Chapter 405:Missing
Lilith activated it.
A faint dark symbol appeared above her palm. She waited for it to respond but nothing came through.
Her eyes opened.
She activated it again. The symbol pulsed but no direction appeared or even the distance between them.
"Atheline."
Lilith strengthened the spell. Dark Aether gathered around her hand, still nothing. She pushed harder. The mark trembled violently before collapsing.
She stared at her empty palm.
"No."
She cast it again. Draco stepped toward her.
"Lilith."
"Wait."
She changed the structure of the spell.
"He’s marked." Her voice had become quieter. "I should be able to find him."
Draco watched silently. Lilith tried again.
"He could be on the other side of the world and I would at least get something."
Nothing.
"He could be underground."
Nothing.
"In another sealed space, I should still feel the mark."
The spell collapsed again. Lilith’s breathing became unsteady.
"Why can’t I feel him?"
Draco finally answered.
"Because wherever the ruin took him may not currently be connected to this space."
Lilith looked at him.
"Taken him?"
"That’s our current assumption."
"You don’t know."
"No."
The honesty hurt more than reassurance would have. Draco crouched beside the place where the doorway had once stood.
"But I do know something else."
"What?"
"The ruin didn’t collapse."
Lilith stared at him.
"How can you know?"
"Because I’m a Sovereign, and this is my island."
He placed one hand against the stone.
"If an ancient ruin of that scale collapsed into itself, I would feel it. There would be a spatial reaction. Aether would be released or displaced. Depending on the size of the internal space, the resulting disturbance could affect this entire region."
He stood.
"None of that happened."
Lilith looked toward the empty ground.
"Then where did it go?"
"We don’t know."
She clenched her fist. Draco continued before she could respond.
"But disappearance is not the same as destruction."
Seragus approached from behind them.
"The entrance may simply have been removed."
Lilith looked at him.
"By whom?"
Seragus glanced toward Draco.
The Dragon King answered, "the owner."
Silence followed as she tried to contemplate it. Lilith’s eyes narrowed.
"Owner?"
"We call them Sacred Ruins because they’ve existed on Dragonic Island for longer than our current kingdom’s records can properly trace."
Draco gestured toward the remaining structures.
"But that doesn’t mean dragons created every one of them."
Lilith remembered the Unaspected Ruin. Nobody had understood what existed inside.
"You’re saying someone owns it."
"I’m saying someone may have created it."
Draco corrected himself.
"Or something governs it."
"Then why remove the entrance after Atheline entered?"
"That is the question."
Lilith looked at the empty space. A possibility immediately occurred to her.
"It didn’t want anyone following him."
Draco’s expression showed that he’d considered the same thing.
"Possibly."
Lilith became silent.
That interpretation was simultaneously reassuring and terrifying. If the ruin had deliberately removed its entrance after Atheline entered, then whatever had happened wasn’t random.
He had been allowed inside, then the door had been closed. The question was why.
Lilith remained on the plateau for hours, refusinh to leave initially as she searched the entire area herself. She used darkness to probe the ground, examined the surrounding space, and repeatedly activated the tracking spell. But nothing changed.
At one point, Caius approached her.
"You should rest."
Lilith didn’t look at him.
"I’m fine."
"You’ve been inside your own ruin for three days."
"I don’t feel tired."
"That doesn’t mean you aren’t."
She ignored him.
Caius remained beside her. After a while, he spoke again.
"Atheline isn’t weak."
Lilith finally looked toward him.
"I know."
"He’s probably stronger than almost everyone standing here."
"I know."
"Then trust him."
Lilith’s expression tightened.
"I do trust him."
Caius waited for her to continue. Lilith looked back toward the empty ground.
"That doesn’t mean I have to enjoy not knowing where he is."
"No." Caius smiled faintly. "It doesn’t."
Eventually, Draco joined them again.
"Lilith."
She already knew what he was going to say.
"I’m not leaving."
"You aren’t helping him by standing here."
"I know."
"Then return to the palace."
She remained silent.
"If anything changes, you’ll be informed immediately."
"What if the entrance returns?"
"Then no one enters until you’ve been informed."
Lilith looked at him sharply.
Draco nodded.
"You have my word."
That finally made her hesitate. She looked once more at the place where Atheline had disappeared.
