The door sealed behind them with a soft, final sigh, locking away the world of royal chambers and political consequence. They stood in the cool, pre dawn gloom of a service corridor, three grey ghosts in a sleeping palace. The air they breathed now was different, sharper, thinner, charged with the peril of their mission. Statera did not hesitate. With a sharp gesture, she turned and led them away from the heart of the sanctuary, deeper into the mountain's bone white, crystalline infrastructure.

They descended, not by grand staircases, but by narrow, spiralling service ramps and through maintenance hatches so discreet they seemed like seams in the rock itself. The hum of the vents grew louder, a deep, rhythmic thrumming that vibrated through the soles of their boots, masking the sound of their passage. The polished crystal and nebula wood of the upper levels gave way to raw, living stone, veined with faintly glowing minerals that provided the only light. This was the unseen circulatory system of Nyxarion, and Statera moved through it with the unerring confidence of one who knew every capillary.

Nyxara followed, her senses hyper alert. Every drip of water, every shift of air, felt amplified. The coarse wool of the robe chafed against her skin, a constant, physical reminder of her shed identity. Her fingers, tucked within a fold of the fabric, found the river stone. It's cool, unchanging smoothness was a talisman.

A stone endures frost, flood, and fire. It is patient. It is sure of what it is.

The mantra was a steady drumbeat in her mind, a counterpoint to the frantic rhythm of her heart. She was not a queen walking these passages. She was a woman. A stone in the river. She focused on the feel of the stone, on the patient, enduring truth of it, and let it quell the rising tide of dread.

After what felt like an eternity of descent, Statera stopped before a section of wall that appeared no different from any other. She placed her palm flat against a seemingly random patch of dark, smooth rock. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a whisper so soft it was more felt than heard, a section of the wall slid inward and sideways, revealing not another corridor, but a yawning, natural crevice. A breath of air, ancient and cold, sighed out to greet them. It carried the scent of damp earth, of frost, of something old and deeply magical.

"The forgotten paths," Statera murmured, her voice hushed with a reverence that bordered on awe. Her Polaris light, which had been a controlled, steady glow, now flickered and danced, reacting to the energy of the place. "They were not built. They were… found. Woven into the mountain by the first Polaris mystics. They are known only to the Lumina and their designated heir. Ryo's maps hold no record of them. His spies could walk these walls for a lifetime and never find this door."

She stepped through, and Nyxara and Lucifera followed.

The world changed.

They stood in a tunnel, but it was unlike any passage hewn by man or machine. The walls were of a deep, blue black obsidian, so smooth they seemed to have been flowed into shape by water over millennia. But within the obsidian, captured like insects in amber, were countless veins of pure, solid starlight. They pulsed with a soft, internal rhythm, casting a shifting, ethereal luminescence that painted their faces in ghostly shades of blue and silver. The air hummed with a low, resonant frequency that vibrated in Nyxara's teeth and set the blood singing in her veins. It was the heartbeat of the mountain itself, the song of Nyxarion core.

Lucifera's brilliant white eyes widened almost imperceptibly. Her Sirius energy, usually a contained, binary pulse, seemed to resonate with the path's ancient magic, creating a harmonic hum that was both beautiful and unnerving. "The resonance is… profound," she observed, her clinical tone touched with something akin to wonder. "It is a frequency of pure memory. The stone remembers its birth."

Statera nodded, her own light flaring in sympathy with a particularly bright vein overhead. "The paths are alive. They remember every soul who has ever walked them. They offer protection to those they deem worthy." She glanced back at Nyxara, a flicker of the old, steadfast councillor in her gaze. "And they hide us from prying eyes. Not even Kaustirix's whispers can easily penetrate this deep, old magic."

They pressed on. The path wound and twisted, sometimes opening into vast, cavernous chambers where giant, silver barked trees with leaves of captured starlight grew in impossible groves, their roots digging into the living rock. Luminescent moss covered the floor in a soft, blue carpet that muffled their footsteps completely. Other times, the path narrowed to a crack they had to sidle through, the cold, singing stone pressing close on either side. The sense of immersion was absolute. They were not just walking a path; they were moving through the arteries of a living, breathing entity. Time lost meaning. There was only the rhythm of their breathing, the hum of the stone, and the ethereal light that guided them.

