Chapter 70. This Is Where It Begins

The city didn’t see her return.

Solara above stirred with its usual chaos—market bells ringing in the early haze, water lines screeching in the eastern quarter, the steady footfall of watchers rotating posts. But down here, below it all, beneath the skin of stone and mirror, Adria moved unseen.

The viaduct tunnel yawned open like a throat.

She stepped inside.

The passage was half-submerged in brown, slow-moving water that lapped at her boots and stained the hem of her coat. The air smelled of copper, mold, and iron rites long extinguished. The way forward was lit only by faint lumen moss clinging to the archways, dim and twitching like nervous flame.

This wasn’t a place for walking.

It was a place for disappearing.

She adjusted the satchel on her shoulder, the ring on her finger twitching cold against her skin. It hadn’t pulsed since Yseult had said her name aloud in the grove. Ashera. A name the Archive had tried to burn. One the viaduct re