The midnight chime echoed through the mountain stone, but sixty feet beneath the surface of the Inner Sect, the sound was reduced to a dull thud against the vaulted granite ceilings.
Deep within the restricted scripture archives beneath the Grand Library, Su Rou paced back and forth along the narrow flagstone aisle of Row Nine.
The hem of her pale lavender silk gown brushed against the dusty floorboards with a sharp, agitated rustle, dragging through the grime of forgotten centuries. Her long black hair was unpinned, spilling over her shoulders in wild disarray, and her porcelain skin was flushed with a frantic heat that shattered her usual aristocratic composure.
She stopped before a towering shelf carved from black ironwood, her manicured fingernails digging into the dense timber unti
