I nod once, sharply, and continue forward. The absence of Leira throbs like phantom pain where a limb should be.
The hours bleed together as we press on, each slither without finding her carves another hollow in my chest where our bond should pulse. I reach for her again, straining against the emptiness, but the silence on the other end of our connection grows heavier, more ominous. My flame sputters beneath my scales, responding to the cold dread seeping through my veins.
My tail swishes across the ground, dislodging ancient dust that has not been disturbed in centuries. These tunnels feel wrong—too quiet, too abandoned. They smell of secrets and old magic. The kind of passages even the Temple records have forgotten.
Leira's face rises unbidden in my mind. The fierce defiance in her stormy eyes the day she arrived at the gate; the softening of her expression the first time she met Zara; the trust, so hard-won, when she finally surrendered herself to me. And then, so recently, the shattering of that trust when she discovered the OathCoil's purpose.
I was a fool. A warrior who conquered armies yet could not find the simple words to explain my fear, my need to protect her, to protect all of us. Now she is gone, stolen away along with Zara, and the emptiness in our bond feels like a wound that will never heal.
"Another passage ahead," Dreth reports, holding the heartstone torch higher to illuminate a fork in the tunnel. "Left or right, Sovereign?”
I stare at both options, throat tight with frustration. Nothing. No pull, no instinct, no whisper from the bond to guide me. Justcold stone and the crushing weight of the mountain's silence…then a flicker disrupts the void inside me.
A flutter, faint as dying embers, brushes against the hollow space in my chest. I freeze, afraid even to breathe lest I shatter this sliver of sensation.
There—again. A pull. A tug. So slight it might be imagination, but I seize it with desperate focus, my entire being straining toward that tiny flicker of connection.
The pull intensifies, suddenly sharp, an undeniable wrench in my chest where my flame burns deepest. Not gentle, not loving, but raw and primal, like a hook sunk deep, drawing me inexorably forward. My flame responds instantly, flaring so violently that my entire form ignites in a corona of crimson and gold fire that bathes the tunnel in brutal light.
Dreth falls back, startled, his scales flattening instinctively against his body. "Sovereign!"
I barely hear him. The pull is all that matters. A beacon cutting through darkness, a lifeline in drowning waters. My flame rises higher, fueled by relief and renewed terror. She is alive and reaching for me, whether she knows it or not.
"Left," I say, the word emerging as smoke and heat. "She is to the left."
I do not wait for acknowledgment, do not pause to explain. I surge forward, my coils propelling me with desperate speed down the left passage. My Talons scramble to keep pace, their weapons drawn as they follow my blazing form through the darkness.
Ahead the tunnel bends sharply left, then right, following the natural fault lines in the mountain's heart. The connection to Leira strengthens with every coil-length gained, no longer a flicker but a steady, insistent tug that feeds the fire in my blood.
"We approach the eastern rim," Kessith murmurs behind me, his voice tight with uncertainty. "These tunnels were sealedduring the third cycle of the Sundering. They should not exist anymore."
I ignore his concern, focused only on the thread pulling me forward. My tail lashes impatiently as we round another bend, the flame beneath my scales pulsing in rhythm with my quickening heartbeat.
The corridor narrows further, ceiling dropping until my Talons hunch their torsos to avoid scraping scales on rough stone. The walls here bear ancient markings, not the elegant script of temple records but cruder symbols, warnings perhaps, carved by those who fled deeper when the surface burned. I recognize symbols for danger, forbidden passage, and death.
Then we reach it, the end of our path. The tunnel ahead terminates in a chaotic mess of fallen stone and debris, ceiling collapsed in a jagged wound that stretches from floor to ceiling. Massive boulders interlock in an impenetrable tangle, smaller rubble filling every gap.
"No," the word escapes me before I can stop it, a sound more growl than speech. The pull is stronger than ever, drawing me toward the impassable barrier with cruel persistence. She is beyond this. I know it with unshakable certainty. Yet the way is blocked, utterly and completely.
My flame surges in response to my frustration, rippling in violent waves across my scales until the corridor glows like the heart of a forge. My Talons retreat a respectful distance, their own scales flattening against their bodies in instinctive response to the heat I am generating.
A voice cuts through my building rage. "Sovereign." It is Nathek, the youngest of my Talons. His emerald scales catch my flame's light as he slithers closer, his gaze fixed not on the collapsed tunnel but on the floor before it. "Look."
I follow his gaze, at first seeing nothing but more debris. Then it registers. Where my flame casts light, the rubble casts noshadows. Or rather, the shadows it casts do not quite match the shapes that cast them. They are slightly off, imprecise, as if the light bends around objects that are not quite there.
I narrow my eyes, studying the fallen stones more carefully. They appear solid, textured with the rough grain of mountain rock, dusted with the grit of old collapse. Yet something feels wrong.
"Illuminate the ceiling," I command, and Dreth raises his torch higher.
The light reveals the edges of the collapse, where jagged rock should tear into the tunnel walls, there is no damage to the surrounding stone. No scoring, no impact fractures. The collapse sits within the tunnel like an object placed there rather than a catastrophic structural failure.
"It is a glamour," I breathe, understanding blooming like poison. "A crafted illusion."
Kessith slides closer, his tongue flicking rapidly to taste the air around the barrier. "Only the highest Temple Guardians can weave illusions of this complexity.”
Miria's face flashes in my mind. Gentle hands that had healed countless wounds among my Talons. I had always seen her as merely the temple's herb-keeper, a quiet presence tending her gardens in the sacred caverns. Now I wonder how many others walk those hallowed passages wearing similar masks of innocence. How blind we all have been.
I reach out again, pressing harder against the apparent boulder. At first, resistance. As I apply more force, my hand sinks through. The rock remains visibly solid yet my fingers pass into it as if through dense fog, meeting only the slightest resistance. The glamour is perfect to eyes and even to casual touch but cannot withstand determined pressure.
