The impact knocked the wind out of me, hitting something warm and solid, not the cold palace grounds I’d braced for. “Adrix?” My voice was a ragged gasp.

“Lyra!” His voice was low and urgent by my ear, arms locking around me, steadying me. His heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic match for my own. “Lyra, are you okay? Hurt anywhere?” His hands quickly checked my arms, my back.

“I—I think I’m alright,” I managed, my voice muffled against his shirt. The familiar scent of him was a grounding comfort in this cold, echoing place. “You found me.”

“Always.” He breathed it into my hair, a simple promise. Relief washed through his tone. After a moment, he reluctantly eased back. “Much as I’d like to stay put,” a faint smile touched his lips, barely there in the deep shadows of this under-passage, “we should keep moving before something else finds us..”

I got to my feet, legs a bit shaky, Adrix a solid presence beside me. The darkness was total, a suffocating void. Then, Adrix whispered a few words, and a glowing pearl of his blue mana appeared in his palm. It pulsed, a small sun pushing back the heavy dark, showing a passage rougher and older than the palace walls above, so tight our shoulders might scrape the damp stone.

“Old places, old secrets,” Adrix murmured, his eyes already scanning the shadows the light didn’t quite reach. “Big palaces like this always have their hidden routes, right? But who else knows about these ones, buried so deep?”

“Maybe whoever was giving off that dark mana,” I said, a chill running down my spine despite his light.

“Sense any strange mana? Adrix was all focus, head tilted, listening.

I stretched out my own senses, trying to get a read on the cold air. The orb’s light made the shadows dance and twist. “Nothing. Just the cold, the damp… and this deep-down emptiness that feels older than the palace itself.”

Adrix’s breath misted in the frigid air. “Alright then. Let’s hope we find what we’re looking for before we accidentally walk into the palace dungeons, or worse.”

My stomach tightened. Please don’t let this be some forgotten tomb under the throne room, I thought, the fear colder than the stone. We can’t have just traded one trap for another down here.

The only sounds were our boots crunching on the gritty floor, our quiet breaths, and the soft hum of Adrix’s light. The air got heavier, colder. I wrapped my arms around myself.

“It’s sloping down, pretty steep,” I said, my voice a bit too loud.

“Watch your head,” Adrix warned, already ducking as the ceiling got uncomfortably low, the rockwork much rougher than anything in the main palace.

The passage squeezed tighter, forcing us single file. I ran my hand along the wall for balance, damp grit sticking to my fingers. That’s when I felt them – not just rough stone, but carved lines. “Adrix, can you bring the light over here?”

He aimed the orb. Its blue glow revealed intricate spirals and strange symbols etched into the stone, ancient and weirdly alive, nothing like the carvings or decorations in the palace above. “Ancient language,” I breathed, awestruck. “Or something even older than when this palace was first built.”

“And we can’t read it,” Adrix said, his practical tone cutting through my awe, though I caught a hint of his own curiosity.

“True.” I sighed, the excitement fading. “A cool, useless puzzle in the palace foundations. This place feels… ancient.” I looked down the dark passage. “Let’s keep moving. I still don’t sense anything.”

The tunnel twisted, then thankfully opened up enough for us to walk side-by-side. As my arm brushed his, he just reached out and took my hand, his fingers lacing with mine. He gave me a small, reassuring smile that cut through the gloom. It just felt right, holding his hand in this creepy undercroft of the palace.

Then, a new feeling prickled my skin, sharp and clear – like a silent note only I could hear, a vibration in the air itself. Mana, for sure, but not like Adrix’s steady blue light, or the nasty dark stuff from earlier. This felt… wilder. More alive. “Adrix,” I whispered, looking up quickly, “do you feel that?”

He stopped, frowning. “Feel what, Lyra? The cold? There’s a bit of a draft, maybe from an old palace vent?”

I barely heard him. I let go of his hand, pulled by a faint shimmer in the darkness ahead, a new, pearly glow that only I seemed to see. The feeling got stronger, a hum vibrating through my bones, leading me right to a dead end—a solid wall of rock. It looked like the natural bedrock the palace was built on. But that vibrant hum of power was definitely coming from inside it.

“It’s in there,” I said, completely sure. “The mana… it’s like it’s alive. So strong. I’ve never felt anything like it.” My hands flew over the cold stone, searching for a crack, a switch, anything. Adrix joined in, his search just as fruitless. “How do we get through?” I asked, frustrated.

Adrix stepped back, eyeing the wall. “I could try to blast it, but the shockwave… this whole tunnel, maybe even part of the palace wing above us, could collapse. It’s too unstable down here.”

My hand stayed pressed to the cool stone, the thrumming energy under my palm almost pulling at me.

