We passedthroughhim.
Cold tore through me, sudden and absolute. It felt like plunging into a river of ice—shocking, alien, wrong. My lungs seized. My bones ached with the frost of something that shouldn’t exist.
The light fractured.
It wasn’t daylight.
It was the echo of it—a mirage painted by Severen’s cruelty.
He had never been real.
Only an illusion.
Another lie in the endless labyrinth of them.
Before I could draw breath, rough, unforgiving hands seized me from the dark.
Hands clamped down, harsh and unyielding. Chains grated across stone as the guards advanced through the haze of pitch smoke and sweat.
They didn’t separate us—they ripped us loose.
One hurled me backward as another seized Salvatore. Metal cuffs were torn open with no care for skin; blood slicked the chains as our wrists were forced apart.
“No—wait!” I shouted, reaching for him.
Too late.
The guards didn’t speak at first—only dragged, only breathed. My legs buckled as they hauled me through the dark. Then a voice, flat and almost bored, broke the silence.
“Congratulations,” it said. “You have passed the first trial.”
The words hit harder than any blow. Passed. As though we’d survived something sacred instead of hell itself.
Another guard gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Enjoy the warden’s mercy while it lasts.”
“Where are you taking us?” My voice cracked, hoarse and trembling. “Where am I going?”
A hand swung fast—a slap across the face that stung with sweat and dust. My head snapped sideways. Iron filled my mouth.
“Quiet,” the guard hissed. “You speak when commanded.”
The corridor closed in around us, narrow, wet, the walls slick with years of filth. Torches hissed from sconces carved into limestone, their smoke staining the ceiling black.
They stopped before a heavy iron door—its surface eaten through with rust, streaked with something darker that looked too much like blood. One guard lifted the latch; the hinges shrieked like metal remembering pain.
“Inside,” the first said.
I was shoved forward.
The floor rose to meet me. Stone slammed into bone, pain exploding across my shoulders, racing down my spine. The burns on my back screamed as the cold surface bit into them. A sound escaped me—half-gasp, half-grunt—before I could stop it.
Behind me, the door clanged shut. The lock fell. Bare feet scuffed the floor as they turned away, their echoes fading down the corridor until nothing remained but the rasp of my breath.
Blinking through the blur, I forced my eyes to focus. The chamber was small, carved from limestone veined with moisture. A single torch flickered near the far wall, its light a trembling heart.
A woman knelt beside a cot, her back to me. She worked in silence, binding the leg of a wounded prisoner. The linen she used was soaked through, but her hands moved with practiced precision.
