The undercity was never truly silent.
Elian learned this in the first hours after he and Lyra slipped into its labyrinth. The tunnels breathed with a life of their own—drips of water echoing like whispers, rats skittering just beyond the torchlight, the faint hum of unseen machinery buried in the bones of Solara itself. Every sound pressed in on him, louder than the beating of his own heart.
He clutched the torch tighter. The flame sputtered, smoke curling upward to lick at the damp ceiling. His other hand hovered over the satchel pressed against his chest, as if the leather straps alone could keep his secrets from spilling out.
Lyra walked ahead, boots striking wet stone with easy rhythm. She moved with the assurance of someone who had lived in places like this—shoulders loose, eyes sharp, body balanced between predator and prey.
Her scarf was pulled high against the damp, hiding her mouth, but her voice carried when she finally spoke.
"You're walking too loud, scholar."
Elian stiffened. "Loud?"
She glanced back at him, one brow arched. Even in the gloom, her green eyes caught the torchlight like shards of glass. "You sound like a drunk noble stomping through a tavern. Down here, noise gets you killed."
Heat crept up Elian's neck. He adjusted his steps, trying to soften his tread. It felt clumsy, unnatural—like a child pretending to be a shadow.
Lyra said nothing more, but the faint curl of amusement at her eyes stung him worse than her words.
They walked in silence for a while, weaving through narrowing passages where the stone walls closed in, slick with condensation. The air grew colder the deeper they went, carrying the metallic tang of rust and old blood.
Elian's stomach twisted. He forced himself to look straight ahead, but the images from the Athenaeum clung to him still—the star fracturing, the voices that weren't voices, and the guard's eyes wide with terror before his body collapsed into twisted ruin.
He swallowed hard, bile stinging the back of his throat. That was me. I did that.
"Stop thinking so loud."
Elian blinked. "What?"
Lyra didn't look back. She raised her hand and pointed. "There's a split ahead. Left leads to the Black Fang quarter. Right drops toward the Teeth's pit. Both will want our blood if they see us."
Elian stared at the fork where the tunnel branched, black yawning to either side. "So where do we go?"
Lyra lowered her hand. "Neither." She tugged the torch from his grip before he could protest, crouched, and tapped at the base of the left-hand wall. Her knuckles rapped against stone until a hollow note sang back. With a smirk, she shoved her boot into a crack, found leverage, and pressed hard.
Stone groaned, shifted. A section of wall swung inward just enough to reveal a crawlspace beyond.
She thrust the torch into his hands. "Congratulations, scholar. You're about to learn what real tunnels look like."
Elian peered into the gap. The crawlspace was barely wide enough for one person at a time, lined with dirt and brick, reeking of mildew. His chest tightened. "That looks… unsafe."
Lyra's laugh was sharp. "So is breathing in the wrong alley. Move."
He wanted to argue. He wanted to tell her this was madness, that he didn't belong here, that he was a scholar, not some gutter rat crawling through forgotten veins of the city. But Lyra was already ducking inside, her braid brushing the dirt ceiling as she wriggled forward with the grace of someone who had done this a hundred times.
Elian took a shaky breath and followed.
The crawlspace swallowed them in darkness, the torch sputtering dangerously close to the low ceiling. Dust filled Elian's throat, and the earth pressed in on all sides, as though the undercity itself wanted to smother him.
His thoughts spiraled with every scrape of his knees, every brush of unseen webs across his face. What am I doing? How did it come to this? Yesterday I was cataloguing star-charts. Today I'm running like a rat, hiding like a thief. And tomorrow? Will there even be a tomorrow?
He nearly jumped when Lyra's voice drifted back, low and clipped. "You're trembling."
"I—no, I'm fine." His voice cracked.
She chuckled. "You're a terrible liar."
The words stung, but there was no malice in them. Just a quiet observation, like she was cataloguing him as neatly as he once catalogued scrolls.
When the crawlspace finally widened into a hidden alcove, Elian nearly collapsed with relief. The ceiling rose high enough to stand, the walls rough-hewn but stable. Old crates and broken tools littered the corners, relics of some long-abandoned smuggler's route.
Lyra dusted off her coat and stretched like a cat. "Not bad. No gang worth their teeth comes this way anymore. Too tight for hauling loot."
Elian leaned against the wall, chest heaving. The torchlight caught the pale sheen of sweat across his brow. "Do you always live like this?"
Lyra shrugged, pulling her scarf down at last. Her mouth curved in something between a smirk and a sneer. "Better than gilded cages and polished lies."
He frowned. "You mean the nobility?"
Her eyes flicked toward him, sharp and dangerous. "Curiosity kills, scholar."
Elian shut his mouth, chastened.
The silence stretched, filled only by the faint drip of water somewhere in the dark.
Finally, Lyra sat against a crate, pulling a knife from her belt. She twirled it lazily, the blade catching the light. "We can rest here. A few hours, maybe. But don't get comfortable. The Guard will come. They always do."
Elian stiffened. "You think they'll find us this deep?"
Her laugh was soft, bitter. "They don't need to. Word spreads faster than fire down here. Someone saw you. Someone whispered. By now, a dozen knives want your blood. Some for coin. Some for silence. Some just to see what a heretic bleeds."
Elian's throat tightened. "I didn't ask for this."
Lyra stopped twirling the knife. Her gaze softened, just for a heartbeat. "Nobody ever does."
The words lodged in his chest. He looked away, staring into the shadows. And in the shadows, he swore he saw it—the faint flicker of a star where no star should be.
A cold shiver slid down his spine. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the afterimage burned behind his lids: a black sun with a halo of hungry teeth.
"Elian?"
He startled. Lyra's voice had lost its edge. "You went pale. What is it?"
He shook his head too quickly. "Nothing. Just… tired."
But he knew it wasn't nothing. It was inside him, coiled and waiting, gnawing at the edges of his thoughts. The void that had swallowed that guard at the Athenaeum was still there, whispering, promising.
Lyra studied him for a long moment, then slipped the knife back into her belt. "Get some rest. Tomorrow we move again."
Elian sank to the ground, pulling his knees to his chest. The stone was cold beneath him, the torch guttering low.
He tried to steady his breath. To ignore the phantom whispers. To pretend, just for a few hours, that he was still just a scholar, and not a vessel for something vast and terrible.
But in the quiet of the alcove, one truth pressed down heavier than the stone above.
The Guard would not stop hunting.
And neither, he feared, would the darkness inside him.