We waited while he worked, pressed against tunnel walls that pulsed like living things. Through the bond—muffled, distant—I felt Elle. Awake. In pain. Fighting to stay conscious during whatever fresh horror Auradellehad planned for today.
“Hold on,”I sent, knowing she probably couldn’t hear me through the suppression. “We’re coming.”
“Done,” Nimor called softly.
We moved forward, careful not to touch anything. Found two more wire traps in the next hour, both designed to alert every guard in the Heartspire. Both disabled by Nimor’s shadow work.
“They knew someone would try this route,” Vashael observed.
“Good,” I said. “Let them waste resources on useless threats.”
We pressed deeper. The passages branched, twisted, doubled back on themselves. Sometimes I swore we were moving in circles, but the bond kept pulling me forward, unerring as north.
Then the first real obstacle hit.
The tunnel opened into a chamber, and I knew immediately something was wrong. The floor was too smooth. The walls too perfectly curved. And there, carved into stone, was a pattern that made my corruption recoil.
“Binding circle,” Eltrien said, approaching the edge. “Designed specifically for Root-touched and corrupted. Step inside and you’re trapped.”
“How do we get past it?” Sarnyx asked.
“We don’t. This is the only way forward.” Eltrien studied the runes, his marks flaring bright blue. “All the other passages lead nowhere. They converge here.”
A bottleneck. Exactly what you’d design if you knew someone was coming.
“What if we trigger it deliberately?” I asked. “Step in, break it from inside?”
“That’s insane,” Vashael said.
“Got a better idea?”
Silence.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “My corruption is what it’s designed to catch. Better me than all of us.”
“Kaelren—”
“If I can’t break it, find another way. Don’t waste time trying to save me.”
Before anyone could argue, I stepped into the circle.
The binding hit like a physical blow. Runes activated, power wrapped around me like chains, and the circle tried to pull the corruption from my body and trap it in stone. My legs buckled. Vision went white. Every nerve screamed as the binding dug into my essence, trying to pin me here until I died or went mad.
“Now!” Peeble shouted. “While it’s focused on him!”
The little beetle leapt from my shoulder, and suddenly they were glowing. Bright, blinding light that made the binding runes scream in protest. Peeble landed on one of the key runes, and I watched as their form changed, expanded, became something that was more memory than beetle.
For a moment, I saw them as they truly were. Not a bug. An echo. A ghost. A fragment of Elle from the first iteration.
“I’ve disabled this stupid circle sixteen other times,” they said, and their voice was Elle’s voice, layered with exhaustion. “You’d think someone would change the pattern.”
The runes shattered.
I collapsed forward, gasping. The binding’s remnants still clung to me, making my marks burn, but I was free.
“It’s true. You’re her,” I said when I could speak. “The first Elle.”
“Was her. Am her. It’s complicated.” Peeble hopped back onto my shoulder, still glowing brighter than before. “The point is, I’ve seen sixteen versions of you walk these tunnels. Sixteen versions die trying to save sixteen versions of Elle. Every single time, it ends with both of you destroyed.”
