Chapter 61: The Escape Through Shadows
The stairwell wasn’t just dark; it swallowed sound. Their frantic footsteps, the rasp of their breathing, the rustle of silk skirts—it all got muffled under the weight of descending stone. The air changed after the first turn, dropping in temperature and thickening with a familiar, sterile dampness that coated the tongue. It was the smell of the labs. So similar to the smell of Blackwood’s. It was the smell of her childhood.
Seraphina’s hand tightened on Mia, who was a trembling weight against her hip. Behind her, someone—Tess—was crying in short, sharp hiccups, trying to stifle the sound. Vincent was a shadow at the front, his free hand trailing along the wall, feeling their way down. Callum brought up the rear, his presence a solid pressure at her back, listening for pursuit.
The stairs ended in a narrow antechamber, and the faint, greenish glow of alchemical lighting seeped under a heavy iron door. Vincent paused, his ear to the cold metal.
“Nothing,” he whispered. “Empty.”
“It won’t be for long,” Callum muttered. “They’ll flood this place. Standard containment.”
Vincent tried the handle. It was unlocked. He pushed it open a crack, then wider. The sight beyond stole the air from Seraphina’s lungs.
They were in Observation. The central hub of the Blackwood labs, replicated here under the palace. A circular room with a domed glass ceiling currently showing nothing but blackness, ringed by doors leading to the holding cells, the surgical theaters, the breeding wards. The green light came from pulsating orbs set in brass sconces. Screens of etched crystal, now dark, lined the walls. In the center stood a single, high-backed chair of polished leather, positioned to view all the doors. The Emperor’s viewing seat.
It was silent. Eerily so. The usual hum of machinery was absent. The silence of a predator holding its breath.
“Gods,” Callum breathed, his face pale in the ghastly light. He’d never been down here. He’d only heard reports. Seeing it was different.
The group spilled into the room, huddling together. Kya’s eyes were huge, reflecting the green orbs. She pointed a shaky finger at one of the doors. “That’s… that’s the bad room. Where the cold tables are.”
Seraphina knew. She knew every door. The one on the left led to the small, soundproofed cells where they’d take you for “disciplinary conditioning.” The one straight ahead, wider, led to the communal holding pen. The smell of antiseptic couldn’t mask the underlying scent of fear, of blood, of bleach trying to clean what could never be clean.
Elara moaned, sagging against Liana. “I can’t… I can’t go back in a cage. Please.”
“We’re not going back in,” Seraphina said, her voice harder than she felt. She walked to the center of the room, her eyes skipping over the horrible chair. She faced the wall opposite the stairwell door. It was smooth, seamless black stone. The Emperor’s private entrance and exit. There was no handle.
“It’s sealed. From the other side,” Vincent said, running his hands over it.
“There’s got to be another way out. A service tunnel, something for the guards,” Callum said, moving to examine the other doors.
“Those just lead deeper into the complex. Towards the disposal incinerators,” Seraphina said flatly, remembering the outline of the Blackwoods Labs. “It’s a maze down here. You get lost, you don’t come back.”
Leo wandered away from the group, drawn to the base of the smooth wall. He crouched down, tracing his fingers over the join between the floor and the stone. “This one’s different,” he said, his small voice loud in the quiet.
“Leo, come back here,” Seraphina said, her heart lurching.
“No, look.” He wasn’t touching the black wall. He was touching the regular, rough-hewn stone of the antechamber archway they’d just come through. A single block, at floor level, looked slightly more worn, its edges a fraction rounder. It was set apart from its neighbors by a hairline crack filled with ancient dust.
Callum was there in two strides, kneeling beside him. He pressed his fingers against the block. It didn’t budge. He shoved it, leaning his weight into it. Nothing.
“It’s not a lever,” Vincent observed, joining them. He bent down, peering at the crack. “The mortar’s different. Older. This wasn’t part of the lab construction. This is imperial palace old. A builders’ passage, maybe.”
“So how do we open it?” Callum growled, frustration edging his voice. From far above, a distant, metallic boom echoed down the stairwell. The Iron Cohort was in the throne room. They’d find the stair.
Panic fluttered through the group like a trapped bird. Tess’s crying grew louder.
Seraphina knelt, pushing Leo gently behind her. She stared at the block. It was just a stone. But Leo was right. It didn’t belong. She placed her palm flat against its cold surface. She closed her eyes, trying to push aside the paralyzing memory-smell of this place, the terror choking her.
She listened past the human sounds, past the thrum of her own blood. She sought the low, slow song of the stone. It was faint here, buried under layers of pain and steel and clinical wrongness. But it was there. A deep, tired grumble.
She asked it, not with words, but with a feeling of urgency, of need. Help us. Please.
Nothing.
Then Kya was beside her, her small, cool hand slipping into Seraphina’s free one. Kya didn’t say anything. She just pressed her own palm next to her mother’s on the stone.