Statera was their unwavering compass. She moved with a certainty that went beyond memory; it was instinctual, a part of her very blood. She would pause sometimes, a hand on the wall, her eyes closed as if listening to a silent instruction, before choosing a fork in the path that Nyxara would have sworn was a solid wall moments before.

The profound silence was shattered by a sound that did not belong.

It was the distant, metallic scrape of a boot on rock, followed by the low murmur of voices.

All three of them froze, melting instantly into the deep shadow of a towering quartz formation. Statera's hand went to the hilt of her hidden dagger. Lucifera's energy stilled, becoming a void of silent attention. Nyxara's breath hitched in her throat. She pressed herself against the cold crystal, the rough wool of her robe scraping against it.

The voices grew louder, echoing slightly in a nearby chamber.

"…nothing out here but rock and ghost stories," a gruff voice complained. A Betelgeuse accent. "The order came from the top. Check the eastern perimeter. Umbra'zel's convinced the queen's instability will make her do something reckless," a second, higher pitched voice replied. "Phthoriel just wants an excuse to post more of his own men."

Nyxara's blood ran cold. They were already looking for her. The coup wasn't just impending; its preliminary manoeuvres had already begun.

The patrol was close now. Nyxara could see the flicker of their torchlight against a far wall, casting long, distorted shadows. There were at least four of them.

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Statera's eyes were wide with a silent, urgent panic. There was no side path here. Nowhere to run.

Lucifera's hand closed around Nyxara's wrist. Her touch was ice cold, her voice a blade of pure calm that cut through the fear, whispered directly into her mind. "Breathe. Do not project. Do not even think. Be the stone. They are looking for a fleeing queen, for signs of rebellion. They are not looking for three shadows in the dark. Their eyes will slide right over us. Believe it."

Nyxara clenched her jaw, squeezing the river stone in her pocket until she felt its shape imprint on her soul. A stone endures. It is patient. It is sure of what it is. She forced her breathing to slow, forced her frantic mind to go blank, to become still and cold as the rock around her.

The patrol rounded the corner. Four Betelgeuse guards in full militant regalia, their faces set in expressions of bored suspicion. The lead guard swept his torch across the cavern. The light passed over the quartz formation, illuminating the wall mere inches from Nyxara's face. She didn't blink. She didn't breathe. She was a part of the mountain. A stone.

The torchlight lingered for a heart stopping second, then moved on. "See? Nothing," the gruff guard grumbled. "A waste of time. Let's circle back. This place gives me the creeps." Their footsteps and grumbling voices faded back the way they came, swallowed by the humming silence of the paths.

For a full minute, no one moved. Then, as one, they exhaled a collective breath they hadn't realized they'd been holding. Statera's shoulders slumped in relief. Lucifera released Nyxara's wrist, her expression unreadable but for a faint glint of approval in her galactic eyes.

"They are hunting you already, My Queen," Statera whispered, her voice trembling with a fresh wave of fear. "Nyxarion is no longer safe."

"It hasn't been safe for a long time," Nyxara replied, her own voice steadier than she felt. The close call had not shattered her resolve; it had tempered it. "Now we know it for certain. Let's move."

The final leg of their journey felt endless. The adrenaline of the near discovery faded, leaving behind a gritty fatigue. The ethereal beauty of the paths began to feel oppressive, the humming silence a weight on their ears. The air grew gradually colder, and the nature of the light began to change. The soft blue and silver luminescence was tinged with a sickly, jaundiced yellow that leaked from somewhere ahead.

The path sloped upwards, culminating in a natural archway shrouded in thick, cloying mist. Statera paused at the threshold, her face grim.

"We are here," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "The border is just beyond. The Plaza of Screams."

She stepped through the arch, and Nyxara and Lucifera followed her into the mist.

It was like stepping into a different world. The clean, cold, magical air of the Polaris paths was gone, replaced by a heavy, oppressive atmosphere that smelled of ozone, cold metal, and something faintly, unpleasantly organic. The mist clung to them, damp and cold.

They emerged onto a wide, overlook of jagged rock, hidden behind a screen of petrified, skeletal trees. And below them, stretching into the misty distance, lay the Plaza of Screams.

It was a vast, circular concourse carved into the base of two converging mountains. But it was not made of stone or metal. The floor was a strange, fleshy, membranous material, dull grey and veined with pulsing, jaundiced runes that glowed with a faint, malevolent light. The runes were the source of the sickly yellow glow, a dormant wound in the fabric of the world. Towering, twisted spires of black obsidian rose at irregular intervals, their surfaces scarred and pitted. The air itself seemed thick with a psychic residue of agony and dread, a silence that was not an absence of sound, but a presence of remembered screams. It was a place of profound and terrible power, a nightmare given form.

