The tunnel came up through a maintenance hatch in the sub-level corridor forty meters from where her cell had been.
He knew every maintenance point in Blackstone the way he knew everything about the kingdom — completely, deliberately, with the thoroughness of a man who understood that the difference between order and chaos was often a single overlooked detail. He had walked this corridor. He had reviewed this hatch. He had noted the tunnel network in the original fortress survey fifteen years ago and filed it as pre-kingdom infrastructure, not a security vulnerability.
He would correct that assessment afterward.
If there was an afterward.
He stood three steps behind Lira in the dim corridor and watched her wait.
She had positioned herself ten meters from the hatch, center of the corri
