The brass door clanged shut behind Pia, sealing her in the Subterrane of Echoes. High above, perched behind reinforced quartz viewing panels, the high council looked down like vultures on a balustrade. Otylia Novak leaned forward on velvet cushions, her sneer sharp enough to slice glass. Kazimir Zima sat with his fingers laced across his knee, smiling that serene, unreadable diplomat’s smile. Down by the arena gate, Lev Orlov stood rigid, hand pressed to the pommel of his broadsword, knuckles bleached white through his leather gauntlet. And Damir Volkov? Damir simply leaned against an iron pillar, dark brow furrowed, tracking her every stumble with brooding intensity. In the center of the ring, the cage hissed. "The Trial of Attunement," Stellan Rurik’s reedy voice crackled over the acoustic brass tubes along the walls. The clan scholar sounded utterly bored, yet viciously eager to see her bleed. "The true Veleshnya commands the shade with blood-resonance alone. If she is the prophesied soul, the creature will bend knee within three chimes. If she is a pretender... well. The Sanctum groundskeepers have brooms." "Wait!" Pia waved both hands frantically, the silk hems of her borrowed gown tangling around her ankles. "I didn't agree to this! I chop celery! I organize canned peas by expiration date!" *Clack.* The cage’s iron grate lifted. Out rolled a tangle of oily smoke, curdling into the shape of a dog the size of a heifer, its ribs formed of fractured gray bone. It had no eyes, only hollows leaking black frost that crisped the flagstones. The air turned rancid, smelling of wet rust and dead marsh grass—the taint of the Blight. The Phantom howled. The sound scraped against Pia’s teeth like chalk on slate. Up in the gallery, Otylia smirked. "Let us see the soup maid command the dusk." Damir shifted his stance. His boots ground into the gravel, shoulders tensing as if he intended to vault the barrier himself, curse or no curse. Lev took a half-step forward, armor clinking, his gaze burning through the quartz. The shadow-hound coiled, preparing to pounce. Pia squeezed her eyes shut, ready to curl into a ball and apologize for existing. But the strike never landed. Instead, a frantic rattling sound echoed against the cold stone. Pia peeled one eyelid open. The monster was thrashing its spectral snout against the wall three feet to her left. Not aiming for her throat, but snapping frantically at a stone alcove. Inside the alcove sat a tarnished copper urn holding an overgrown *Spathiphyllum*—a peace lily, or what remained of it. The stalks were bent double, caked in dry, baked clay, its leaves blackened with the crusty, rotting mildew of the Blight. The hound was clawing at the base, whining, an agonized, whimpering scrape vibrating in its throat. "Fascinating," Stellan’s voice murmured over the acoustic tube. "The beast displays erratic behavior. An unstable specimen." *It isn't unstable,* Pia realized. *It's choking on that rot.* At the Saint Jude soup kitchen, Father Thomas had kept three peace lilies on the windowsill. When spider mites attacked them, the room had smelled identical to this—sour, suffocating, full of misery. "Pia! Fall back!" Damir’s roar ripped through the chamber, sharp and raw. She didn't run. Without thinking, Pia lunged toward the ceremonial font near the inner gate, grabbing a heavy pewter water pitcher set out for ritual cleansing. She hoisted it in both hands, marched right past the snapping jaws of the Phantom, and planted herself in front of the dying plant. "She’s lost her mind," Otylia laughed shrilly from the balcony. "She’s offering tea to a demon!" Pia ignored her. She ripped off the heavy lace cuffs of her sleeves, dipping them into the pitcher. "Hey, shh. It's okay," she muttered aloud, voice steadying into the calm cadence she used when angry drunks demanded seconds at the kitchen line. "Look at you. Rootbound, parched, covered in scale. Who planted you in pure clay, you poor thing?" With gentle, practiced touches, she stripped away the brittle, blackened outer leaves. She wet the linen rag and wiped the Blight sludge off the central stem, exposing the pale green flesh beneath. Then, tipping the vessel, she poured fresh, clean spring water directly into the parched soil, soaking the root ball until clear liquid seeped from the pot's drainage holes. The air snapped. The moment the soil drank the moisture, the stagnant mildew smell vanished, replaced by the crisp scent of rain and crushed clover. The peace lily's central spear shuddered, unfurling a pristine