"The Unbound Queen," the pregnant woman whispered, and the title sent ice through my veins, made the golden veins beneath my skin flare with sudden heat. "From the prophecies they tried to burn. The one who chooses love over duty, who breaks chains instead of forging them. The one who will either save the world or doom it, depending on which side writes the history."
Natalia's voice rose above the chaos, sharp enough to cut. "Seal the exits! Activate the ward-locks! Don't let her escape! Iwant every passage monitored, every window barred! She must not leave these walls!"
"This way," Master Theron urged, already pulling me toward a section of wall that looked solid but shimmered slightly when I focused on it with my enhanced sight, like heat waves rising from sun-baked stone. "The Order has maintained secret passages for centuries, since the very founding of the Citadel. The High Keepers think they know every stone of this place, but we are the ones who dust those stones, who repair the mortar, who clean the chambers they've forgotten exist. Quickly now, before the suppression fields activate."
We fought our way toward the hidden exit, Master Theron moving with surprising agility while the two women from Oakhaven cleared a path with makeshift weapons, a heavy candlestick and an iron poker from the meditation chambers. A guard lunged at us, his suppression blade singing through the air in a arc meant to open my throat. The pregnant woman struck him across the temple with the iron candlestick she'd grabbed from somewhere, and he crumpled like a puppet with cut strings, his blade clattering across the stone floor.
"Pregnant women shouldn't be fighting," I gasped out, watching her cradle her belly with one protective hand while raising her improvised weapon with the other.
"And Keepers aren't supposed to kiss dragon princes, yet here we are," she shot back, and a fierce grin transformed her face, made her look years younger, wild with the freedom of broken rules. "The world is already upside down, Keeper. We might as well dance in the chaos."
The hidden door groaned open at Master Theron's touch, the ancient mechanism responding to a sequence of pressure points known only to his Order. It revealed a narrow passage thick with dust and cobwebs that hung in silvery curtains, disturbed for the first time in what must have been decades.
We plunged into darkness, and other members of the Order of Truth materialized from shadows to join our escape. Men and women I'd never seen before, their faces marked with the same mixture of fear and determination, all of them there to help protect me and the truth that had been buried for far too long. Their footsteps echoed behind us as we fled through corridors I'd never known existed, a labyrinth within the labyrinth of the Citadel, passages that wound through the mountain's heart like veins through flesh.
"Left here," someone called from the darkness ahead. "No, right! The third passage, the one with the broken lintel! They've activated the wards on the main routes!"
But even as we ran, lungs burning and hearts hammering, I could feel the other Keepers and guards closing in. The Citadel was Natalia's domain, and she knew its bones better than anyone living. She'd walked these halls for forty years, had overseen their maintenance and modification, had sealed off passages and opened others according to her iron will. Guards appeared ahead of us, cutting off our escape route with practiced efficiency. More closed in from behind, their footsteps a drumbeat of doom, creating a trap with walls of armed bodies and naked steel.
We stumbled into a circular chamber I didn't recognize, some forgotten meditation room or storage space, our momentum carrying us into the center before we realized the danger. We found ourselves surrounded, trapped in the worst possible position. Twenty guards at least, weapons drawn, faces grim behind their ceremonial helms. No escape routes. No hidden doors. Just stone walls worn smooth by centuries and the certainty of capture pressing in like a suffocating weight.
"Surrender peacefully," one guard commanded, his voice muffled by his helm but carrying nonetheless. "Return with uspeacefully, and no one else needs to die today. The High Keeper has promised mercy to those who cooperate."
The pregnant woman pressed closer to my side, her breathing harsh and rapid. "We won't let them take you. We didn't come this far to hand you over like a criminal."
"You can't fight them all," I said, despair creeping into my voice like frost along glass. "Not for me. I'm not worth this many lives."
"Not for you," Marcus's widow corrected fiercely, her weathered face transformed by conviction. "For truth. For the world they've kept from us, locked away behind lies and half-truths and convenient omissions. For the lies they made us live, the fear they fed us like poison in our daily bread."
The guards advanced, tightening their circle with mechanical precision, boots scraping against stone in perfect synchronization. Master Theron raised his hands, and I could feel him gathering what little magic he possessed, ancient power flickering around his fingers like dying embers. He was ready to spend it all in one desperate gambit, to burn himself out completely if it bought us even a few more moments. The villagers gripped their improvised weapons tighter, knuckles white with strain and fear.
They were all going to die for me. All of them, slaughtered in this forgotten chamber because I'd chosen to break the seals, because I'd kissed a dragon prince, because I'd decided truth mattered more than comfortable lies. Their blood would paint these ancient stones, and it would be my fault, my choice, my burden to carry.
Unless.
Let us in.Four voices spoke as one through our connection, urgent and desperate, pressing against my consciousness like a physical force.Open yourself completely. No barriers, no resistance, no fear. Become the conduit. Let us flow throughyou like river through a broken dam, like fire through dry kindling.
It would change me irrevocably, I knew with sudden, crystal clarity. Every time I'd channeled their power before, I'd maintained some boundary, some separation between self and them, like a swimmer keeping their head above water. This would obliterate those boundaries entirely, would drown me in their divine essence. I might not survive it intact. Might not emerge as anything recognizably Aria Pandoros when the waters receded.
The guards raised their blades, prepared to strike. I saw death reflected in polished steel.
I made my choice.
The bonds between us, those golden threads forged through five years of blood and dreams and desperate connection, I grabbed them all at once andpulled. Not reaching for their power but for them, their essential selves, their divine nature. I yanked them through the barriers between our world and the Threshold with all the strength I possessed.
Four different forms of godhood flooded through me simultaneously, and the sensation was beyond anything I could have imagined.
Dragon fire erupted from my skin in sheets of molten gold, hot enough to melt stone but somehow not burning my allies who stood close enough to feel its heat. The flames danced along my arms, my throat, my hair, turning me into a living torch. My bones restructured themselves with audible cracks, becoming denser, stronger, dragon-touched and able to bear weight that would crush a mortal frame like an eggshell. Wolf's speed turned my blood to quicksilver, time seeming to slow as my perception accelerated beyond human limits, every movement of the guards becoming languid and predictable. Bear's endurance made me immovable, an anchor point in reality that couldn't be shifted orbroken, roots sinking deep into the mountain's bones. Phoenix clarity showed me twelve different futures spreading from this moment, let me see exactly where each guard would strike before their muscles even began to contract.
I wasn't Aria anymore.
I was something new. Something impossible. Something that should not exist in this world or any other.
I moved through the guards like death given form, but not killing. That was still my choice, still my line I wouldn't cross unless forced beyond all reason.
Instead, I shattered weapons with hands that could crush stone to powder, the suppression blades snapping like kindling under my fingers. I threw armored bodies with strength that belonged to no mortal frame, sending grown men flying to crash against the walls with bone-jarring force. I moved between their attacks with a speed that made me seem to exist in multiple places at once, leaving afterimages in my wake like ghosts.
One guard, braver or more foolish than the others, managed to land a blow, his blade opening a gash along my shoulder deep enough to show bone. The wound sealed itself before blood could fall, phoenix fire remaking flesh as fast as it was damaged, leaving only smooth, unmarked skin behind.