Her tracking spell still gave nothing, but perhaps Draco was right. A ruin couldn’t simply cease to exist without consequence.
If it had collapsed, the dragons would have noticed. If it had been destroyed, something would have remained.
Instead, the doorway had disappeared cleanly immediately after a phenomenon appeared in the sky. That suggested intention.
And intention meant something inside had chosen Atheline. Whether that was good or bad remained to be seen.
Lilith finally turned away.
"Fine."
Draco nodded.
They returned toward the capital as evening began descending over the mountains. Lilith barely spoke throughout the journey.
When they reached the palace, Draco stopped her before she could return to her quarters.
"Lilith."
She turned.
"We will continue investigating."
"I know."
"And I meant what I said earlier."
She waited.
"Ancient ruins don’t simply disappear." Draco’s voice was calm. "If one collapses, especially a ruin containing an independent internal space, the effects are noticeable. What happened here was different."
Lilith looked back toward the distant mountains.
"So you’re sure the entrance was deliberately removed."
"Yes."
"Because the owner doesn’t want anyone inside."
"Or doesn’t want anyone else inside."
Lilith’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Draco continued.
"Atheline entered successfully. The ruin didn’t reject him. It waited until afterward to close itself."
That distinction mattered. Lilith slowly released the breath she had been holding.
"He can protect himself." Draco smiled faintly. "From what I’ve seen?"
He shook his head.
"I’d be more concerned about whatever decided to test him."
That earned the smallest smile from Lilith but it disappeared quickly. She looked toward the horizon one final time.
"Come back soon, Atheline."
.
.
.
Atheline had long since stopped trying to determine how far he had walked.
There was nothing around him that could be used to measure distance or time. Ever since stepping into the Unaspected Ruin, he had been surrounded by complete darkness, yet unlike the oppressive darkness Lilith would have immediately recognized as Dark Aether, this darkness possessed absolutely nothing.
There was no elemental presence, no pressure against his body, no hidden creature stalking him from beyond his senses, and no obvious trial waiting to begin. Even when he extended his perception as far as he could, all he found was emptiness stretching ahead of him.
His Aether remained accessible, elements hadn’t been taken away from him, and bow was still with him, and the sword at his side remained exactly where it should be.
Yet none of those things seemed particularly useful when there was nothing to fight.
Atheline continued walking.
His footsteps had been the only sound accompanying him for so long that he had grown accustomed to their rhythm, and he had just begun wondering whether he should stop and test the surrounding space more aggressively when he took another step... and his boot struck polished stone.
Atheline froze as light filled his vision. He instinctively narrowed his eyes, his hand moving toward his sword as his surroundings changed without the slightest warning.
Atheline stood in a corridor.
For several seconds, he didn’t move.
The change had been so sudden that his mind needed a moment to adjust. There had been no teleportation sensation, no spatial distortion, no flash of Aether and certainly no doorway. One step had simply taken him from endless darkness into the middle of a large stone hallway.
Atheline slowly looked around.
Tall windows lined one side of the corridor, although very little sunlight entered through them. Heavy curtains covered most of the glass, and several were torn badly enough that pieces of dark fabric hung loosely toward the floor.
The opposite wall was decorated with paintings and old ornaments, though many had been damaged. One painting had been cut almost completely in half, while another had fallen from the wall and been left where it landed. There were cracks in the floor.
Atheline frowned.
Something about the place bothered him,because it was familiar.
He walked toward one of the windows. His eyes moved across the stonework, then the pillars, and then the shape of the corridor.
His expression slowly changed.
"No..."
He turned.
There was an intersection farther ahead. He knew that intersection.
Atheline walked toward it. On the right should have been a staircase leading toward the upper residential floors.
It was there.
On the left should have been a corridor leading toward several administrative chambers.
That was there too.
Atheline stopped.
"This is the palace."
The Dark Elven Palace, but it wasn’t the palace he had left several days earlier.
That palace was beautiful, maintained and alive. This one looked as though it had survived a war.
There were damaged sections everywhere. Several magical lamps had been shattered. Pieces of furniture had been pushed against some windows as makeshift barricades, and dried blood stained a distant section of the floor.
Atheline’s hand moved instinctively toward his bow.
"What is this?"
No answer came.
Then he heard footsteps. Atheline immediately turned.