The King opened the route beneath his throne by removing a stone nobody had touched during his reign.
He remained seated while royal engineers released six mundane catches around the dais. Golden ward lines continued through his spine and both arms, tying him to the capital’s weakened circulation.
When the final catch withdrew, half the throne slid sideways and revealed a narrow stair descending into darkness.
"My father called this the root passage," the King said, keeping one hand against the active ward seal, then continued, "His father called it a burial inconvenience, and every earlier record contradicts the next."
Hajin examined the opening with Divine Eye before approaching; Nullstone lined the first seven steps, swallowing ordinary mana and turning the deeper geometry into a blank vertical wound.
"You never mapped it?" Hajin asked, testing the nearest wall with a mundane iron probe.
"Every ruler attempted some portion," the King said, watching the probe disappear below, then continued, "The palace foundation predates my dynasty, and the builders concealed its oldest sections behind nullstone. We inherited control over surfaces we did not understand."
Didi entered beneath her own silver-gold seal rather than the King’s authorization. Her signature touched the open stair, received one searching pulse, and remained separate from the royal wards binding him.
"The First Prince understood enough to steal a key," Didi said, glancing toward her father, then continued, "Did he learn that from your private archive?"
"He learned that my private archive contained gaps," the King said, and age briefly entered his rigid expression, then continued, "Ambition supplied the rest."
Rumi and Nari waited near the opening in fitted traveling clothes Ferra had altered through the night. Neither trusted boots, so soft wrappings protected their new feet while leaving their toes flexible.
She approached the stair first and immediately leaned too far forward, still expecting a feline body’s lower balance.
Nari caught the back of her sister’s coat, using one of the few words they had practiced.
"Slow," she said; Rumi flicked an ear backward with clear disapproval.
"Slow," she said.
Hajin descended ahead of them, maintaining a pace that let both women study every foot placement. Juna followed behind the sisters while Loccy carried the heaviest mundane supports.
Ferra, Vella, and Didi completed the expedition, leaving the King above where his presence kept the remaining city wards from collapsing.
The nullstone ended thirty steps below the throne; Divine Eye returned in layers, revealing fitted blocks older than the palace and channels shaped for circulations no modern kingdom used.
Some carried dormant divine residue, while adjacent channels answered Didi’s demonic blood without accepting it.
Hajin paused at the boundary and compared those channels against the Gold Mountain symbols stored inside Aegis. Seven shapes matched the suppression grammar, although their order had been reversed around the landing.
The palace node had not been built merely to restrain something below; part of its structure had once redirected pressure toward a wider network.
"This foundation belonged to the same system as the mountain," Hajin said, showing Ferra the repeated geometry, then continued, "The Crown settled over one functioning piece and mistook its surface controls for ownership."
"Most dynasties call that tradition," Didi said, crouching beside the oldest channel, then continued, "At least ours carved the mistake into stone."
Rumi crouched beside a thin crack and pressed one claw against empty air.
"Road," Rumi said, indicating a seam that Hajin had mistaken for an ordinary construction joint; Nari touched the opposite wall and shook her head.
"Not road," Nari said, then drew both hands together until her claws overlapped, then continued, "Hunt."
Their contracts supplied the missing distinction; Rift-lynxes had hunted along spaces where one location folded near another, opening approaches and destroying retreat.
The undercroft seam resembled those natural corridors, although deliberate construction held it rigid.
"They recognize the geometry, not the destination," Aria said within Hajin’s thoughts, then continued, "Their former instincts do not provide control over this mechanism."
"Can you follow it safely?" Hajin asked the sisters, pointing along the seam.
Rumi took two independent steps from Nari and placed both palms against the wall. Amber light sharpened around her fingers, then scattered when the buried corridor resisted.
Nari approached from the other side and touched the closing edge, but smoke-gold lines folded back against her wrist; both women withdrew before the seam could pull harder.
"No," Nari said, glaring at the wall as though it had violated hunting etiquette.
"That was the correct answer," he said, examining the fading reaction, then continued, "Recognition is enough until we understand what it costs."
The stair ended inside a circular landing beneath the western palace wing. Eight blocked corridors surrounded an older central socket whose symbols matched the damaged suppression array under Gold Mountain.
Three corridors bore recent tool marks, and the fourth carried the First Prince’s blood authorization through a concealed royal channel.
Ferra set measuring frames around the nearest mark without feeding mana into it.
"Somebody replaced these fasteners during the last decade," Ferra said, touching a brighter edge with her wooden gauge, then continued, "The foundation is ancient, but the access work is not."
Didi knelt beside her brother’s signature and held her fingers above the line.
"He practiced here," Didi said, following repeated failures toward the accepted imprint, then continued, "These first attempts barely reached one corridor, but the later marks open three."
Vella turned toward the western route before anyone touched it; her Spirit senses found a faint circulation beneath the nullstone, too regular for groundwater and too damaged for an ordinary living body.
"Something ahead still receives treatment mana," Vella said, her voice losing its usual warmth, then continued, "The rhythm has been forced to repeat beyond healthy limits."
The rhythm paused after her words, then resumed with two hurried pulses. Vella withdrew her hand so the unknown patient would not feel another presence pressing inward.
She marked the location on Ferra’s survey instead, preserving distance before treatment became possible; Loccy shifted the support beams against one shoulder.
"How much weight sits above that corridor?" she asked.
Aria combined the King’s survey fragments with Ferra’s measurements before answering Hajin privately. The western wing rested across several connected arches, but a controlled entry would not threaten occupied rooms if they braced the first junction.
"Enough to kill whoever guesses," Hajin said, studying the ceiling, then continued, "Not enough to stop us from measuring."
Juna sent a narrow solar thread across the floor without letting it touch the royal channel. The light exposed three shallow scratches beneath dust, each pointing toward the same western corridor.
Someone had dragged sealed equipment through recently and cleaned everything except the damage carved into older stone.
Rumi crossed the landing toward the scratches, managing five steady steps before reaching for Nari; her sister met her halfway rather than waiting at the wall.
Together they crouched over the marks and breathed in unfamiliar scents through new bodies.
"Blood," Rumi said, then touched the first scratch; Nari pointed toward the darkness beyond the sealed corridor.
"Three dead," Nari said with halting certainty, then continued, "One lives."
Didi’s face became perfectly still; the King had inherited a foundation his crown could not map, while his son had filled its blind places with victims.
Hajin retrieved the Legendary Chain from inventory; "Brace the western junction. We enter physically," he said.