That must be where the head priest spends most of his time. He marked its position in his head.
Once again, he activated Dance, and slipped through the palace walls as if they didn’t exist. Except he had to be more careful. There was limited ability to hide inside the halls without relying on Dance, and he figured he only had a half dozen activations left before the prana well ran dry. It was difficult to tell how much of a reserve remained until the prana was near-depleted, so he always tried to err on the side of caution.
Which meant understanding his surroundings. Vir brought out some charcoal and a piece of parchment and began mapping out the palace interior.
It didn’t help that the palace was four stories high, ignoring the spires that shot several more stories into the air. After exploring one, he determined those contained either prisons or guest quarters, and all served as guard towers. He didn’t see a need to map the other three—their narrow, spiraling stairs limited Prana Vision’s visibility, making for dangerous work.
His goal would not be in a spire—it’d be somewhere central in the building itself.
An hour later, he had the entire first two floors mapped. There had been a few close calls initially, but nothing that required Vir to rely on Dance. The more he mapped, the more safety he gained. With each unlocked door and storeroom found, he gained more and more hiding spots, in case a patrol or handmaiden happened across his way. Those were rare—it was just another quiet night in the palace.
Vir became aware that he was getting warm when there were guards standing in front of doors. The third story had far more guards patrolling the area as well, so Vir was forced to rely on Dance to get around.
After Dancing into two of these guarded rooms, he’d learned they belonged to royalty. Not the king or the queen—he suspected they lived on the topmost floor—but the princes and princesses. So far, the rooms had been occupied by teenage boys. Sanobar and Nara Hiranya, most likely.
There was only one more room on this floor with posted guards. With only two invocations of Dance left, he weighed the benefit of exploring it. He absolutely needed at least one Dance in reserve to make his escape. Ideally two.
But if the last room does belong to Princess Mina…
Then he might learn something about her. Maybe he’d find evidence of how she conducted herself, or something damning that would help him decide whether to uphold Riyan’s deal, or to work with her instead.
The chances of him finding anything like that were low, but now that he was here, he’d regret missing this opportunity.
Resolving himself, he snuck through the third-floor corridor. It was quite unadorned, unlike the rest of the palace, the only decorations being Magic Lamps set into the walls at regular intervals. Vir guessed they had an entire staff whose only job was to keep the lights on.
Sensing a patrol up ahead, Vir backtracked to the nearest unlocked door he’d found—a utility closet full of brooms, blankets, some dressers, and other odds and ends—and hid until they approached. Though he doubted soldiers would enter a closet, he concealed himself under a blanket, regardless.
He held his breath as the guards passed, oblivious to his presence. After that, it was a clear shot to the bedroom. Vir used up his second-to-last invocation of Dance. It took a full fifteen seconds before it charged, allowing him to slip inside the realm of shadows. Vir suspected the next one would take twice as long.
Thanks to the lights being off inside the room, there were plenty of shadows to choose from. To his surprise, Prana Vision picked up no signatures—it was empty.
Vir appeared from the shadow of a dresser, slipping into the room as silently as a wraith.
The space was relatively unadorned. Sure, rugs dotted the stone floor, and a four-poster bed had golden tassels and carvings, but other than that, it was quite bare. No flags hung from the walls, no murals or artwork like he’d seen in the boys’ rooms.
The only pieces of furniture were the bed, a large dresser, a simple makeup station, and a basic wooden table with two chairs. An open arch led into an attached washroom.
Vir opened the dresser, finding a large variety of dresses. Everything from the elegant to the gaudy.
Guess I found her room…
Finding no clues there, he moved onto her makeup station. He opened every drawer and rummaged through each cabinet, finding nothing other than ordinary makeup. Though she did have a lot of makeup. It made Vir wonder how much of her ethereal beauty was natural and how much was merely facade.
After spending several more minutes searching the rest of the room, he gave up. There was nothing here. No notes that might implicate her as part of some heinous criminal scheme. No secret messages, nothing to confirm or deny whether her public identity was her real one.
Riyan had said she’d murdered his wife and children, but what was the context around that? Had he disobeyed orders, or committed some grievous atrocity? Or had his family’s death been an accident for which he blamed the princess? He’d refused to divulge the details.
Vir had been a fool to expect anything else.
With a sigh, he made for the door…
When a creaking sound triggered every survival instinct he had.
Someone was here!
Vir flew into motion even before his mind processed what happened. He dove under the bed, desperately searching for the source of the sound.
He first looked to the door, but it remained shut.
The bathroom, then? No! That’s—
The dresser he’d opened a few minutes ago had swung open, revealing a secret passage.
And out from that passage walked a face Vir knew. A black-haired, black-eyed urchin, covered in grime and dirt who carried an active Magic Candle orb.
Amin! Riyan’s contact!
Vir’s thoughts ground to a halt. What’s Amin doing here? How’d he know about that secret passage? Should I confront him?
Then, as Amin removed his eye lenses and his wig, allowing long, silky black hair to fall free, did he understand.
I’ve been played!
Amin wasn’t his contact. Amin was Princess Mina!
His head swam. Why would Mina be Riyan’s contact? Riyan had tasked Vir with killing her! They couldn’t be working together.
Which meant Mina had somehow intercepted Vir’s contact. She’d known about Vir all along.
She… Of course!
The soldiers who’d nearly killed him in the Godshollow after his Rachna battle—Riyan admitted that Mina had sent them.
Had Mina been spying on them all along?
Goosebumps flared up on Vir’s arms, making his hair stand on end.
Confused thoughts wrestled in his head, but now was not the time to humor them. He watched Mina like a hawk as she removed her makeup and wandered into the bathroom, humming to herself.
I should leave, he thought. The longer he stayed, the more at risk he was of detection. Confronting her now would only lead to guards rushing to capture him. Not only would it complicate his escape, it’d blow his cover—his makeup was the same disguise that he’d worn in front of Amin.
Better to hide the fact that he knew her secret until he could formulate a plan.
Two escape plans sprang to mind. He could either Dance back out to the hallway and find his way back out of the grounds, risking detection, and likely having to scale the wall without Dance’s aid…
Or…
He could try moving into the passage Mina had just used. She’d arrived as Amin, and unless the entire palace was in on her little secret, he somehow doubted it led to the royal garden or the District of Internal Affairs.