"Quiet down before you summon the entire guard detail, Tariq!" Zhulya hissed, lunging forward to yank the disgraced clerk across the threshold before kicking the heavy oak door shut. Tariq slumped against her table, clutching the velvet-bound volume against his ribs like a shield. "You don't understand. The log is ciphered using old high-sultanate cyphers. It will take days to untangle without the lexicon preserved in the lower vaults. If we don't translate it tonight, Yadan's audit will catch the missing volume at dawn." Behind Zhulya, a pathetic whimper rose from the bed. Ozen curled into the fur blankets, thin shoulders trembling under his oversized tunic. He peeked through tangled raven locks, looking frail, bruised, and thoroughly discarded. "Zhulya... my chest hurts. Must we go down into the dark? The cold makes my bones ache." Zhulya's heart went soft. In her previous life, she had seen dozens of arrogant stunt leads act tough over sprained ankles, but this boy endured cosmic cruelties and still asked for nothing more than a warm hearth. She bounded over, sweeping his chilled fingers into her calloused grip. "Don't you worry, sweet boy. You stick right by me. If your feet get cold, I'll carry you on my back." Ozen hid his face in her sleeve, letting out a pitiful sniffle. Beneath the coarse weave of the cloth, his lips curved into a sharp, razor-thin smirk. *Look at this sniveling scavenger,* Ozen thought, his inner mind simmering with obsidian malice. *Breathing her air. Demanding her focus. If Tariq looks at her like she is his salvation one more time, I will unravel the marrow in his shins while he sleeps. Zhulya belongs to my misery. Only mine.* Shortly after, they slipped down the spiral stairs beneath the Maral Citadel, skirting the outer ring of the subterranean repository. Torches flickered in iron sconces, casting sickly yellow shapes across the basalt floor. Tariq crept ahead on silent soles, waving hand signals he had learned in the imperial supply corps. "Halt," Tariq whispered, dropping to a crouch before a brass-bound door etched with interlocking runes. "This is the scriptorium barrier. A three-phase alchemical ward. Touch it incorrectly, and it unleashes a sonic shriek that alerts the entire garrison. Give me a few moments with my picks." Zhulya stared at the glowing runes. Zhulya ground her molars. Every second spent fiddling in a moldy hallway was another second Matriarch Yadan stayed comfortable in her silk sheets. "Stand back," Zhulya said. "Wait, no! It requires delicate calibra—" Zhulya refused to wait. Channeling her weight through her hips—the exact rotational kick she used to shatter fiberglass breakaway walls on film sets—she drove the iron heel of her boot directly into the lock's runic nexus. A deafening *CRACK* ripped through the corridor. Stone pulverized. The brass plate caved inward with an agonizing groan, and the heavy door blew off its hinges, clattering loudly against the flagstones inside. Tariq clutched his hair, staring in pure horror. "Are you out of your mind? That was an eighth-tier ward! You kicked it!" "And it opened," Zhulya remarked, dusting off her leather greave. "Efficiency, Tariq. You think too much. Come on." She reached behind her, catching Ozen's wrist to pull him past the splintered threshold. "You okay, little shadow? Did the noise scare you?" Ozen leaned heavily against her flank, burying his cheek into her shoulder. "My ears ring, Zhulya... but you are so strong. So magnificent." Zhulya grinned, puffing out her chest. "Damn right. Stick close." Tariq hurried to a towering shelf of vellum codices, unrolling a sheepskin map while pulling the stolen black account-book from his tunic. "Here. The lexicon of the third dynasty. If I cross-reference the numerical keys with the star charts, we can unmask Yadan's cipher within an hour. Look here—these balance sheets aren't grain rations. They're tithes paid to ritualists." Zhulya leaned over Tariq's shoulder, genuinely impressed. "Damn, Tariq. You're brilliant. I would've just beaten the old woman until she read it to me out loud." Tariq flushed with modest pride, adjusting his collar. "It's simple logistical analysis. Knowledge is the ultimate weapon, Lady Zhulya." *Knowledge?