The prison shifted.
Violently.
Abruptly.
Like it decided.
One moment the corridor curved gently downward, the stone beneath my boots solid and obedient. The next, the air pressure changed—subtle, wrong—and the floor angled just enough that my balance adjusted before my mind caught up.
I stopped.
The masked armor I wore made no sound as I turned slowly, lightning humming low beneath my skin. Shadow curled instinctively at my heels, ready to strike, ready to obey.
I pushed it down.
No wielding, I told myself.
The corridor behind me was no longer there.
Not collapsed.
Not sealed.
Rewritten.
Smooth stone filled the space where the path had been, flawless and unbroken, as if the passage had never existed at all.
For a heartbeat, I simply stared at it.
Then—
Something pulled inside me.
Not snapped.
Not severed.
Like a hand slipping free of my grasp.
Something sharp twisted in my chest.
I inhaled sharply, fingers flexing at my sides as static flared under my skin. Lightning crawled once along my forearm, seeking release.
Unacceptable.
I forced it down.
"She's gone," I said aloud, voice steady despite the sudden tightness in my ribs.
There was no answer.
Mortimer should have responded.
He always did.
A murmur. A correction. A reminder of purpose.
Instead—
Nothing.
The silence pressed in, thick and oppressive—but not empty. It hummed faintly, like a low current of electricity.
The wards.
Ancient magic.
I felt them now—not as resistance, but as presence. A living thing. Channels I was used to leaning on were muffled, dulled, wrapped in something dense and unyielding. Mortimer's presence, usually coiled and intimate, was distant.
Muted.
Contained.
I frowned.
That shouldn't have been possible.
"You planned for this," I muttered, scanning the walls, the floor, the faintly glowing seams etched into the stone. This magic did not waste effort. Every inch of this place was deliberate. Calculated.
Built to hold gods at bay.
Mortimer stirred faintly then—not gone, but submerged, like a voice reaching me through deep water.
"I'll tell you this," I said coolly, "you've pissed Mortimer off."
I chuckled softly.
The stone shifted, almost as if laughing with me.
The pull toward her did not return.
Instead, there was something else.
Distance.
Not physical—direction was meaningless here—but separation. The awareness I'd grown used to since she entered the kingdom, the low, constant tension of knowing exactly where she was in relation to me, had gone slack.
And—
I felt it then.
Panic.
It flared fast and sharp, an instinctive spike that tightened my chest before I could stop it. My breath hitched, lightning snapping violently against the stone wall beside me, leaving a blackened scar in its wake.
I stilled.
No.
That was wrong.
I straightened slowly, jaw tightening as I forced my breathing back under control.
This was not panic.
This was irritation.
She had slipped my grasp again.
That was all.
I repeated it to myself like a mantra, even as the silence pressed harder.
"She's escaped containment," I said. "Mortimer will not be pleased."
The words rang hollow in the warded air.
Mortimer did not answer.
That silence—that—
It was worse.
I resumed walking.
The corridor ahead split into three paths, each subtly different, each pulling at my senses in conflicting ways. The prison did not offer choices.
It offered doubt.
I chose the center path without hesitation.
If Lyra was anywhere in this place, she would not follow the obvious route.
She's smart. I'll give her that.
She would go through.
Always through.
The stone beneath my boots responded sluggishly now, no longer bending instinctively to my presence. Earth resisted me—not aggressively, but firmly.
Like a clenched jaw refusing to yield.
Good.
Resistance meant I was going the right way.
As I moved deeper, the wards thickened. The hum beneath my skin grew uneven, lightning flickering unpredictably, shadow lagging half a heartbeat behind my movements.
Cracks.
Not physical.
Internal.
Places where Mortimer's influence had once flowed freely now felt brittle. Stressed. Stretched thin. The power was still there—embedded, tangled, inseparable—but without Mortimer's constant reinforcement, it shifted uncomfortably.
I pressed my palm briefly against my chest.
Annoying.
This prison was not just separating me from her.
It was separating me from him.
Do not weaken now.
You are losing control.
"I'm not," I snapped.
I paused.
I feel her absence.
I scowled. "I feel failure."
A lie.
The words tasted wrong.
I stopped again, eyes closing as I reached inward—not toward Mortimer, but toward the fractured awareness that still lingered beneath everything else.
The pull was still there.
Distant.
Thinned.
She was alive.
Moving.
And—damn her—she pulled back, as if baiting me to follow.
The realization stirred something dangerous and unwanted in my chest.
Pride.
No.
I crushed it.
"She's an asset," I said coldly. "If she escapes the prison entirely, I lose leverage."
I will retrieve her.
But not yet.
Something else tugged at my attention—an echo in the stone, a subtle distortion in the wards ahead.
Someone else had passed through recently.
Willow.
The Earth Princess's touch was distinctive—precise, restrained, controlled to the point of fracture. She had moved the stone not to block, not to crush, but to redirect.
The wards accepted her wielding.
Interesting.
I followed the distortion downward, the path narrowing into a maintenance vein.
Less monitored.
Lyra would choose this route.
Because it was overlooked.
Because it was boring.
Because no one expected anyone to run toward the forgotten parts of a prison.
My lips twitched despite myself.
I stilled again.
The pull flared.
Not strong.
But sudden.
Close.
My head snapped up, senses sharpening as I reached outward—not magically, not fully—but through that fractured thread that refused to die.
There.
Just ahead.
Around a bend.
My pulse spiked, lightning snarling under my skin as anticipation surged—
Then stopped.
Empty.
The pull slipped sideways, evading me like a shadow ducking behind stone.
I cursed softly.
"Fuck."
She's always been like this, something traitorous whispered.
Something inside me reacted sharply to that.
Focus.
I exhaled slowly.
She was close.
Close enough that the prison itself was struggling to keep us apart.
But not close enough.
Not yet.
I stepped forward again, boots echoing faintly as the corridor curved sharply to the left.
Somewhere ahead, Lyra was running.
Evading.
Surviving.
And for reasons I refused to examine too closely, the thought made my chest tighten—not with triumph, but with something dangerously close to relief.
I scowled, forcing the feeling down.
This was not concern.
This was not fear.
This was not—
"She slipped my grasp," I said firmly. "And I will correct that."
The prison hummed around me, silent and patient.
I moved deeper into it.
Closer.
But not close enough.
Not yet.
And somewhere ahead, the pull flickered—
Waiting.