Summer sunlight blazed over Windrest Keep.
A small black cat slipped through the courtyard like a stray shadow. No one stopped her. No one even bothered to look twice. She hopped onto a window ledge, vanished into a corridor, and reappeared on the next landing with the practiced ease of someone who had mapped the place by scent and sound.
Thea had spent the entire day roaming.
She’d eavesdropped at the Violet Eye Delegation’s lodging. She’d circled the Violet Goldflower Church. She’d stalked an Earth Ring carriage until the guards’ boots started to squeak from fatigue. Faction after faction, rumor after rumor—she gathered it all.
She ran straight for the dock ward.
The abandoned Lighthouse Island had changed overnight.
Last night, it was a dead rock in the bay. Tonight, it was a spectacle. A tower-shaped building had risen there like it had always belonged—seven stories of cold stone and wrong angles, lantern glow spilling from the first floor, music drifting across the water in bright, cheerful bursts that didn’t match the name at all.
The Sorrow Theater.
Windrest City had poured toward the shore. Locals, sailors, merchants, gawkers from nearby hamlets—everyone wanted to see the Lostlands up close.
Thea was a cat. Which meant she saw nothing but calves, hems, and the occasional swinging basket.
She dodged. She weaved. She still got stepped on twice.
With a furious little hiss, she finally squeezed through the crowd and spotted him—standing near the edge of the quay, calm as ever, eyes fixed on the island.
Rhine.
She trotted up and flicked her tail against his boot.
Through the bond, she sent everything at once—names, movements, the way each faction was posturing around the theater like hungry gulls around a fresh corpse.
Rhine listened without moving, only his gaze sharpening.
Thea tried to crane her neck and look past the crowd. Useless. From down here, the theater might as well have been a story someone else was telling.
A hand slid under her ribs.
Thea jolted.
Rhine lifted her with two fingers like she weighed nothing, set her against his forearm, and steadied her with a light grip. No squeezing. No forcing. Just… a quiet, automatic kindness.
Thea froze, startled by how natural it felt.
When she was human, Rhine kept his distance. Polite, wary, always measuring the room. He treated even allies like they might become enemies tomorrow.
But as a cat?
He didn’t hesitate.
Thea blinked at him, then gave in and settled her paws on his sleeve. Up here, the air was cleaner. The view opened.
On Lighthouse Island, the first floor of the Sorrow Theater glowed warm gold. Laughter and drumbeats leaked from inside—too lively, too bright. Like a party staged for something that didn’t understand joy.
Rhine’s voice stayed low. “What’s the Governor doing?”
Thea knew exactly who he meant.
Panglos Fell.
If the fragile peace ever cracked, Rhine and the Governor wouldn’t just be opponents. They’d be predators in the same water.
“Nothing special,” Thea replied through the bond, still half-dazed at being carried. “He’s… acting like it’s business.”
Rhine’s brow twitched. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. He sent a few idiots to watch the island, said some nice-sounding nonsense about public safety, and went back to his fortress.”
Rhine didn’t look convinced. Neither was Thea.
“And Violet Eye?” Rhine asked.
Thea’s ears flicked. “They’re losing their minds.”
She told him what she’d seen: Violet Eye Weavecasters swarming the shoreline, trying spells, trying force, trying brute ritual—nothing worked. The theater wouldn’t budge. Doors like iron. Windows like sealed stone. No entry, not even a crack.
So they did what every arrogant scholar did when reality refused to obey.
They ran to books.
“Skyborne Island sent them old records,” Thea added. “A stack of them. Everyone’s camped in the Scholars’ Tower now, chewing on parchment like it’s food.”
“Skyborne Island,” Rhine repeated, thoughtful.
“And the best part?” Thea’s tail gave an irritated twitch. “They can’t read half of it. Old Troll script. Their ‘masters’ recognize a few characters and pretend that counts.”
Rhine watched the distant glow on the island. “And the light on the first floor?”
Thea followed his gaze.
“When the theater rose, there were no lights. No music. Then—about an hour later—the first floor lit up. Like someone flipped a switch.”
Rhine didn’t answer. But Thea could feel the subtle shift in him.
Because they both knew what it meant.
Last night, in a dream that wasn’t a dream, they’d stepped onto that stage.
They’d cleared the first act.
A fresh breeze rolled off the sea. The theater’s cheerful drums kept beating.
The scene in Thea’s mind shifted—because she’d seen this too, from a different angle.
Deep beneath Windrest Keep, where green candles burned without smoke, Panglos Fell sat in a room that stank of incense and old stone.
Across from him, Marsas—the Soul-Eater—knelt with his head bowed, hands stained dark like dried ink.
“The first floor is lit,” Fell said, voice mild. “Explain.”
Marsas’ shoulders tensed. He reached into a leather case and produced a thin, bone-slate tablet etched with characters older than the kingdom.
“The Book of the Lost,” Marsas said hoarsely. “It says… when a floor lights, it means someone has cleared it.”
Fell’s expression didn’t change. But the air in the room tightened.
“How fast?”
Marsas swallowed. “If the timing reports are true… within an hour of its emergence.”
For a beat, even Fell was silent.
One hour to clear a Lostlands floor meant either madness—or power.
Fell’s fingers tapped once on the arm of his chair. “Handle your side. I’ll handle mine.”
Marsas bowed deeper. Inside his chest, relief and dread twisted together.
Because Fell had dragged Violet Eye here as tools—battering rams, sacrifices, a convenient cover. And now someone else had taken the first step faster than anyone should be able to.
Up above, in the Scholars’ Tower, another quiet scene played out.
A young man sat inside a latrine stall with the solemn focus of a soldier writing orders. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not really.
Qi Heng—under the alias “Perry”—pulled out crisp A4 paper and a black pen that didn’t exist in this world, and began to write.
He sent his report through a Firemark Orb, sealing it with a practiced motion.
Outside the stall, the tower remained tense and restless.
Inside, his mentor’s voice drifted down the corridor, sharp with frustration.
“An hour?” the mentor scoffed. “Impossible.”
Qi Heng capped his pen, eyes narrowing.
Impossible… until it wasn’t.