Navigating the claustrophobic stacks, I tear thick cobwebs from my face, hunting strictly for the royal seals while ignoring the mundane harvest tallies.
Buried in the furthest corner, concealed behind a collapsed row of crumbling masonry, a reinforced iron cage is bolted directly into the stone. It lacks a physical padlock; instead, a complex, faintly glowing magical ward pulses across the bars.
Reaching out, I brace my muscles for a lethal shock. The moment my fingertips graze the metal, the biting tang ofcrushed ash—Zhetrin's residual magic, still humming along my skin—flares to life. Recognizing the Warlord’s volatile signature, the ward shifts its hue and yields with a sharp, dissipating hiss. I wrench the cage open.
A cache of restricted, iron-clasped tomes rests inside, each bearing the deeply etched, personal crest of Patriarch Varynth.
Extracting the most massive ledger from the shelf, I sink to my knees upon the dusty floor. I dig into the pocket of my linen skirt, unfolding a small vellum translation key I pilfered from Zhetrin's desk days prior. Hauling the thick cover open, I drag my finger down the faded ink columns.
My focus snaps rapidly between the Warlord's key and the ancient sigils, decoding the archaic Khuzuth cipher into the brutal reality of the surface. These are not standard trade logs.
They are the historical tallies of the entire Undercity spanning the last two centuries. My mind ruthlessly cross-references the dates of the major harvest yields against the documented spikes of human mortality in the Lowtowns.
A terrifying, impossible pattern bleeds from the ink.
Seventy harvests ago, the neutral houses aligned to demand a lower tithe from the Patriarch. The following season, the Thosti granaries inexplicably sealed their doors. A catastrophic famine swept the surface. To survive, the neutral lords were forced to purchase emergency rations from Varynth at quadruple the value, entirely bankrupting their rebellion.
I turn the brittle vellum faster, the ancient dust scraping against my tongue.
Forty harvests ago, Lord Kryven’s predecessor raised a mercenary army to challenge the Thosti borders. The very next month, a mysterious blight struck the eastern foundries. As the human laborers starved, flesh-brokers swept the districts, stealing the children. But the ledgers prove the brokers were secretly funded by Varynth’s shadow-accounts. The Patriarchpurchased the stolen youth, trafficked them to the far continents, and weaponized the acquired wealth to crush the rival army.
Rocking back onto my heels, the massive tome anchors my lap. My hands tremble—not from the subterranean chill, but from sheer, unadulterated horror.
The cruelty of the Undercity is not merely a culture of dominance. It is not natural attrition. It is a sprawling, orchestrated conspiracy.
Patriarch Varynth has artificially engineered the famines, the plagues, and the trafficking spikes for centuries. Whenever a rival house steps out of line, Varynth starves the human surface to manipulate the economy, economically crushing the dark elf lords back onto their knees.
Kryven is a butcher, but Varynth architected the slaughterhouse. A sickening jolt strikes my chest as a new variable drops into the equation.
Does Zhetrin have a hand in this?
Bile burns my tongue. I ruthlessly shove the nauseating possibility down, anchoring my focus to the highly encrypted, personal blood-seal of the Patriarch authorizing the death of thousands. Cross-referencing the intricate, multi-layered cipher with the memory of the documents I glimpsed in Zhetrin's study, the match is absolute. It is an immortal's unique, unforgivable brand.
Clarity crashes over my mind, instantly freezing the treacherous, foolish warmth attempting to bloom in my chest.
Zhetrin pinned me to the mattress, his breath mingling with mine, the friction of his skin setting my blood on fire. He made me feel seen. He made me feel lethal. But the blood of this rotting house pumps through his veins. He is the military arm of a lineage that categorizes my people as entirely expendable variables in a political equation.
I cannot afford to soften toward him. I cannot allow the intoxicating, suffocating gravity of the High Sovereign to blind me to the reality of his caste. We are bound by a temporary, transactional alliance. I require his military might and gold to stabilize the Lowtowns, and he requires my intellect to outmaneuver his rivals. If I permit the searing heat of his touch to cloud my judgment, I will end up as just another crossed-out tally in these rotting ledgers.
The sharp, sudden scrape of a boot against stone splinters the quiet.
I paralyze.
Heavy footsteps approach, slow and deliberate, pacing down the adjacent aisle of shelves. Someone is sweeping the restricted levels.
Adrenaline spikes a vicious warning through my chest. If I am caught holding the Patriarch’s sealed ledgers, Tharion’s hounds will not pause to request Zhetrin’s permission before executing me.
I force the massive tome shut. I cannot abandon it—it is the sole, tangible proof of Varynth’s generational treason. Hauling up the linen of my skirt, I shove the iron-clasped ledger directly against my thigh, utilizing the thick folds of the fabric to swallow the bulk.
I ease the iron cage shut, clicking the ward back into place.
Retreating flush against the crumbling masonry, I hold my breath, tracking the footsteps as they bypass the end of the aisle. The exact second the figure rounds the far corner, I break into a silent, desperate sprint toward the servant stairs.
The iron clasps of the ledger bruise my thigh with every frantic step, the physical pain a fraction of the massive conspiracy currently crushing my shoulders. I take the winding stone steps two at a time, breaching the ambient glow of the upper corridors.
Racing back toward Zhetrin’s wing, the devastating truth of the Undercity burns through my veins.
The immaculate architecture of House Thosti’s power is built entirely upon a slaughterhouse, and the real war has only just begun.