“Lyra,” Adrix said suddenly, his voice sharp with surprise. “Your hand. Look.”
I looked down. Mana, that same bright, pearly energy I’d sensed, was gathering around my hand, not just glowing, but swirling like liquid light, making complex, shifting patterns on my skin.

“Wow,” Adrix murmured, his eyes wide with disbelief and something like reverence. “The colors… the way it’s moving… It’s like you’re not just touching it, you’re… in tune with it.”

“You can see it?” I asked, my own voice quiet with awe. “The way it’s dancing?”

“Only around you,” he confirmed, staring at my hand. “It’s… incredible. Can you try to focus it? Feel what it wants, not just that it’s there. Can you… ask it to open?”

I closed my eyes, trying to calm my racing heart, to connect with that swirling, living light. I reached out with my mind, not trying to force it, but just feeling for it, like Adrix had tried to teach Finnian with magic. For a second, nothing happened, like trying to grab smoke. I let out a frustrated sigh.

Adrix’s hand gently covered mine, his touch warm and steady. “Here,” he said softly, his voice a calm anchor. “Let me add mine. Don’t fight it. Don’t push. Just be a path for it. Feel my energy flow into yours, then let them both connect with what’s in the stone.”

His familiar blue mana flowed around my hand, cool and controlled, mixing with the wild, pearly power. The two energies didn’t just blend; they resonated, boosting each other, thrumming with an eager, almost aware intensity. “I feel it,” I whispered, the sensation huge.

“Good,” Adrix encouraged, his voice steady and calm. “Now, gently. Picture that combined energy not like a hammer, but like a key. Don’t order the stone; invite it to open.”

It was like trying to gently guide a hurricane. For what felt like ages, I poured all my focus into it, doubt nagging at me. But Adrix’s solid presence, the steady flow of his mana, kept me going. Then, slowly, something changed. The wild light around my hand started to come together, to respond to what I was asking. I imagined it soaking into the stone, not breaking it, but persuading it.

The wall in front of us didn’t crack. It started to shimmer. The vibrant, pearly mana I’d sensed now visibly soaked the stone, making it ripple like heat haze. Then, unbelievably, it became see-through, like the rock itself was turning into light and mist. We both gasped. Adrix still beside me, we stepped forward, passing through the barrier as easily as walking through a sunbeam.

I looked straight at Adrix. His face, lit by the fading light of the gateway, was pure astonishment.

“You might not have formal training, Lyra,” he said, his voice full of a respect that made me thrill, “but when we get out of this palace alive, we are definitely going to talk about whatever that just was.”

His shock mirrored my own. I felt dizzy with disbelief and excitement. Shaking it off, I looked back at the shimmering space where the wall had been. I cautiously poked a hand through—just cool air. Taking a deep breath that smelled of ozone and ancient dust – the real foundations of the palace – I stepped all the way in.

I was in a small, perfectly square room. The silence was total, deep, the air heavy with age, completely untouched by the palace built over and around it. Every inch of the smooth, dark stone walls, from floor to ceiling, was covered in complex, flowing script. This wasn’t just a passage; it was a hidden core, a place of older power.

And there, bathed in a soft, strange light that seemed to come from the stones themselves, sitting on a simple stone pedestal, as if it had been waiting for this exact moment since long before the palace was even a thought, was a staff.

It was made of wood so dark it seemed to swallow the light, polished smooth by time. It was gnarled but strangely graceful, its top branching into intricate coils that held a diamond so clear it pulsed with an inner light, catching and throwing a thousand tiny rainbows onto the ancient writing on the walls.

“This has to be it,” I whispered, my breath catching. Adrix came silently through the shimmery remains of the gateway, his face unreadable as he looked at the staff.

“I don’t sense… anything,” he said after a moment, frowning hard in concentration. “No obvious mana. Nothing like what you did at the wall. If this is some palace treasure, it’s very well hidden.”

“But I do,” I said softly. A tingle went up my arm from my fingertips, as if the staff itself was reaching for me. That unique, vibrant hum I’d felt in the passage, the pearly energy Adrix saw around my hand – it was here, faint as a distant star, but definitely there, like a quiet heartbeat in the wood and stone, a power much older than the palace. “This is it. This has to be the Elders Staff.”

My heart hammered against that faint pulse, a wild beat of hope, fear, and a heavy sense of destiny. Pulled by something I couldn’t see, I reached out. My fingers closed around the dark, smooth wood. It was cool, like a river stone, but under that coolness, it thrummed with a deep, massive power that resonated in my bones.

“I can’t believe it,” I murmured, barely breathing. A huge wave of bright, fierce hope washed through me, so strong it pushed away all the cold, the fear, the darkness of the palace’s hidden depths. A wide, shaky grin spread across my face as I met Adrix’s amazed eyes, the staff held tight. “Adrix,” I said, my voice strong and clear, “we actually found it. We have a real chance.”