Silence.
Complete, absolute silence that feels heavier than the chaos that came before.
I sink onto a stone bench built into the wall, my legs finally giving out as the full scope of what just happened hits me.
“Lord Evander’s dead,” I manage to say, my voice hoarse. The image of him crushed beneath that stone refuses to leave my mind.
“I know.” Isolde settles beside me, her presence somehow both comforting and strange. “I’m sorry. He was a good man.”
“Where’s everyone else? Lord Zevran, Lord Castor, the others – are they safe?”
“Sealed into their own safe rooms, I assume,” Isolde says. “Thearena’s emergency protocols are designed to protect people by isolating them during attacks. They’ll be fine. This is just temporary.”
Something nags at me about her certainty, her composure. Everyone else was terrified, panicked, but Isolde seems almost ...prepared. Like she knew exactly where to position herself, exactly where the safe room was located.
“Where’s Ren?” I ask suddenly, the wrongness from earlier crystallizing into concrete fear. “She should have been just outside the holding chamber, waiting for me. After yesterday, after the masquerade, she wouldn’t have left her post. And Astrid – where are all the advisors?”
“Perhaps they’re dealing with threats elsewhere,” Isolde suggests smoothly. “Or perhaps they simply can’t reach you, since I assume the arena locks down entire sections independently.”
The explanations are logical, but they don’t quell the growing unease in my chest.
Where is Ren, who’s been obsessively paranoid about my safety? Who hasn’t let me out of her sight for more than minutes at a time since the attack?
“How long do you think we’ll be trapped here?” I ask, trying to focus on practical concerns instead of spiralling panic.
“However long it takes,” Isolde says, and something in her tone makes me look at her more closely.
She’s watching me with an expression I’ve never seen before. Not the warm friendship or calculating politics … like she’s studying a specimen.
“Isolde? Are you all right?”
“I’m perfect,” she says, and her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “In fact, everything is going exactly according to plan.”
The words hit me, and suddenly the pieces start falling into place. Her calmness during the explosion. Her convenient rescue from the crushing wall. The way she knew exactly where this safe room was located.
Sheer terror bubbles up inside me as I realize I’m not trapped with my ally.
I’m trapped with my enemy.
Terror floods my system, and with it, the withdrawal symptoms. My hands begin to shake violently, and a wave of nausea makes the small chamber spin around me. I try to stand, to put distance between us, but my legs give out. I’m forced to grip the stone bench to keep from collapsing entirely. The familiar gnawing hunger beneath my skin has become a roar, demanding relief I can’t give it.
Isolde watches my deterioration with an expression of pity. “Your body can’t take much more.”
“I can f-fight,” I say, hearing how unconvincing it sounds. My voice shakes as badly as my hands.
“Canyou?” She moves to the chamber’s entrance, checking the sealed stone panel. Satisfied we’re alone, she turns back to me. “I don’t think youcan, darling.”
My hand slips into my pocket, fingers closing around the Mercury token Lady Tavia gave me at the start of the Conclave. The small metal disc is warm to the touch, humming faintly with stored energy.
In case of emergency, Lady Tavia had said.Mercury’s communication network spans the entire system.
This certainly qualifies as an emergency.
I press my thumb against the activation rune carved into its surface, the movement hidden by my body’s trembling. The token vibrates once against my palm – acknowledgment that it’s active, that somewhere, Mercury’s network is receiving my signal.
Now I just need to buy time until help arrives.
Isolde doesn’t seem to notice. She’s watching me with an aura I’venever seen before – not the warm mentor or calculating politician, but something colder. More resigned.
