Chapter 4 The Girl Beneath the Floor

POV: Vaelis

I hit the ground hard…

The air left my body. For one second I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I just lay there on the cold stone, hurting all over.

Above me, the hole I fell through was closing fast. Dust fell through the small gap. Red light came with it. I could still hear the noise up there. Shouting, running. Someone calling my name.

Then the hole closed all the way. The sound stopped like someone shut a door. Silence pressed down on me.

I sat up slow. My hands still hurt from the bond blowing up earlier. Moving them made me wince. I looked around, and that was when I understood something bad.

I was not supposed to be here.

The room was huge. Bigger than any room in the Conservatory. It looked old too, like it was built before the school even stood on top of it. Strange marks covered the walls. I had never seen them in any class. Two moons, touching each other like they were fighting for the same space. Under them, someone had carved a person on their knees, wrapped in chains.

My stomach turned looking at it. The air felt wrong. It hummed low, deep, like a sound I could feel in my chest more than hear. It tasted old. Like magic that had been locked away for a long, long time.

“Hello?” My voice came out shaky. It bounced off the walls again and again until it disappeared.

Nothing answered. Just my own voice thrown back at me. I stood up, my legs shook under me. I took one step, and my shoe scraped loud against the stone.

Then I heard something. Breathing, it is not mine. I froze, my heart pounded so hard it hurt. I told myself it was just an echo. Just my own breath playing tricks on me. But I heard it again. Slow and rough.. 

Someone else was down here. Fear crawled up my throat, but I didn’t run. My feet wouldn’t move. Some stupid part of me needed to know what I was standing in a room with.

I lifted my hand. A small flame lit up in my palm. It wasn’t much light, but it was something. Orange light spread across the floor and up the wall.

That’s when I saw the chains.

Old metal, bolted deep into the stone. Thick. Strong enough to hold something a lot bigger than a person. My stomach dropped. These chains were not made to hold back rats. Something inside them moved.

I stepped back before I even told my body to. My flame shook in my hand. The light showed me the chains, and under them, a shape. Arms, Legs. A person.

Someone was chained inside a room that wasn’t even supposed to be here.

“Who’s there?” I said. My voice came out small. I hated that.

Nothing answered right away. Just the same slow breathing. Then a voice came out of the dark. And it said my name.

“Vaelis.”

I stopped breathing. The voice wasn’t loud. It wasn’t strong. It sounded like someone was pulling the word up from somewhere deep, like they hadn’t spoken in a long time. It sounded rough. Broken. Like it hurts to talk.

But I heard it clearly. It knew my name.

Nobody knew I was down here. Nobody even knew this room was real, not until thirty seconds ago when the floor opened and I fell through it. So how did whoever was chained to that wall already know who I was?

My flame shook harder, matching my hand. My body wanted two things at once. Run. And also, go closer. Find out who just said your name like they had been waiting a long time to say it.

I didn’t move, I couldn’t. The breathing got closer. Chains scraped against the stone, slow and heavy, like the person was dragging themselves toward my voice.

“Please,” the voice said. It broke in the middle, splitting into two pieces. “Please tell me you’re real.”

My chest went tight. I didn’t know this voice. I didn’t know who this person was. I didn’t know what they did to end up chained under the Conservatory.

Every instructor had warned us about things like this. A trap, a danger. Something the school locked away for a reason.

But this voice didn’t sound dangerous. It sounded like someone who had already given up hope that anyone would ever find them.

I stepped closer, flame out in front of me like it could protect me.

“Who are you?” I whispered. “How do you know my name?”

The shape in the chains moved again, dragging itself further into the light. I finally saw a face. Thin. Pale. Eyes wide, locked on mine, like I was the only real thing left in the world.

His mouth opened like he was about to answer. That was the exact second the ground under my feet let out a low, grinding sound, like something huge was waking up far below us.

And the chains on the wall began to glow…