Reincarnated as an Elf Prince
Chapter 251 - 251: Cave (1)

The corridor outside the king's quarters was still.

Too still.

Lindarion's boots moved across the polished stone without hesitation, cloak trailing like a drawn line of shadow behind him. Ashwing perched on his shoulder, silent, molten eyes watching every window and hallway turn.

They didn't speak.

Not yet.

The weight of the conversation lingered. The king had listened. The order had been signed. The twenty handpicked guards would be waiting by morning.

But morning was too far away.

Three days until the rune pulsed, but only if the enemy followed the old rhythm.

And Lindarion had stopped believing in old rhythms.

'They know I'm moving,' he thought. 'They've seen my pattern.'

He reached the edge of the inner keep and turned sharply down a servants' corridor. No one was there. Just dust in the corners and a breeze from a cracked window that smelled faintly of steel and winter.

Ashwing stirred.

"You're not sleeping tonight."

"I never planned to."

Lindarion reached into his coat. Pulled out a silver-threaded token, the teleportation mark they'd etched just outside the Ravaryn estate a week ago, before he went to Solrendel. Just in case.

"Direct jump?" Ashwing asked.

"Yes. Into the forest near the eastern rise. Hidden line."

"You think the site's already awake?"

"I think they've been accelerating since the glyph chamber collapse. I think the timing we predicted is already wrong."

Ashwing coiled slightly tighter around his shoulder.

"Then we go now."

Lindarion didn't answer.

He focused.

The token pulsed.

The world folded—

and vanished.

—

He landed hard.

Boots hit moss and gravel near a bend in the treeline. The Ravaryn estate loomed through the mist beyond, faint lantern lights casting long amber trails through the hedge rows.

No guards at the outer edge.

Just quiet.

And that was worse.

He stepped low across the forest floor, cloak drawn close, Ashwing slipping from his shoulder into the underbrush with practiced ease.

They didn't speak now.

They knew the pattern.

Lindarion moved along the treeline until the estate's eastern wing came into view, the servant quarters, low windows dark, the ground behind them soft from winter rains.

That's where the tunnel was.

Not inside the house. Not marked.

Beneath.

He found the crack near the garden stone. Just wide enough to wedge a hand through. Hidden behind a false vine wall, sealed with a rune lock invisible to anyone without the right mana strain.

He pressed his palm against it.

The lock hissed open.

Faint red light laced across the seam and the earth groaned downward, revealing a spiral path that led into darkness.

Ashwing rejoined him at the edge.

"No more waiting," Lindarion muttered.

Then he stepped inside.

And the tunnel closed behind him.

—

The stone door sealed shut behind him.

No dramatic echo. No gust of air.

Just the sound of something final locking into place.

Lindarion didn't light a flame. He didn't need to. The walls here were lined with faint rune veins—none active, but still glowing just enough to trace his steps. Old magic, embedded like bone under skin.

He kept moving.

His boots made no sound. Ashwing slithered beside him in his lizard form, sticking close to the wall. No words passed between them. The quiet wasn't dramatic, it was functional. Focused.

After three minutes of descent, Lindarion stopped.

'Still no guards. No wards. That's the part that bothers me.'

Ashwing paused beside him. "They haven't fortified it. They expect no one to find it."

"Or they're already finished."

"Or," Ashwing added, "it's a trap."

'Could be all three.'

He continued downward.

The tunnel curved once, twice, then opened into a larger chamber, roughly hewn, circular, damp at the edges. The air changed. Dryer. Thinner. And in the center of the floor—

"There it is," Lindarion muttered.

The rune.

Big. Clean. Too clean. The floor was reinforced stone, but the symbol burned through the center with metallic threads, silver inlays like veins through a body. Circular. Interlocking. Familiar.

Because he'd seen it before.

'Same design as the Solrendel core,' he thought. 'But narrower. Focused.'

Ashwing pressed closer. "That's not a containment rune."

"No."

"It's a channel."

Lindarion knelt, eyes narrowing. The pulse of mana through the inlay was subtle, but it was active.

Not idle.

Not dormant.

Feeding.

"Someone already keyed this," he muttered. "It's drawing mana through the leyline, but not expelling it. No output means it's storing for—"

He stopped.

Ashwing finished it for him. "A discharge."

Lindarion stood. Fast. "They're going to ignite it. Not tomorrow. Not in three days. Tonight."

He scanned the ceiling. "They'll trigger it from above. Somewhere near the estate's altar—if they use a mirrored link, they don't have to come down here at all."

"So we cut the link."

"No," Lindarion said. "We trace it back first. If I just sever it now, they'll know someone's here."

"And if we're too late?"

"Then the whole border ruptures."

He paused again. Focused.

'They wouldn't activate from inside the house. Too risky. Too visible.'

"The garden," he said.

Ashwing blinked. "The garden?"

"There's a statue out back. Crescent blade, lilies around the base. Same symbol from the old sketches. It's not just a crest. It's a key."

Ashwing snorted lightly. "You think the duke's in on this?"

"No. I think they're using his estate like they used Evernight. Like they'll use Veldoria next."

He turned, already retracing his steps. "We move now. If I can overload the mirror point before they light the core, we stop the chain."

"And if we don't?"

Lindarion's voice was quiet.

"Then we see what breaking a seal really looks like."

—

Lindarion was halfway back to the tunnel mouth when it happened.

No blast. No flare. Just absence.

The mana veins lining the tunnel, faint white strands that had guided him in, flickered once. Then went dark. Like someone had blown out the light from behind his eyes.

He stopped mid-step.

Ashwing froze too, claws digging lightly into the dirt beside him.

"You feel that?" the dragon asked.

Lindarion didn't answer immediately. He didn't need to.

'Mana's gone. Not just dim—ripped out.'

Ashwing twisted toward the ceiling. "They sealed the entry point."

Lindarion reached out with his magic. Felt nothing. Not even resistance. Just a blank, airless dead zone where magic should have been.

"They didn't collapse it," he muttered. "They suppressed it. This whole tunnel's cut off from the leyline."

Ashwing flicked his tail. "That's not a defense."

"No. It's a trap."

The realization didn't sting. It just slotted into place, like the last piece of a pattern he'd been too distracted to see clearly.

'They wanted me to find this. Or someone like me.'

And now the door was shut behind him.