Secrets watch. Darkness listens.
Story 2: The Map That Lied
The bells did not stop ringing.
They echoed through the kingdom long after the sun rose—slow, heavy tolls that pressed against the chest like a warning meant only for the living. No one announced who had died. No flags were lowered. Yet everyone knew something precious had been lost.
Aryn stood at the window of the tower room, fingers resting on cold stone, listening.
“They’re mourning someone important,” Mira said quietly behind him.
Kesh, sprawled on the floor with his back against the wall, frowned. “Or something,” he added. “Sometimes kingdoms mourn ideas.”
Aryn turned. “Or mistakes.”
None of them laughed.
They were not supposed to be here.
The room they hid in belonged to old record-keepers—unused, dust-heavy, filled with shelves that smelled of ink and forgotten promises. It was the only place Mira trusted after the door incident. Walls with memories were safer than walls with ears.
Mira knelt near a low table, unrolling a cracked piece of parchment.
“I found this behind the third shelf,” she said. “Hidden. Wrapped in cloth.”
Aryn’s breath slowed.
The parchment was a map—but not like any he’d seen.
The lines were alive.
They shifted when you didn’t look straight at them, bending gently like something breathing beneath skin. Symbols flickered and faded. Some places were marked clearly. Others… blurred, as if refusing to be remembered.
Kesh leaned closer. “I don’t like maps that move,” he muttered. “Maps should sit still and mind their business.”
Aryn reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the parchment—
The room tilted.
He was no longer standing.
He was falling.
Not down—through.
Wind tore past his ears. Light fractured. Shadows stretched into hands that almost touched him but never did. Then—
Aryn gasped and staggered back, knocking into a shelf. Scrolls rained down.
Mira was already on her feet. “What did you see?”
Aryn pressed a hand to his chest. His heart was racing too fast. “A road,” he said. “But it kept changing. Every time I chose a direction, it… corrected itself.”
Kesh blinked. “That’s not how roads work.”
“No,” Aryn said softly. “That’s how traps work.”
Mira studied the map with narrowed eyes. “This isn’t a guide,” she said. “It’s a test.”
“For what?” Kesh asked.
Before either of them could answer, the symbols on the parchment rearranged themselves again.
A new mark appeared.
A circle.
A slash through it.
And beneath it—written in old, careful script—
TRUST WILL MISLEAD YOU.
The candle flame flickered.
Somewhere in the castle, a door slammed.
They heard footsteps.
Boots. Measured. Armored.
Mira rolled the map and shoved it under her cloak. “They’re searching.”
“For us?” Kesh whispered.
Aryn shook his head slowly. “No.”
The mark on his wrist—the same symbol now carved on the ancient door—burned.
“They’re searching for the map,” he said. “Which means they know it’s gone.”
The footsteps stopped outside the room.
A shadow passed beneath the door.
Then a voice—calm, polite, and far too confident.
“Children,” it said. “You’re in a place that no longer belongs to you.”
Mira’s hand slid to her blade.
Kesh swallowed. “I vote we panic quietly.”
Aryn closed his eyes.
The map pulsed once under Mira’s cloak, like a heartbeat answering his own.
And Aryn understood something terrifying.
The map wasn’t lying by accident.
It lied on purpose.
Because it wasn’t meant to lead them to safety—
It was meant to lead them to the place
where they would have to choose
who they were willing to lose.
Review Shadows Don’t Sleep.