Reincarnated as an Elf Prince

The evening air pressed against them as they moved down the winding streets, the warmth of the estate fading behind them.

Silvermere's lower districts were alive, even at this hour—vendors packing away their stalls, lamplighters moving along the cobbled paths, their flames flickering against damp stone.

But beneath the movement, there was something else.

A stillness.

An unspoken weight pressing down on the air, thick as the mist curling through the alleyways.

Cassian exhaled, rubbing his hands together. "You ever notice how places where people disappear always feel like places where people disappear?"

Luneth scanned the streets ahead. "It's the silence."

'It is a little creepy.'

Lindarion barely spared them a glance. His eyes were fixed forward, tracking their path through the descending streets. The parchment in his grip remained sealed, but the words within were already etched into his mind.

—"The entrance lies beyond the last bridge. Beneath the water, where the first foundations of Silvermere were laid. You will find no guide. No passage marked on any map. Only the remnants of what should never have been."—

'No records. No documentation. Only what was left behind, almost like a damned treasure map.'

A mistake buried beneath the city itself.

Cassian peered ahead as they walked, his expression shifting. "I'm guessing the 'last bridge' isn't the nice, well-lit one up ahead, but rather the creepy one covered in fog?"

Luneth adjusted the strap of her satchel. "Obviously."

Cassian sighed. "Obviously."

The bridge stood before them, arching over a canal where the water ran deep and unmoving. Its stone was old, older than the rest of the district, worn smooth by years of rain and footsteps long since faded. The lamps that lined the streets behind them did not reach here.

Lindarion stepped forward first, boots meeting the cold stone of the bridge.

Beneath them, the water stretched black and silent.

'Somewhere below… that is where we begin.'

Luneth ran a gloved hand along the stone railing, brushing away a layer of damp moss. "There's no direct passage. We'll have to go in manually."

Cassian grimaced. "You mean we're actually jumping in."

'Obviously.'

Lindarion turned his gaze toward him. "Unless you prefer waiting here."

Cassian huffed, glancing at the water again. "I don't suppose there's a way to do this without getting whatever's in that water permanently embedded in my skin?"

Luneth ignored him. "How deep do you think it is?"

Lindarion studied the current, the way the water shifted, how it swallowed the lantern light without reflection.

"…Deep enough."

Cassian groaned. "That's not an answer."

Lindarion exhaled. "We go now. The less time we waste, the better."

Luneth nodded once. Without hesitation, she stepped onto the railing, balancing easily against the slick stone. With a swift motion, she pushed off—vanishing into the water below.

A quiet splash. Then, nothing.

Cassian swore under his breath. "Yeah, sure. Let's just jump into the abyss, why not."

Lindarion climbed the railing. The mist curled around him as he turned to Cassian. "If you hesitate, I won't wait for you."

Cassian scowled. "Did I say I was hesitating?"

'You didn't need to say it.'

Lindarion didn't reply. He dropped into the dark.

Cassian ran a hand down his face, muttering to himself. "This is how people die in stories."

Then he followed.

And the city swallowed them whole.

The darkness swallowed them whole.

Lindarion pushed forward, limbs cutting through the water with controlled precision.

The cold had long settled into his bones, an unshakable weight that pressed against his ribs.

The world behind them had vanished—Silvermere, its streets, its lantern-lit canals—left behind in the shifting currents above.

Ahead, the ruins waited.

Luneth moved first, her form barely a shadow against the submerged stone.

Cassian followed, less graceful in the water, his fingers brushing against the jagged edges of the collapsed foundations as they swam deeper.

And then—

The passage widened.

The three of them emerged into an expanse so vast it swallowed the light whole.

The descent had been long, the weight of the stone above pressing down as they moved deeper beneath Silvermere. The tunnels had narrowed, then widened again, twisting paths of forgotten stonework giving way to something older. Something untouched.

Then, at last, the air changed.

Cold. Dry. Stagnant.

Lindarion stepped forward out of the water, his boots pressing into loose gravel as the last remnants of the tunnel faded behind them.

And the ruins opened before them.

A cavern vast enough to hold a city.

Jagged rock formations stretched across the ceiling, twisted and blackened as though frozen mid-collapse.

Massive stone pillars loomed in the dark, carved by hands long since turned to dust. Bridges—half-broken, slick with age—spanned across unseen depths.

And beyond them, nestled in the hollow of the earth, were the remnants of a place forgotten.

Buildings, half-buried in the cavern walls. Towering structures with windows like empty sockets, their doorways gaping maws.

Some remained intact, their spires rising toward the stalactites above, while others had crumbled inward, their remains swallowed by the abyss.

Faintly, through the silence, came the echoes of water. Somewhere beyond sight, a lake stretched unseen.

Lindarion exhaled, his breath visible in the frigid air.

Luneth crouched near the entrance, fingers grazing the stone. "No moisture. No mold. The air's been undisturbed for a while."

Cassian let out a slow, measured breath. "That's the problem, isn't it?" His voice was quieter than usual. "This place should be dead. But it isn't."

Lindarion said nothing.

The city was waiting.

It had been waiting for a long time.

The bridge stretched long and unbroken, leading them toward the city's outer district. The stone beneath their feet was smooth, untouched by the erosion of time. No cracks. No moss. No sign of life having ever taken root.

