The Domini saga

The pale stone expanse remains silent around Kynes, Bren, and Pellis. Behind them, the closed mirror gate reflects nothing, while blood continues to bead lightly from Kynes’s injured palm.

Bren circles the nearest pale stones, studying the dim violet horizon and the ground beneath their feet. No tracks approach, yet the silence seems deliberately held.

Pellis looks toward Kynes’s bleeding hand, then back to the sealed gate. The Shadowfell offers no wind, no distant sound, and no sign of the hidden route ahead.

Kynes’s reassurance settles into the silent expanse. The cost of the private crossing answers immediately: his injured palm opens further, and blood darkens his wrist.

Pellis kneels and draws a map in the pale dust: Daggerford’s magistrate offices, a locked archive room, and a servant’s stair leading beneath the council hall.

The map’s lines brighten, confirming the route and the hidden archive. Bren binds Kynes’s palm as the Shadowfell’s silence holds around their settled purpose.

Kynes steps through the mirror gate into the quarry’s hard afternoon light, with Bren and Pellis close behind. The Shadowfell’s violet horizon folds shut beyond them.

He turns and draws his shadow across the glass-black threshold. The gate contracts with a deep crack, sealing the quarry from the silent realm and leaving no passage open.

The closure costs him. The wound in Kynes’s palm burns sharply, and the last of the gate’s force pulls blood into the stone before the seam vanishes.

Pellis studies the sealed door, then the blue thread tied around its handle. Beyond the quarry, distant voices carry faintly from the weighing room passage.

Kynes leaves Quarry behind and arrives at Daggerford.

Kynes wraps his injured palm in clean linen until the bleeding stops. With Bren and Pellis beside him, he reaches Daggerford beneath a lowering copper sky.

The city’s western gate stands open to evening traffic. Fish brine, horse sweat, and chimney smoke mingle above crowded lanes, while bells mark the closing of the river market.

Bren studies the gatehouse and nearby alleys, keeping Pellis’s altered face turned beneath his hood. A posted notice bears Magistrate Hale’s seal and Pellis’s name beneath a charge of record theft.

A narrow lane beside the council hall leads toward a shuttered records annex. From beneath its door, a thin blue light pulses once, matching the ledger’s altered ink.

Kynes opens his shadowed hand. A pocket dimension unfolds beside the annex, its interior spacious and still, furnished with a desk and two chairs clustered beneath violet light.

Bren enters first, guiding Pellis toward the desk. He follows with his hood raised, and the dimension accepts them without resistance or sound.

Kynes seals the pocket dimension. Its violet seam folds shut, leaving only the council hall, the pulsing blue light beneath the annex door, and the empty lane before him.

Kynes enters the magistrate’s office beneath the fresh notice bearing Hale’s seal. A young woman clerk with dark braided hair, a green wool dress, and ink-stained fingers looks up sharply from her records.

The demand carries across the office. The clerk’s quill slips, striking the desk, and two guards near the inner arch turn toward Kynes with hands near their sword hilts.

A brass service bell rings somewhere beyond the inner arch, summoning attention from deeper offices. The clerk gathers the scattered papers, visibly wary but unable to retract her answer.

Kynes walks past the clerk toward the western passage. His shadow brushes the office threshold, and the brass service bell rings again behind him, loudly marking his departure.

The guards hesitate, then step aside. Their unease follows Kynes into the council hall, while the clerk’s written record becomes an immediate cost to his cover.

The western passage opens before him, lined with sealed offices and faded civic plaques. A blue pulse leaks beneath the annex door ahead, steady as a held breath.

Kynes raises his gloved hand. Invisible force closes lightly around the clerk’s throat, lifting her chin and cutting off her next sharp retort without injury.

The guards freeze beside the passage, watching the clerk’s boots remain firmly on the floor while the blue pulse beneath the annex door quickens.

The telekinetic pressure eases enough for breath, though it remains a clear warning. From beyond the annex, a lock turns and someone calls for the western guards.

The invisible grip loosens from the clerk’s throat. She crosses to the blue records cabinet, unlocks its brass clasp, and swings the doors wide.

Shelves of ledgers fill the cabinet, but a false back has been carved into the wood. Behind it, stone steps descend beneath the council hall, washed in the same urgent blue light.

Beyond the inner passage, Hale’s voice rises, sharp with command. The guards glance toward the sound, then back at Kynes, unwilling to bar the opened route.

Kynes descends the servant’s stair beneath the council hall. Urgent blue light spills through the stones, illuminating dust, old handrails, and a sealed annex door below.

His shadow slips beneath the door and unfastens the bolt from within. The annex opens onto shelves of civic ledgers, a brazier, and a magistrate’s desk covered in loose refusal pages.

Magistrate Hale, an elderly man with a narrow build, silver hair, and a crimson-trimmed black robe, stands beside the brazier gripping a half-burned page.

Kynes’s shadow crosses the room faster than Hale can react. It snatches the page from his hand, gathers the remaining refusal records, and draws them safely into Kynes’s grasp.

The refusal pages are secured, their ink intact except for one scorched corner. Above, guards reach the cabinet, while the clerk remains silent beside the open stair.

Kynes releases enough magical pressure to fill the annex. Magistrate Hale, the clerk, and the guards are forced to their knees as the blue light shudders across the ledgers.

Hale’s crimson-trimmed robe spreads across the floor beside the brazier. His hand claws toward the scorched page, but Kynes’s shadow keeps the evidence beyond his reach.

Above the stair, more footsteps gather at the cabinet. Below, the kneeling magistrate and guards remain subdued while the intact pages lie openly in Kynes’s grasp.

Kynes opens his pocket dimension beside the annex desk. Violet light spills across the refusal pages as Bren steps through, followed by Pellis beneath his hood.

The clerk stares at Pellis, then at the pages in Kynes’s grasp. Above the stair, the arriving guards hesitate when they see the living witness.

Pellis moves beside Bren, keeping his hood lowered enough for the clerk and guards to see his face. The blue light steadies over the recovered records.

Kynes takes the magistrate’s chair and settles into it like a judge. The blue light steadies over the refusal pages while Hale and the guards remain on their knees.

The pressure holding the clerk eases completely. She rubs her throat once, then steps toward the desk as Pellis watches her with guarded recognition.

The clerk lifts each page beneath the blue light, comparing seals, dates, and ink pressure. Her expression hardens as the pattern becomes undeniable.

Kynes gives Hale a long, measured stare. The blue light rests across the refusal pages, and the magistrate’s objections falter beneath the silence.

Kynes releases the guards. They rise stiffly, then surround Hale and seize his arms, while the clerk carries the refusal pages above the stair.

The guards march Hale through the council hall. Under the clerk’s direction, officers fan through the adjoining chambers and place every council member under arrest before anyone can destroy the records.

Kynes’s command becomes the council’s immediate order. Guards escort Hale and every council member into separate holding cells, while clerks seal their offices and inventory every ledger.

The refusal pages, Hale’s private marks, and the seized council records gather in the annex beneath a shared ward. Nothing burns, vanishes, or passes beyond custody.

Bren stands beside the evidence table, sorting seals from payment entries while the clerk assigns two impartial scribes to copy each page under blue light.

The guards close Hale’s cell and secure the council’s holding corridor. For now, the entire governing body remains contained, and the full inquiry can proceed without interference.