Nyxara's breath hitched. The sheer, visceral horror of the place was a physical blow. This was where the resistance had fought. Where they had defied a tailored nightmare and won. Seeing it, feeling its oppressive weight, made their legend not just poetic, but utterly, terrifyingly real. Her multi hued eyes reflected the pulsing, jaundiced runes, and for a moment, the steady Polaris blue within her flickered, overwhelmed by the Vega silver of sorrow and the Algol red of furious revulsion.

"This is where they are, Where my wittle star is," she whispered, the words torn from her, more a prayer than a statement.

Before anyone could respond, a shadow detached itself from a petrified tree to their right, moving with a silence that rivalled Lucifera's.

"Are you out of your minds?!"

The voice was a harsh, panicked whisper, but it was unmistakable.

Corvin.

He stepped into the faint, jaundiced light, and for the first time since she had known him, Nyxara saw her confidant truly shaken. His galactic eyes were wide, not with their usual calculated calm, but with raw, undisguised alarm. His composure was cracked, his face pale. He looked from Nyxara to Statera to Lucifera, his gaze taking in their nondescript robes, their determined faces, and the terrifying vista behind them.

"Coming here?!" he hissed, stepping closer, his voice trembling with a mixture of fear and fury. "Have you completely lost your senses?! I felt the shift in the cosmic current, a tremor of immense stupidity, but I never imagined… this."

Nyxara's initial shock at his sudden appearance was quickly schooled into a mask of weary calm. Of course he would find them. This was his domain. "Corvin," she acknowledged, her voice steady, though her heart was hammering against her ribs. "We needed to see. To understand what we're aligning ourselves with."

"Aligning?!" he echoed, the word a scoff that held no humour. "You walk directly into the lion's den, and you speak of alignment?" His eyes bored into hers, and for a fleeting second, she saw not a traitor, but a man genuinely terrified for her life. "All I see is a queen making the same catastrophic mistakes, thinking she can reason with a force of nature that only understands consumption! This is not a negotiation, Nyxara! This is a surrender! You are delivering yourself to him!"

Lucifera let out a dry, soft sound that was almost a laugh. "We are not here to court your approval, Crow. Nor are we here to surrender. We are here to forge an alliance.

Corvin ignored her, his focus entirely on Nyxara. "An alliance?" he echoed, the word a sharp, disbelieving crack in the hushed air. His galactic eyes scanned her face, searching for a lie, a sign of coercion. "An alliance with who? You cannot mean… Ryo?" The name was a vile taste on his tongue. "No. Surely not. You stood in his throne room. You saw the rot festering behind his eyes firsthand. You felt the void where his soul should be. Even you would not be that naive…."

"We would never treat with such filth Crow," Lucifera cut in, her voice a whip of disdain that left no room for doubt. Her brilliant white eyes narrowed. "Your imagination fails you, Crow. We do not seek the Butcher. We seek the ones who will butcher him. We seek an alliance with the resistance. With the Twin Stars."

The words landed not like a pebble, but a boulder.

Corvin physically recoiled as if struck. The practiced mask of the spymaster shattered completely, revealing pure, unadulterated shock beneath. A tremor ran through his hands. "The… the resistance?" he breathed, the word utterly foreign and impossible on his lips. He looked at Nyxara, his expression one of profound, earth shattering disbelief. "An alliance with… us? You are serious?"

The shift was monumental. This was not the queen of patient diplomacy and unwavering pacifism he had followed for years. This was a stranger. A strategist who had just made a move so audacious, so utterly against her nature, that it recalibrated his entire understanding of the board.

Nyxara watched the shock ripple through him, and a cold, determined calm settled over her. This was the proof. His reaction was the final, undeniable confirmation that her old path was truly gone. She took a single step forward, her multi hued eyes locking with his stunned gaze.

"If you think we have journeyed to the heart of his power, dressed in rags and shadow, to jest," she said, her voice low and charged with an iron resolve he had never heard before, "then you have already misjudged us." She gestured to the horrific, magnificent expanse of the Plaza below. "Now, take us to them. To Ryota. To Haruto. To the Twin Stars. Stop gaping like a startled bird and show. Let us show you just how serious we truly are."

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