white spathe right before their eyes. The shadow-hound went limp. Its jagged bone ribs smoothed out; the oily smoke around its paws settled into a soft, velvety mist. It let out a soft huff, laid its massive skull across Pia’s slippers, and gave a slow, contented sigh that blew her skirt against her shins. Pia blinked down at the monster, then reached out and nervously patted its smoky ear. It leaned into her touch like an overgrown golden retriever. Silence fell over the viewing gallery so thick that the slow dripping of the urn sounded like artillery fire. Otylia rose from her chair, palms dug into the velvet railing, mouth hanging open. Stellan dropped his brass quill; it bounced off the stone floor with a sharp ring. Up on the balcony, Kazimir tilted his head, his amused smirk melting into something sharp, assessing, and utterly baffled. Down on the arena floor, Damir froze mid-step, his hands slowly unclenching. He stared at her through the bars, his dark eyes wide, the tension in his rigid shoulders dissolving into pure astonishment. "She used not a drop of resonance," Stellan stammered through the tube, composure shattered. "No clan binding. No glyph. The beast... it knelt." "I just watered the plant," Pia squeaked, terrified that moving her foot might make the monster eat her toes. *** Two hours later, after the council dissolved in a flurry of hushed, furious arguments, Pia managed to slip away from Lev's watchful escort by pleading an urgent need to visit the royal washrooms. The washroom remained unvisited; she needed an exit. The Perun Sanctum’s grand archive seemed the safest path toward the outer mountain perimeter. Towering mahogany shelves groaned beneath loads of calfskin tomes, illuminated manuscripts, and astrological charts of the northern skies. The smell of cedar oil and ancient paper hung thick in the shadowed aisles. "There has to be a servant's door," she whispered to herself, tracing the perimeter wall behind the historical annals. "A cellar entrance. A coal chute. Anything." Her palms brushed against a carved oak panel depicting a falcon in mid-flight. One of the feathers felt cold—not wood, but chilled brass. She pressed it instinctively. *Click.* A seam in the masonry hissed open, revealing a narrow, dust-choked corridor lit only by guttering tallow candles. A draft whipped through, smelling faintly of cold sulfur. Pia hesitated. Common sense screamed at her to turn back, run to her plush bedroom, and hide under the blankets. But the draft meant outside air. Outside air meant freedom from demonic dogs, brooding cursed clan lords, and snooty aristocrats. She ducked into the passage. The stones were slick beneath her slippers. Twenty paces in, the tunnel opened into an octagonal vault dominated by a knee-high stone pillar. Embedded in the pillar was a jagged blue quartz—a warding stone, etched with intricate northern runes. Kneeling over the stone was a figure cloaked in midnight wool. The person held a slender iron chisel, driving it repeatedly into the base of the mineral. Tiny black fissures were already spreading across its blue glow, leaking thin tendrils of greasy black smoke. "Excuse me?" Pia blurted out before her brain could stop her. "I don't think you're supposed to hit that." The figure whipped around. A silver mask obscured the upper half of their face, but the fury in their posture was unmistakable. In a single fluid motion, the intruder drew a curved dagger and lunged straight at Pia’s throat. Pia shrieked, threw her arms up, and dodged clumsily to the left. Her foot caught the hem of her oversized gown, sending her tumbling onto the flagstones. The blade sliced through empty air, clattering against the wall where her head had been a second before. The attacker hissed a curse through the mask, kicked Pia hard in the ribs, and bolted back toward a second, hidden doorway at the far end of the vault. The heavy iron door slammed shut, followed by the heavy drop of an iron deadbolt. Pia gasped for air on the cold floor, clutching her bruised side. Her ribs ached with every frantic, rattling heave. "Ouch... okay, bad idea. Very bad idea." As she pushed herself up on trembling palms, her knuckles brushed against a small, metallic object on the floor where the attacker had stood. She picked it up and held it to the dim light of the fractured stone. It was an enameled silver pin, forged into the shape of a crystalline snowflake wrapped in a serpent's tail—the unmistakable, bespoke crest of the Zima clan. Pia’s breath stopped. Kazimir.

First Trial, First Lie