Betrayal from Within

Thane went through the postern first, blade drawn but low, Isolde a half-step behind him. Her heart was going hard enough that she could hear it over the narrow stair’s close, cold silence. Neither of them spoke until the passage opened into the chamber itself and the lamplight found Cressida already kneeling at the stone.

Her palm was pressed flat into the worn channel, blood black in the low light. The spiral carved into the slab had woken beneath her hand, the way it had woken for Isolde and Thane weeks before. A faint, patient glow, crawling along the old grooves like something breathing under the rock. She didn’t startle at the sound of them. She had, Isolde understood in the half-second before anyone spoke, been listening to the stair the whole time and simply chosen not to stop.

“You found the postern faster than I expected.” Cressida didn’t look…