The night after Lyra's letter felt heavier than the others.
The castle was quieter at this hour, even the guards' footsteps were fewer, their armor no longer clashing in sharp rhythms. A thick hush lived in the corridors.
Madeline slept, but not deeply.
Her body rested beneath the covers, her breathing slow, her face softened by the illusion of peace, yet something restless moved beneath the surface. Dreams hovered at the edge of her mind but never formed fully, they lingered like mist and dissolved before she could grasp them.
The candle at her bedside had burned down to a thin curl of blackened wick. A faint ribbon of smoke drifted upward and vanished.
The room was still, then her fingers twitched.
It was subtle, the smallest tightening of muscle, as though something beneath her skin had adjusted its position. Her brows drew together faintly, a crease formed between them, delicate but unmistakable.
Her hand curled into the sheets.
Her eyes opened, they were not awake.
They stared forward, unfocused, reflecting nothing.
Slowly, with unnatural smoothness, she sat upright.
Madeline swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet touched the stone floor as she stood.
There was no hesitation in her movement.
She walked to the door and opened it, the corridor beyond lay in half-light. Torches burned in iron brackets, their flames low but steady. The castle at this hour was not asleep, guards remained at their posts, though their armor no longer clashed with restless energy. Footsteps were spaced wider, conversations muted.
A guard at the far archway saw her first, he straightened.
"Miss Elmsworth?" he called gently.
She did not respond.
She moved forward with silent steps, her nightdress brushing faintly against the stone.
The guard watched carefully, she had been granted limited freedom within certain wings. It was not his place to question her movements unless ordered.
Still, something about her gaze unsettled him.
It was empty.
He would not question it.
But as she passed beneath one of the torchlights, the flame bent toward her, stretching unnaturally thin before snapping upright again once she moved beyond it.
Madeline turned down a narrower hall that led toward the northern gallery, a place of portraits and relics, quieter and rarely visited at night.
Her palm drifted outward, fingertips brushing the stone wall as she walked.
A sound like the faintest sigh moved through the corridor.
A hairline crack formed where her skin passed.
It followed her hand for several inches before stopping abruptly.
She did not notice.
She reached the gallery.
The room was long and high-ceilinged, lined with framed portraits in dark wood and gilded trim. Faces watched from every wall, ancestors of Kaelum's line, figures preserved in oil and varnish, generals, scholars, and women in silk gowns with knowing eyes.
Madeline slowed.
She stopped before one portrait in particular.
A woman draped in deep charcoal silk. Her painted eyes sharp, calculating, almost alive beneath layers of pigment.
Her eyes remained open, fixed on nothing in particular, not the woman in silk, not her own reflection, just… forward.
Her arm lifted slowly, weightlessly, as though pulled by an invisible thread.
Her fingers did not reach for the frame with curiosity.
They hovered in the air.
And then—
The glass shattered, bursting outward in a violent explosion that tore through the gallery like a gunshot.
Wood split sharply down the center of the frame, and glass fragments shot across marble, skidding and spinning in glittering arcs, the sound collided against the vaulted ceiling and rolled back down the corridor.
Madeline did not flinch, nor did she blink.
She remained standing amid the destruction, arm still half-lifted, eyes vacant.
A hairline crack formed in the marble floor beneath her bare feet, it traced outward slowly, branching in two directions before stopping.
Footsteps thundered toward the gallery, two guards rushed in, weapons half-drawn, and they halted at the threshold.
Madeline stood motionless in the center of shattered glass.
"Miss—?"
No response.
Her raised arm slowly lowered back to her side.
Then—
Her breath hitched sharply, her shoulders jerked, and her eyes regained focus.
Sound rushed into her ears all at once, the ringing echo, the scrape of boots, and the brittle crunch beneath her feet.
She blinked and looked down, there was glass everywhere.
The ruined portrait, the split frame.
The guards were staring at her as if she had stepped from something they did not understand.
