The relic chamber. I feel Meriya’s presence inside.
She did not go to her quarters. She bypassed the safety of the upper levels and went straight for the obsidian stone. The dormant, incomplete curse buried in the foundation has not simply flared—it has found the exact, resonant frequency of the missing anchor, and it is actively attempting to complete the circuit.
No! It will kill her!
A hollow, concussive boom echoes from the courtyard as the golden dome protecting the estate shatters under the Undercity artillery. My concentration and magic fails me. The gate falls. I let the Undercity Council breach the rot. Let his enforcers march their null-iron boots onto my ancestral grounds. The sovereignty of this rotting tomb means absolutely nothing if Meriya perishes in the dark.
I vault over the balustrade, dropping fifteen feet to the foyer floor. The impact cracks the marble, but the momentum carries me forward into a dead sprint toward the eastern wing.
The manor is screaming.
The architecture of my ancestors rebels against the sudden vacuum of the completed circuit attempting to form inside the relic vault. The walls weep a thick, necrotic dust. The heavy ironwood support beams groan under the fluctuating atmospheric pressure. As I tear around the corner of the primary corridor, a massive section of the vaulted ceiling detaches, plummeting directly into my path.
I do not break my stride. I thrust both bare hands upward, unleashing the raw, unadulterated intent of my own curse.
The black-gold ichor weeping from my pores solidifies into a towering pillar of corrosive energy. It strikes the falling masonry, instantly fusing the fracturing stone and timber together into a rusted, agonizingly tense archway. I slide beneath the collapsing debris, the sheer physical exertion of holding the structure of the corridor together drawing a vicious, tearing ache across my sternum.
I drop the arcane brace the second I clear the danger, the corridor behind me collapsing into an impassable mountain of rubble.
The air grows freezing, thick with the scent of stagnant preservation magic and blistering surroundings. I reach the end of the hall.
The heavy iron door of the relic vault no longer exists as a barrier. It lies twisted and warped on the floorboards, blown completely off its reinforced hinges by a shockwave of physical power.
I step into the archway.
The interior of the vault is a suffocating hurricane of violet Blackflame. It is a singularity of pure, devouring magic, a violent vortex attempting to siphon the entire ambient curse of the estate into a single point.
In the midst of the storm, lying motionless on the cracked marble, is Mireya.
The obsidian relic rests inches from her outstretched hand, pulsing with a manic, rhythmic light that perfectly matches the toxic violet of the room. The curse is wrapping around her prone form, an ethereal, parasitic smoke attempting to burrow beneath the golden undertones of her skin to hollow her out and claim her life force as the final anchor.
The visceral terror of losing the one creature who can withstand my touch strips away the century-old cage of my restraint.
By the Thirteen, I love her! I cannot let the rot take her away.
I wade into the inferno.
The ambient magic of the vault immediately lashes out, recognizing the Venn blood in my veins—the designated target of its ancient wrath. The violet flames whip toward my face, carrying the heat of an apocalypse.
My body violently answers. The black-gold veins cording my arms and chest erupt with a blinding, lethal radiance. I project my aura outward, using my necrotic rot as a physical battering ram against the ancient Blackflame. The collision of the two magics turns the air to razor-wire. The friction tears at the heavy canvas of my tunic, scorching the fabric, but I force my towering frame forward, step by agonizing step, shielding her from the brunt of the storm with my own.
I reach her. I drop to my knees on the cracked floor, ignoring the blistering heat emanating from the obsidian stone beside her.
I reach out, my corrupted, massive hands exceptionally careful as I pull her shoulders from the stone. Her head lolls back against my forearm. Her skin is unnaturally hot, a feverish, burning testament to the un-attuned magic in her blood being violently rewritten by the relic.
I press two trembling fingers to the pulse point at the base of her throat.
A flutter. Weak, erratic, fighting the overwhelming pressure of the magical coma, but it is there. She is alive.
"I have you," I whisper, my words lost to the roaring of the violet flames. "I have you, Mireya."
I slide my arms beneath her knees and behind her back, scooping her entirely off the floor. Her weight is a fragile,devastating reality against my chest. I turn my back on the screaming vault, kicking the pulsing obsidian relic into the far corner of the room, and carry her out into the ruined corridor.
The estate is in total chaos. The floorboards heave, the armed Blackflame beacons flickering erratically between gold and violet as the foundation struggles to process the fractured state of the ritual. The distant, rhythmic pounding of Vanguard boots echoes outside, a grim reminder that the war is closing in on us.
I do not head for the catacombs or the escape tunnels. She is in no condition to survive a subterranean trek, and I will not run while she is defenseless.
I carry her up the central staircase, navigating the collapsing architecture by pure instinct. I reach the upper wing, kicking the heavy oak door of my bedchamber open. It is the most heavily warded room in the estate, reinforced by decades of my own isolation.
