit, I’ve enjoyed watching your little dance.” My throat tightened against a dry cough. "My little dance? While our bloodline fractured? While you hid beneath the riverbeds?" Her chin tilted sideways. "Necessity, my dear. And a little craft woven into an old rhyme. A soldier's looming shadow bringing ruin? A useful rumor. It swept aside inconvenient elders and left the looms unattended for me." She gestured with a delicate hand towards the vast, inverted ceiling, where the shimmering surface of the canal above acted as a warped, liquid sky. "The true architect of the curse," Natthawut said beside me, iron rattling at his wrists. "You corrupted the temple scrolls." "The scrolls welcomed an editor," she said, her cloak sweeping the flagstones. "Wiangthara adores a ruined dynasty. You played the scapegoat with remarkable obedience, Commander. The prophesied doom of our city. Splendid theater." She stopped before us, tracing the hilt at her hip. "Now, the final stanza. Your execution proves the curse to every guild along the water, while leaving my niece without an ally left standing. No meddlesome protector. No claimant to dispute who owns our family looms." She struck her palms together twice. From the alcoves stepped two syndicate brutes wrapped in boiled leather. They seized Natthawut, unchaining him only to bind his hands behind his back with ropes infused with a dull, anti-magic shimmer. He offered no resistance, his gaze fixed on my aunt, a deep, sorrowful understanding etched on his face. "Bring him," she ordered, turning toward the raised dais. We were forced to follow, Maliwan maintaining her grip on my arm, her knuckles white. My bindings felt suddenly looser, the 'False Knot' I had noticed earlier now a gaping loophole. Maliwan’s subtle message, delivered in a moment of terror, now screamed its urgency. On the dais, a structure of dark, polished wood stood, inlaid with glinting storm-silk threads that pulsed with a faint, sapphire light. A colossal blade, crafted from compressed rain-crystal, hung suspended above a heavy stone block. A storm-cutter frame. The suspended crystal resonated with trapped rain. Natthawut was forced onto the block, his neck positioned beneath the shimmering blade. He caught my stare across the platform without flinching. Beside me, Maliwan never glanced at the scaffold; her attention locked entirely onto my aunt. The woman raised a gloved hand. "Any final speech, soldier? A lament for your misplaced valor?" Natthawut merely stared at her, then back at me, a flicker of a smile touching his lips. “I will not abandon her.” "Stubborn dog," she murmured, dropping her palm. "Trip the catch." A blur of movement beside me. Maliwan’s arm swept up, a flash of polished steel catching the light. A throwing knife, spun with practiced ease, severed the thick, braided ropes holding the rain-crystal blade aloft. The guillotine mechanism buckled as the cut rope unspooled, dropping the counterweight into empty air while the crystal blade wedged sideways against the timber frame. Not a clean cut, but a sabotaged release. The elder woman recoiled, pointing a quivering finger. "Maliwan! Insolent dog!" “Sorry, Auntie,” Maliwan said, her voice devoid of its usual warmth, her stance shifting into a combat readiness I hadn’t seen since the flooded tunnels. “Some knots just aren’t meant to hold.” The two brutes lunged forward. I twisted hard against the weakened cords, snapping the slip-loop Maliwan had tied. Ripping free, I snatched the iron sidearm tucked into the belt of the nearest guard, yanking it clear. "Catch!" I yelled, pitching the weapon across the stones. Natthawut trapped the grip mid-turn, snapping the cord around his wrists against the crossguard. The tired soldier vanished behind a stance like an iron wall. The under-hall dissolved into clattering steel. Natthawut met the charging retainers head-on, iron deflecting bronze with ruthless economy, holding the steps while I slipped clear of the platform. I scrambled for my own hidden tools, pulling out a coil of fine, almost invisible silk thread, infused with a subtle stickiness. "Maliwan, down!" I shouted as an armored guard leveled a cudgel at her shoulder. She dipped low. My gummed line snapped out, snaring his greaves. She swept her heel across his balance, sending him crashing skull-first into the tiles. "You finally taking assistance, weaver?" Maliwan grinned, retrieving a secondary stiletto from her sleeve. She moved like the syndicate butcher she had hidden under market skirts for years. "Don't put it in your diary!" I snapped, casting out another loop. The treated strand tripped two charging thugs, giving Maliwan clean arcs to crack ribs and disarm cudgels before they found footing. Natthawut kept our flank clear, parrying cross-cuts and driving the remaining retainers back down the steps with sharp, punishing thrusts honed across border sieges. The Weaver backed toward the platform edge, her knuckles digging into the dais paneling. "Fools! Did you think living through the trial saved you?" She pressed a hidden panel on the side of the dais. A low rumble vibrated through the floor, growing louder, more insistent. Water. I felt it before I saw it, a tremor in the very foundations of the palace. A high-pitched whine began to emanate from the canal surface above us, a sound that quickly intensified into a roar. Cracks spiderwebbed across the vast, inverted ceiling, and through them, thick sheets of canal water began to pour, not just dripping, but cascading, forming instant waterfalls. "Sluice gates!" Maliwan shouted over the torrent. "The whole foundation is giving way!" The old spider laughed, backing up a spiral stair that folded out from the stonework toward an escape trapdoor in the roof. “Enjoy the embrace of the river, my dear niece! Consider it a family reunion!” With a final, taunting sneer, she slipped through the hatch, and it slammed shut with a metallic clang, sealing us in as the waters rose with terrifying speed.

The Inverted Palace