Her heart began to race.
"What—?"
Her voice trembled.
She took a small step backward, and the sound of glass crushing beneath her heel made her flinch violently.
"I was—" She swallowed. "I was in my room."
The older guard lowered his weapon slowly.
"You walked here, Miss."
Her face drained of color.
"No." Her head shook instinctively. "I was asleep."
"You opened your door, and you passed the corridor."
Her breathing became shallow.
"I don't remember."
And she didn't.
The last thing she recalled was lying down, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of Lyra's words pressing against her thoughts. There was nothing after that, not until this.
Another presence entered the room.
Kaelum did not hurry.
The guards stepped aside immediately.
His gaze swept the destruction, once calculating and unreadable, before settling on her.
Madeline looked at him as though he were the only stable thing in the room.
"I don't know how I got here," she said quietly.
He studied her face.
"You don't remember leaving your room?"
She shook her head.
"No."
His eyes shifted briefly to the shattered frame. The glass had blown outward, not inward. The fracture lines in the wood were violent and forceful, as if pressure had originated from within.
His attention returned to her.
"Are you injured?"
She looked down at herself as though checking for the first time.
A thin red line marked her heel where glass had grazed it, she hadn't felt it.
She only noticed because he asked.
"I don't think so."
One of the guards crouched carefully to inspect the frame.
"It must have been unstable," he offered, voice tight. "Old glass, weak structure."
Kaelum did not respond to the explanation, because the portrait had hung undisturbed for decades.
And because glass does not explode without reason.
Madeline pressed her hand lightly against her temple.
Her pulse was too loud in her ears.
"I've never sleepwalked before."
"There is always a first time," Kaelum said evenly.
She nodded faintly, though uncertainty lingered in her expression.
Then—
The torches flickered, all at once.
A synchronized dimming.
The air shifted subtly, like a breath drawn inward by unseen lungs.
Madeline stiffened.
A pressure gathered between her shoulder blades.
She inhaled sharply.
Kaelum noticed immediately.
"Where?" he asked quietly.
She hesitated.
"My back," she admitted. "It's just sore."
The pressure intensified.
Heat bloomed beneath the surface of her skin slowly.
Her breath became uneven.
The nearest glass display case trembled softly.
A faint vibration that might have been imagined.
Madeline stepped backward instinctively.
"I don't feel—"
The cabinet exploded, it burst outward in a violent wave, as if pressure from within had forced it apart. Glass tore through the air, striking the opposite wall and raining down in deadly fragments.
A guard staggered with a sharp curse.
Another shielded his face.
Madeline gasped, the heat in her back igniting sharply now, a searing line that stole the air from her lungs.
Her knees weakened.
Kaelum caught her before she hit the floor.
The moment his hands steadied her, every torch in the gallery flared brilliant white, for a single heartbeat, the room blazed as bright as day.
Then the flames dropped back to trembling gold.
Silence swallowed the space.
Madeline clutched his sleeve.
"I didn't touch it," she whispered, voice fractured. "I didn't even go near it."
"I know," he said.
And he meant it.
Because he had seen the distance between her and the cabinet when it burst.
Because he had felt something in the air, a pressure, a distortion that had nothing to do with human strength.
The heat in her back slowly receded, fading into a dull ache.
Her breathing steadied.
Around them, the gallery looked as though a storm had torn through it.
Glass everywhere.
Frames fractured.
A thin crack in the marble floor, stretching quietly beneath the debris.
No one spoke of it.
Because no one could explain it.
Kaelum helped her stand upright.
"You will not return to your room tonight," he said calmly. "You will stay in my room."
Her eyes flickered with protest, then exhaustion overtook it.
She nodded.
The guards began clearing the debris in careful silence.
Madeline did not look back as Kaelum guided her from the gallery.
But as they crossed the threshold, another faint crack traced along the marble where she had stood moments earlier.