A jolt went through Seraphina, like touching a live wire. Kya’s power wasn’t a gentle hum; it was a clear, bright frequency, unimpeded by trauma. It amplified Seraphina’s own signal, cutting through the psychic residue of the labs.
The stone sighed.
Not the block itself, but the ancient mortar around it. It gave a soft, crunching sound, dissolving into fine sand that whispered to the floor. The block shifted inward an inch with a gritty scrape.
Callum didn’t need prompting. He wedged his fingers into the new gap and heaved. Muscle and stone ground against each other. Vincent added his strength. Together, they dragged the heavy block sideways, revealing a black opening just large enough for a person to crawl through on their hands and knees. A gust of cold, dank air swept out, smelling of wet earth and age.
“Go, go, go!” Callum barked, waving the others forward.
Vincent went first, sword in hand, vanishing into the dark. Liana helped a sobbing Elara get on her knees and crawl through. Tess followed, then the others, a frantic, silent procession.
“Kids,” Seraphina said, guiding Mia to the hole. Leo went next, then Kya. Seraphina gave her a little push. “Stay close to Vincent. Don’t let go of his coat.”
Kya nodded, her eyes serious, and disappeared.
The sounds from above were clearer now. Shouted orders. Boots on the stairs.
“Sera, now,” Callum said, his hand on her back.
She crawled into the darkness. The tunnel was tight, the floor rough and wet. She could hear the others ahead, shuffling, breathing hard. Callum followed behind her, grunting as he pulled the stone block back into place from the inside. It sealed with a soft, final thud, plunging them into absolute blackness.
They stopped, the only sound their collective panting.
A soft scritch, then a feeble yellow light bloomed. Vincent had a tinderbox and a stub of a candle from his belt pouch. The flame revealed a narrow, low-ceilinged passage carved from the living rock, sloping downward. Water dripped somewhere ahead.
“Which way?” Vincent asked, holding the candle aloft. The light didn’t reach far.
Seraphina listened. The hum of the palace was above and behind them. Ahead, the stone song was simpler, quieter. It felt… outward.
“Down,” she said. “Just keep going down.”
They moved, a stumbling, exhausted chain in the dark. The candle flame jumped and danced, throwing monstrous shadows. The tunnel twisted, branched, but Seraphina, with her hand on the wall, felt a faint, consistent pull. She followed it, the way she might follow the scent of pine on a breeze.
After what felt like hours, but was probably only minutes, the air changed again. The damp stone smell was joined by the faint, foul scent of a midden heap, then the cleaner scent of night air. A sliver of grey light appeared ahead, not green alchemical light, but moonlit stone.
The tunnel ended in a rusty iron grate, overgrown with moss and ivy on the outside. Through the bars, Seraphina could see a sliver of sky, a few stars, and the crumbling outer wall of the palace grounds. They were at the base of the foundation, right where it met the steep, wooded ravine that marked the city’s edge.
Vincent shoved at the grate. It groaned, resisted, then gave way with a shriek of rusted metal, tumbling out into a tangle of brambles. Cold, free air washed over them.
One by one, they crawled out of the gut of the palace and collapsed onto the rocky, leaf-strewn ground. They were behind the refuse heaps, in a forgotten drainage ditch. The bulk of the palace loomed above them, glittering with lights in its upper windows, silent and oblivious to the wound in its underbelly.
Seraphina lay on her back, gulping the clean air, feeling the real, tangled earth beneath her. Mia burrowed into her side. Kya and Leo huddled close. They were out. They were free of the walls.
Callum sat up, wiping grime from his face. He looked at the sealed hole in the palace foundation, then at the ragged, trembling group around him. He met Vincent’s eyes across the huddle.
“Alistair’s alive,” Callum said, his voice ragged. “He’s the Emperor now.”
Vincent blew out the candle. The moon provided a pale, cold light. “He’ll have every road out of the city sealed by dawn. He’ll blame regicide and treason on us. On you.”
“I know.” Callum’s gaze found Seraphina. In the moonlight, her green eyes were dark pools. “We need to move. Now. Get to the rendezvous point with the Archduke’s contacts.”
Seraphina pushed herself up. Every muscle ached. Her beautiful, hated silk gown was torn and stained with dirt and moss. She still clutched the obsidian dagger in her hand. The pearl panels were dull.
She looked at her children, then at the weary, terrified faces of the people who had followed her out of hell. Her people.
“Then we move,” she said. She stood, pulling Mia up with her. “We don’t stop until we’re gone from this cursed city.”
In the distance, from high up in the palace, a single, deep bell began to toll. Not the alarm. The death knell. Ringing for an Emperor.
Callum stood, offering a hand to Vincent. “He’ll be coming for us with everything he has.”
Vincent took the hand, hauling himself up. He looked towards the dark woods beyond the ravine, the start of the wild lands. A faint, grim smile touched his lips. “Let him try.”