Cassian walked with measured steps, as if expecting the bridge to collapse beneath them at any moment. His fingers twitched at his side. "I've changed my mind. I prefer places that decay naturally."

Luneth didn't look at him. "Then don't look too closely at the buildings."

Cassian glanced toward the nearest structure—and immediately regretted it.

The buildings were wrong.

They were intact, yes, but not untouched.

They bore traces of something—etchings along the edges of the stone, marks too precise to be mere erosion, too intentional to be meaningless. Alchemical patterns. Seals. Something he did not want to understand.

Lindarion stopped at the bridge's end. The city opened before them, its streets lined with more of the same impossibly preserved structures. The air remained thick, stagnant. A silence so complete it pressed against the ears.

Luneth stepped forward first, her eyes scanning the narrow alleys that curved into darkness. "No bodies."

Cassian exhaled. "You say that like it should be reassuring."

"It's not," Lindarion said quietly.

Cassian ran a hand through his hair. "Fantastic."

Lindarion took another step.

The city did not resist their presence.

It only watched.

A feeling settled against the edge of his senses. Not hostility. Not welcome.

Just awareness.

Lindarion's fingers brushed against the hilt of his weapon. "…We move carefully. Stay together."

Cassian didn't argue.

They walked forward.

And the city whispered in silence.

The silence followed them.

The further they moved, the more unnatural it became—less like absence and more like a presence in itself. It clung to their skin, settled in the spaces between their words, stretched across the city like an unseen veil.

Cassian's boots scuffed against the stone, the sound swallowed before it could fully form. He exhaled sharply through his nose. "I take it back. I prefer places that try to kill me outright."

Luneth's eyes flickered to him but said nothing.

Lindarion didn't respond either. He was listening.

No wind. No echo. No distant sound of shifting stone. Even their own footsteps felt like they shouldn't exist here.

'This isn't a dead city.'

'It's more like a waiting one.'

His grip tightened around the parchment given to them by Lady Valciel. He had yet to break the seal. Not yet. Not until he was certain that reading it wouldn't be a mistake.

They passed under an archway, the runes carved into its surface long faded but still carrying a lingering hum of power.

Beyond it, the street opened into a wide plaza. A dry fountain stood at its center, its basin empty, its statues untouched by time.

Cassian's gaze swept the buildings lining the square. He let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "There should be something here. Birds. Rats. Anything."

Luneth's fingers brushed the daggers at her belt. "There was."

Lindarion turned his head slightly. "Explain."

Luneth nodded toward the fountain. "Look at the dust."

Cassian frowned but stepped closer. He crouched near the fountain's base, reaching down to run his fingers through the layer of gray that had settled over the stone.

And then he stopped.

There was no dust.

Not really.

Not the kind that gathered from time and decay.

It was too fine. Too even.

Cassian's throat bobbed. "…This isn't dust, is it?"

Lindarion studied the edges of the fountain where the substance had settled thickest.

'Not dust.'

'Not ash.'

It's definitely something else.'

Luneth rose, her eyes sharp. "We're being watched."

Lindarion didn't move, but he already knew.

He had known from the moment they stepped foot here.

He had just been waiting for it to react first.

The silence shifted.

Not broken—altered.

Like the pause before an unseen movement. The moment before a held breath is finally released.

Lindarion's hand hovered near the hilt of his sword, but he didn't draw it. Not yet. Not until he understood what they were facing.

Cassian straightened slowly from his crouch, brushing his fingers against his coat as if to rid them of the not-dust. His voice was quiet, almost careful. "So, uh. On a scale from 'this is fine' to 'we should be running,' where are we at right now?"

Luneth's posture remained loose, deceptively relaxed—but her fingers had already curled around the hilts of her daggers. "Closer to the latter."

Cassian exhaled. "Great."

Lindarion didn't answer either of them.

His attention was elsewhere.

The empty plaza. The hollow windows of the buildings surrounding them. The streets stretching beyond, disappearing into darkness.

No movement. No figures in the distance. No obvious presence.

But the feeling remained.

A weight behind their backs.

A pressure in the air.

Not malice. Not yet.

But awareness.

Lindarion lowered his gaze back to the strange, fine layer of substance at their feet.

The remains of something.

Or the beginning of something else.

"…Do not disturb it," he murmured.

Cassian, already an inch away from nudging it with his boot, froze mid-step. "Right. Not touching. Got it."

Luneth didn't glance at him. "Lindarion. Directions."

Lindarion turned his gaze toward the path ahead.

The ruins stretched onward, disappearing beneath the looming arches of what had once been a great thoroughfare. The remnants of banners still clung to the walls, their fabrics eaten away by time. The symbols on them—unfamiliar.

The deeper they went, the heavier the air became.

Not in the way of stale air or damp spaces.

No—this was weight.

A presence pressing against the edges of their senses.

Cassian's jaw tensed. "I'm going to say it now. If we see something moving that shouldn't be moving—"

The silence broke.

A whisper.

Not a voice.

Not words.

Something else.

Something that didn't come from the air, but from inside their own heads.

Lindarion's grip on his sword tightened.

Cassian went rigid.

Luneth inhaled sharply.

And then—

The place behind them was no longer empty.