They hauled her upright, supporting her weight entirely. Dragged her through the facility, past extraction chambers and rivers of pipes carrying stolen essence. Past souls being drained, their cries echoing.
They descended metal stairs into deeper levels where the heat was less intense but more oppressive. The wailing faded with each level, replaced by silence.
The chamber they entered made her inhale sharply.
Soldiers. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Standing in perfect formation in the crimson light. Arranged in ranks stretching beyond sight into darkness. All armed, all armored, all ready.
All wearing the same blank expression.
He was weaponizing them. Victims turned into soldiers.
The shells dragged her through ranks that didn't move, didn't acknowledge them, didn't exist beyond their programming. Toward a cage carved into the far wall. Simple bars of dark metal, barely large enough to stand in.
They shoved her inside. The bars sealed with a hiss of magic.
Caelum appeared outside.
"Consider carefully," he said softly. "Partner or resource. Queen beside me or a hollow shell in my army. The choice is yours, but the outcome is inevitable."
She stayed silent.
He turned and walked back through his army, white robes pristine among the weaponized shells.
The bars burned when she touched them, magic searing her palms. She pulled back with a hiss.
Around her, the silent army waited. Above, the extraction chambers continued their work. She could still hear the cries faintly, distant but constant.
She sank down in the cramped cage, back against the wall. Drew her knees up to her chest.
She pressed her face against his shirt, breathing in the fading scent of him.
He would come. He had to come.
She'd just found him. They'd just finally?—
She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears threatening to fall.
He would come.
The machinery hummed above. The army stood silent below.
And she was trapped between them with time running out.
LXV.
BRYNN
Time lost meaning in the cage.
Crimson light that never changed. An army that never moved. Machinery humming above, occasionally punctuated by screams that made her flinch every time.
She'd tried the bars twice more. Both times, they seared her hands badly enough that she'd bitten back cries of her own. Her wrists were raw, her palms blistered.
No escape that way.
She'd mapped every inch of the cage, noted every soldier in her line of sight, counted the levels between her and the extraction chambers above.
Information without application. Strategy without opportunity.
