“Okay—okay?—”
I do not know what I am saying. I do not know what I am doing. Except moving. Surviving.
The tunnel splits ahead. No time to think. No time to choose. I veer right.
The path drops sharply, forcing me into a half-slide, half-run as I use the wall to keep from losing control completely. It follows.
My foot hits loose stone again and this time I do not recover cleanly. I stumble. Something lashes out fast and catches my wrist.
Cold. Metal. Tight.
It yanks backward. I slam to the ground.
The filament coils, constricting, pulling me toward it with steady, mechanical precision.
“No—!”
I twist, kicking, trying to get my footing under me, trying to escape.
The pull increases. Relentless. Not violent. Worse. Controlled. Measured. I am being reeled in. Not attacked. Taken.
My chest tightens, my breath coming sharp and fast. I dig my heels into the ground, fighting the pull, buying seconds I do not have. The line jerks harder, and then something crashes into it from the side.
The tension snaps, not gone, but disrupted. The filament relaxes, then releases and whips sideways, scraping against stone.
“Move!”
Kaelreth. I do not question it.
I scramble to my feet as he appears between me and it. He is angled toward the creature, blocking its line to me.
“You are supposed to be?—”
“Later.”
No room for anything else. The creature adjusts quickly, its head tilting, recalculating to track both of us. The separation is gone but the cost is not. And whatever happens next, it is not letting either of us go easily.
The moment I am clear, he moves. Not away. Forward. Straight at it.
The space between him and it collapses in an instant. His body is low, angled, controlled even now, despite the blood, despite the damage I know is pulling at his side.
“Stay back.”
The command is sharp, but I do not. Not this time.
The creature adjusts, its head tilting, recalculating, the glow of that eye shifting between us before locking onto him. Threat reprioritized. Good.
I push off the wall, circling instead of retreating, forcing myself to move even as my pulse hammers in my throat.
Do not freeze. Do not wait. Do something.
The filament lashes out, but not at me, at him.
It wraps his arm mid-strike. The metal line snaps tight. The creature pulls, trying to disrupt his momentum instead ofstopping it outright. He does not fight the pull. He steps into it. Closing the distance.
The move is so fast, I barely process it before he is already inside the range where the creature can use that line cleanly.
His free hand comes down hard, grabbing the filament near where it connects, twisting, forcing the angle wrong. The creature compensates, its forelimb driving forward, curved talons slamming toward him, not to tear, not to kill, to pin.
