They were waiting.
Elara instinctively reached for the nearest cell, her fingers just shy of the iron bars when a female lunged forward. Her skin was unnaturally pale, like the very walls had drained the life from her, and her silver hair hung in tangled mats down her back. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes.
“Tá fáinne ag teastáil uait,15”she hissed, her trembling hand rising to point at the glowing wards etched into the stone—wards Elara had missed in her haste.
Heat flooded Elara's cheeks.Stupid. Of course she couldn’t just open the cells. She needed a ring—the right ring. Something powerful enough to break the wards. But even if she could manage that... then what? Where could she take them? Osin had eyes everywhere. She could barely keep herself out of danger, let alone protect a group of Sidhe.
Her throat tightened. She needed help, someone who knew how to handle this. She needed Godfrey.One thing at a time.
Elara barely breathed the words. “I’m going to help you.” Her gaze locked with the female’s, the vow settling between them. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
She knew their pain, shared their yearning for freedom—freedom that sang with the warmth of sunlight, that danced with the rustle of leaves, that murmured in the ripple of streams. They were kindred spirits, bound by chains not of their making, and she vowed then, with the fierce certainty of one who had known cages, that she would tear down theirs.
They deserved the world beyond these walls.
They deserved better thanthis.
Without waiting for a reply, Elara spun on her heel and dashed from the chamber, the distant echo of the Sidhe's shout trailing her like a ghost. She didn't stop, couldn't—the urgency was a wildfire in her veins, propelling her forward.
Minutes later, she skidded to a halt before the ancient stones.
The air around her crackled, thick with the weight of untamed power, sending a cascade of goosebumps across her skin.
Elara drew a deep breath, steadying her racing heart as she approached the stones with the methodical focus honed through years of study among Verdara’s scribes. She cataloged each detail with care, noting the strange markings carved deep into their surface—patterns she didn’t recognize, spiraling inward like the rings of a tree but warped. Unnatural.
Some were so worn they looked as if they’d been scoured by centuries of wind, while others glowed faintly, like embers buried deep beneath the stone’s surface. There were four in total, standing at equal distances, all arranged in a near-perfect circle, each one standing at least twice her height.
She wished she had parchment, ink—anything—to record them properly, but her mind would have to serve as her scroll. She mentally sectioned the stones off, one by one, committing each peculiar detail to memory, each symbol, each unnatural pulse, just in case she never got the chance to see them again.
After she'd observed everything she could from a distance, Elara hesitated. Her dream... could it have been a warning or a premonition? She couldn't be certain. All she knew was the feeling of dread coiling in her gut was not just fear—it was a prelude.
Gathering every shred of courage, she drew in a deep breath that did little to calm her fraying nerves, and stepped forward into the circle.
The shift was immediate. The air around her dropped, cold enough that her breath came out in visible puffs. A shiver ran through her, and she instinctively wrapped her arms around herself. The stones felt different from the inside—moreaware. She could see the markings up close now, strange glyphs that seemed to shift under her gaze like they were breathing. Elara recorded them quickly in her mind. But these markings were unlike anything she’d ever studied. They meant something—she could feel it, like an itch at the back of her mind.
The longer she gazed upon the stones, the stronger their call grew, looping like a siren's song in her veins, whispering through the very marrow of the earth.
Elara’s heart stuttered, fear slicing through the allure—but she couldn’t resist. Her hand moved as if claimed by another will, stretching forward until her palm pressed flat against the stone.
White-hot light knifed through her skull, burying itself behind her eyes, splitting thought from thought. She tore her hands away, clutching her face as if that might stop what was already inside her. It didn’t. The pain only mounted.
The ground vanished. The room, the Pit—everything folded in on itself until only the storm remained. Wind roared through her, alive and ravenous, stretching her thin, tearing at her from the inside. She wasn’t falling—not quite. She was suspended, weightless, no longer flesh and bone but something fragile.
A thread, slowly unraveling.
Then—a hush.
Gradually, the world crept back in. The cold air slipped into her lungs, carrying the scent of pine needles crushed beneath fresh snow, the whisper of cold mountain streams untouched by time. It tasted clean—so clean it almost hurt, as if her chest had never truly known what it was to breathe until now.
Elara blinked, lowering her hands from her face and what greeted her… it snatched away the breath she'd barely reclaimed.
Ethereal.
That was the only word her mind could grasp, but even that felt small compared to the boundless wonder stretching before her.
It wasn’t just breathtaking—it was unreal.
Perched on a mountain’s edge, Elara stared out at a landscape that looked like it had been shaped by the hands of gods. It unfolded before her like a sacred scroll, ancient and untouched, written in the language of wind and sky.
