CHAPTER 133: THE BROKEN ARTIFACT

The class filed into the tunnel, their footsteps soft but echoing faintly against the stone floor. The air was cooler here, heavy with the scent of damp rock and old moss.

Torches hissed and crackled as they burned, their flames casting shifting shadows that crawled along the walls.

The flicker of orange light revealed slick patches of moisture, dark streaks of lichen, and faint grooves carved long ago by hands now lost to history.

Alira took the lead, torch held high. Her presence steadied the group, her movements careful but assured as she traced a finger along the tunnel’s worn surface. "These passageways," she explained, her tone both informative and reverent, "were carved by a civilization that flourished centuries before the founding of the academy. They built vast networks beneath their cities and forests, part refuge, part temple. What remains here is but a fragment."

The students murmured among themselves, curiosity flaring despite the uneasy silence of the tunnels. Elise leaned closer to the wall, her eyes catching on faint etchings that looked almost like vines curling upward.

Fin tilted his head at a cluster of runes, muttering under his breath as though he could decipher them if he stared long enough. Even Sun, though reserved, scanned the stone with keen attention, the firelight reflected in his sharp eyes.

"Are those words?" Fin whispered, pointing toward a faded inscription.

"Yes," Alira replied without slowing. "Unfortunately we don’t know their meaning. Their language has been lost to us. What meaning we glimpse now is speculation."

The group moved in formation, the order Alira had set outside maintained: Sun and Fin at the front, their torches casting light into the darkness; Jae and Byun in the middle, their steps measured, their gazes wandering; Tirel and Elise at the rear, one smirking, the other silent but watchful.

As the tunnel curved, the stone walls widened into a chamber. Here, murals stretched across the surface, painted in ochre, red, and black, their pigments remarkably preserved despite the centuries. The figures seemed alive in the firelight, their forms twisting with shadows. Alira slowed, lifting her torch higher so the class could see.

"Observe," she said, her voice softer now. "These murals depict fragments of their history. Look closely."

Students drew nearer, their whispers hushed. Warriors clad in strange armor marched across one wall, their weapons raised against shadowy beasts. Another mural showed circles of figures chanting around a glowing orb, lines of energy radiating outward like sunbeams. Still another displayed a sealed chest, chains painted across it, with symbols swirling above like protective wards.

Elise frowned, studying the painted chest. "That looks like a ritual," she murmured.

"Or a story," Byun countered, his eyes alight with curiosity. "Legends meant to frighten children, perhaps. Still... the detail is impressive."

Tirel tilted her head at the chain-marked mural, lips curling. "Stories always carry a kernel of truth. That much we know."

The students compared symbols to fragments they remembered from dusty texts in the library, whispering guesses about meaning and intent.

The atmosphere shifted: fear faded into fascination, tension replaced by the quiet thrill of discovery. Their torches revealed a civilization trying to speak to them across the gulf of centuries.

Tirel slowed her steps, torch angled low as if she were simply studying the mural’s edges. Jae almost walked past her before he caught the change in her posture. She was staring into a collapsed corner of stone, her usual half-smile gone.

A small object lay wedged between rubble and wall. At first glance it looked like nothing more than a fragment of pottery, dulled by dust and time.

But the faint curve of its surface caught the light, revealing an insignia both of them recognized at once, the royal seal, stamped into its face like a brand.

Jae’s fingers tightened around his torch. It was broken, cracked clean through, the core within long extinguished. Still, his chest tightened in the same way it had when the academy was attacked. That artifact had borne the same mark.

Tirel tapped his arm lightly, a silent question in her eyes: did he see it too?

He gave a single, clipped nod. His face stayed smooth, but he shifted slightly, angling his body to block the others’ line of sight. With the edge of his boot he nudged the shard deeper into shadow, the movement small enough to pass for a casual adjustment of footing.

Tirel exhaled through her nose, almost a laugh but too sharp, too tense. She leaned closer, lips barely parting. "Broken," she mouthed.

The word made little difference to the weight pressing against Jae’s thoughts. Broken or not, its presence here was wrong. Artifacts like that didn’t simply appear in abandoned tunnels. This meant whoever had attacked the academy had been here.

His jaw set. He didn’t dare speak, not with the others so close, but the look he gave Tirel said everything. This wasn’t a discovery to be shared. It was a warning.

Their expressions betrayed nothing. They turned back toward the group with the same idle curiosity as before, their demeanor casual, unremarkable. To anyone watching, nothing had happened at all.

As the group moved on, torches lighting their descent deeper into the tunnels, Jae let his gaze wander, not only across the murals but also across his companions. The silence stretched, broken only by footsteps and the occasional drip of water from the ceiling.

As they walked, Jae’s thoughts turned inward. The previous monster attack hadn’t been some random stroke of misfortune. No, orchestrating something of that scale required motive, timing, and above all, freedom of movement. Whoever had engineered it needed to slip between rules and restrictions without raising suspicion.

Sun was a tempting suspect at first glance. He carried authority, yes, and his aloof manner made him difficult to read. But there was a flaw in that theory. As a student, Sun was bound by many of the same privileges and limitations as the rest of them.

His position as crown prince gave him influence, but his movements were still monitored in ways few could ignore. Freedom, in truth, was both given and denied to him.

Byun, however, came to mind easily. Noble birth afforded him leniency that others would never see. He could move through the academy’s bounds with fewer questions asked, fewer eyes watching.

That kind of freedom mattered when chaos was being planned. Jae remembered this well.

Yet the more he thought, the less solid the walls of the academy seemed. Boundaries, after all, were not as absolute as most believed. He recalled the night of the attack, when alarms rang and guards scrambled.

He remembered moving through smoke and shadow, slipping past restrictions that should have held firm. He remembered Tirel at his side, her laughter soft but sharp as they scaled the outer walls with little more than timing and daring.

The realization sank in, quiet but sure. Rules, boundaries, walls, all of them could be bypassed, if one had the will and the means.