The echo of the great bell faded, leaving only the whisper of maps in the Knyaz's study. Sineus Belov stood over a heavy oak table, his finger tracing a line south. The parchment was old, the lands it depicted stained with the borders of forgotten skirmishes. His route cut across them all, a single, desperate path aimed at a name whispered in folktales. The Sunken Scriptorium of Ur. A journey of 1200 kilometers.
The air in the room was cold, smelling of old paper, beeswax, and the dregs of tea left in a cup hours ago. The hearth was a black mouth, empty of fire. Outside the tall window, the sky over Belogorod was the color of slate. A fitting light for the day’s work. The rasping sound in his mind had quieted to a dull thrum, a constant reminder of the wound he had just ordered inflicted upon the world.
A man cleared his throat by the cold hearth. Pavel Orlov, his advisor for forty years, a man who had served Sineus's father before him, stood with a posture as rigid as a surveyor’s rod. His robes were immaculate, his face a careful mask of disapproval. He was a man of ledgers and treaties, a man who believed in the strength of high walls and full granaries.
“You cannot go, Knyaz,” Pavel’s voice was dry, like dust stirred in a sealed room. “The decision is reckless. Our walls are strong. Our history is clean. We have reserves to withstand a siege for two years.”
Sineus did not look up from the map. He could feel the weight of Pavel’s logic, the sensible, suffocating truth of it. Consolidate. Fortify. Trust in the strength that had been so carefully curated, one severed memory at a time.
“This Scriptorium is a folktale, a scholar’s fantasy,” Pavel pressed on, taking a step closer. “To risk yourself on such a rumor is to abandon your duties here. We must consolidate our strength, not scatter it on a fool’s hope.”
Sineus finally lifted his head. His gaze drifted from his advisor’s earnest face to the stone wall of the study behind him. The ache behind his eyes, a familiar companion, sharpened for a moment. He saw the wall as Pavel saw it: solid, grey, a testament to Belogorod’s permanence. But he also saw the Pod-sloy, the ghostly layer of what was.
Shimmering figures, thin as smoke, clung to the stones. He saw the masons, their faces smudged with grime and exhaustion, their hands raw. He saw the one who fell from the scaffolding, his memory a silent scream trapped in the mortar. He saw the boy who carried water, his short life ending in a winter cough. Their memories were the true price of the wall. Unrecorded. Un-purged.
They were real.
“Their walls were strong, too, Pavel,” Sineus said, his voice quiet. He turned his gaze back to his advisor, letting the man see the certainty in his eyes.
He let the silence hang for a moment.
“The Blight does not break walls,” Sineus stated, the words landing like stones in the quiet room. “It un-makes them.”
Pavel Orlov opened his mouth to offer another rebuttal, another fact from his ledgers. He saw the look on his Knyaz’s face. The words died in his throat. He could not argue with a truth he could not see. He simply bowed his head, a stiff, formal gesture of defeat, and fell silent. The argument was over.
With the decision settled, a quiet efficiency took over. Sineus moved from the table, the debate finished. He carefully rolled up the map of the southern deserts, the one showing the route to the Sunken Scriptorium. He tied it with a simple leather cord. The journey was no longer a possibility discussed over cold tea. It was now inevitable. A thing waiting only for his first step.
He walked to a plain wooden chest in the corner of the room. From it, he gathered a small leather pack. The contents were sparse, chosen for function over comfort. Hard biscuits and dried meat, enough for three days. A single skin for water. A tightly rolled woolen bed-blanket. It was the pack of a scout, not a prince. It was a statement. He would travel light and fast.
A third man had been in the room the entire time, silent as the stone walls. He stood by the door, a mountain of quiet presence. Fedor Sokolov, captain of his personal guard. A veteran of the northern border wars, his face was a roadmap of old scars, and he moved with the heavy grace of a lifelong warrior. He watched the exchange with Pavel, his expression unreadable. His trust was not in maps or histories, but in the bite of the axe resting on his back.
His hand rested on its pommel now. A familiar, reassuring gesture.
As Sineus shouldered the small pack, Fedor gave a single, short nod. His loyalty was not a matter for debate. It was as solid as the iron in his blade. Sineus had his first and only guaranteed ally for the journey. Pavel Orlov was the mind of Belogorod, its memory and its caution. Fedor Sokolov was its fist.
Sineus looked once more around the study. The maps, the books, the cold hearth. A room of ghosts and plans. He had made his choice.
The scent of beeswax hung faintly in the air. The silence was broken only by the soft scuff of his boots on the stone floor.
He walked out of the room of maps and into the world.
