King Steven’s gauntlet still rings on the table. Guards rush to the doors, but one side panel already stands half open, just enough for a shadow to slip through.
Slaan catches the wrongness at once, a thin cold pressure behind the sealed vault wall, the Chaos node answering someone nearby.
Bram
Tell me where to stand.
The Pale Clerk jerks in his spectral bonds and goes pale as ash, eyes fixed on the vault seam. He is not looking at the guards. He is looking at the door.
The Pale Clerk
They are inside the stone. If the seal breaks, the node wakes with them.
King Steven draws his blade and points it at the vault. The chamber goes still, every eye turning toward Slaan and the humming wall beyond the evidence chamber.
The ash code is the key, and the vault is the target.
Slaan moves at once, not toward the door, but toward the warding line. If the Sentinels want the Chaos node, she has to stop their hand here, then take the hunt to Maelstrom.