* Ozen’s teeth ground together behind his parted lips. A cold, suffocating fury curled inside his gut, greasy and venomous. *Brilliant? She called this pathetic pen-pusher brilliant? The man had never torn poison out of her veins, nor offered his own flesh to keep her breathing.* Ozen dragged his foot slightly as he shuffled behind them, aiming the toe of his boot precisely at Tariq’s trailing heel. With a flick of his ankle, he hooked the man's leg. Tariq yelped, losing his footing completely and tumbling face-first into an antique rack of scrolls. Papyrus canisters cascaded down around him like dry bones, clattering loudly over the floor. "Tariq!" Zhulya spun around. "What happened?" "He tripped me!" Tariq groaned from beneath a mountain of century-old tax forms, glaring at Ozen. "The boy deliberately tripped me!" Ozen immediately dropped to his knees, trembling violently. He folded his hands against his chest, tears brimming in his dark, obsidian irises. He let out a harsh, hacking cough, his small frame shuddering so hard he seemed on the verge of breaking. "I—I slipped... my vision blurred. I tried to steady myself on his tunic... I am sorry, Quartermaster Tariq! Please do not strike me!" Zhulya's maternal fury ignited like flash powder. She stepped between them, glaring down at Tariq who was still struggling to untangle himself from the mess. "Are you serious, Tariq?" she snapped, hauling Ozen up by his waist and tucking the boy securely against her hip. "He's starving, sick, and traumatized. You have two left feet and you're blaming a child? Apologize to him right now or I'll feed you that scroll." Tariq blinked in sheer disbelief, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. "He... he smiled at me! I saw him!" "He's crying, you idiot!" Zhulya pulled Ozen tighter, rubbing his back. "Shh, don't listen to him, Ozen. I've got you. Nobody touches you while I'm around." Pressed into the crook of her neck, hidden from Tariq's view, Ozen cast a slow, mocking glance at the quartermaster. His eyes, devoid of any warmth, narrowed into slits of pure triumph. *She chooses me. She will always choose me. Say another word, parchment clerk, and I will boil the ink in your skin.* Tariq swallowed hard, shaking his head in defeat. He dusted off his tunic, limping back to the central desk. "Fine. Fine! Let's just finish the translation before we are caught." Zhulya kept one arm firmly anchored around Ozen's waist while leaning over the desk to scan the yellowed folios. Tariq’s ink-stained finger traced down a newly deciphered parchment. "Look at this entry," Tariq whispered, his voice losing its petulance, replaced by absolute dread. "Sixteen years ago. The exact night the true Artaq infant was swapped with you, Zhulya." "What does it say?" Zhulya demanded. "'The Vessel of Dust was placed in the cradle to draw the imperial evil eye,'" Tariq read, his voice wavering. "You weren't just a shield, Zhulya. You were marked to take the executioner's blade so the real heir could grow up in secrecy under the protection of the southern tribes. And Ozen..." Tariq looked up, his face devoid of color. "His mother didn't die of fever. Yadan slit her throat to harvest her ancestral sigil. And during the upcoming Blood Eclipse, Yadan intends to conduct the Rite of Hollow Kings. She plans to drain every drop of Ozen's royal bloodline to artificially graft it into the hidden Artaq heir." Zhulya's vision flared red. The cold fury that had been smoldering inside her turned into an inferno. *A blood graft? They slaughtered his mother like cattle, and now they want to strip his life to crown their own puppet? Over my dead body.* "Matriarch Yadan," Zhulya whispered, her knuckles whitening against the stone edge of the table, "is going to choke on her own teeth." Before Tariq could answer, a thunderous clang echoed through the corridor. The reinforced iron door at the archive entrance slammed shut with finality, heavy deadbolts sliding home with three distinct, metallic thuds. Above them, the ceiling vents squeaked open. From the high grates, streams of glowing, amber powder poured down—the dreaded corrosive desert sand of the Sultanate, engineered to eat through flesh and stone alike in moments.

Jealousy in the Archives