My only thought is a roaring, deafening mantra.
Mine. Protect.
I lower my shoulder and burst from the enclosure, the iron gate ripping from its stone hinges as if it were made of kindling. The sound of destruction is a song of liberation.
I barrel down the corridor, a whirlwind of vengeful fury. The stones tremble with each of my thunderous footsteps. I am no longer a captive. I am no longer a punishment.
I am the consequences. And I am coming for them.
5
DINA
The corridor is a blur of rough-hewn stone. My feet stumble, barely keeping up with the brutal pace of the guards dragging me toward my doom. The sounds from the kennel—the earth-shaking roar, the shriek of sundering metal—are a terrifying, impossible anthem playing at my back. The guards exchange a nervous glance, their grip on my arms tightening. They are afraid. The realization does nothing to soothe the stark, cold terror coiling in my own gut.
Then the footsteps begin.
They are not the rhythmic, armored tread of a Dark Elf patrol. This is a cataclysm. A rolling earthquake that trembles through the very bones of the estate. It grows louder, closer, a thunderous, two-beat rhythm of impossible weight.THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.The guards freeze, their heads whipping around. The one on my right lets out a string of curses in the sharp, elegant syllables of the Elven tongue.
A shadow, vast and monstrous, blots out the torchlight from the far end of the hall. He rounds the corner, and the air escapes my lungs in a violent whoosh.
It is him. The Urog. But he is not the chained, broken thing from the kennel. He is a god of vengeance unleashed. The shattered remnants of his collar and manacles are bloody, brutal jewelry on his raw flesh, and the violet light of their enchantments is gone, replaced by the hellish red glow of his eyes. He is a ten-foot-tall machine of chaos and destruction, and he is moving with the speed and grace of a hunting panther.
The guards shove me behind them, drawing their gleaming swords. It is a futile gesture, like raising a twig to stop an avalanche.
He does not slow. He crashes into them in a terrifying whirlwind of claws and muscle. One moment, the guards are a wall of black and silver armor between us. The next, there is only a sickening crunch of metal and bone, a brief, wet scream cut short. He tears through them, not with the random, mindless flailing of a beast, but with the focused, deadly efficiency of a seasoned warrior. It is over in seconds. The guards lie broken on the floor, their pristine armor twisted into scrap, their lives extinguished with contemptuous ease.
Silence descends, thick and heavy, broken only by his guttural, ragged breathing and the frantic drumming of my own heart.
He stands over the carnage, his massive chest heaving. Blood, dark and glistening, drips from the claws on his right hand. My mind screams at me to run, to crawl away, to do anything but lie here, helpless at his feet. The rage that fueled his escape is a palpable force in the air. Now that its initial targets are gone, surely it will turn on me.
He steps closer, his shadow swallowing me whole. I squeeze my eyes shut, a pathetic whimper escaping my lips. This is the end. Torn apart by the very monster I tried to save. The irony is a bitter, final cruelty.
But the killing blow never comes.
Instead, I feel a strange pressure against my shoulder. I open my eyes. He is crouched over me, his enormous body a living shield, walling me off from the rest of the world. The burning red of his eyes is fixed on mine, and he nudges me again, a surprisingly gentle push with the side of his massive, monstrous head. He angles his snout toward a narrow, unassuming archway to our left—a servant’s passage, barely visible in the gloom.
The gesture is unmistakable. It is a question. A command. A direction.
And in that moment, the terror that has held me in its icy grip shatters, replaced by a wild, desperate hope that is so fierce it makes me dizzy. He’s not just a monster. Not just a whirlwind of destruction. He ishelpingme. The flicker of a soul I saw in the kennels was not a trick of the light. It is a raging fire, and it is on my side.
A choice presents itself, stark and absolute. I can stay here and wait for more guards, for Lord Jildred, for certain death in the torture chambers. Or I can trust the monster.
It is no choice at all.
I scramble to my feet, my legs shaking. "The main halls are a death trap," I whisper, my voice raw. "They'll have patrols everywhere."
He makes a low, rumbling sound in his chest, an affirmation. He knows.
I look at the servant’s passage, then back at his impossible size. "It's… tight."
He nudges me again, more forcefully this time.Go.
I run.
I plunge into the narrow archway, into the familiar, cramped network of passages that serves as the estate’s veins. This is my world, the one the Dark Elves ignore. The air is cooler here, smelling of dust and lye soap and cooking grease. He follows,his thunderous footsteps softened in the enclosed space, but his sheer bulk is a constant presence at my back. The walls tremble as he passes.
We move through the underbelly of the estate, a strange and desperate pair. I am the navigator, my small form slipping through corridors too tight for a proper guard formation. He is the battering ram. We come to a locked oaken door leading to the pantries. I point. He lowers his shoulder and smashes it to splinters. We reach an iron-barred gate blocking the path to the lower cellars. He wraps his massive claws around the bars and rips the entire gate from its stone moorings.
