Elara's POV
The air in the Sunless Tower didn't just feel cold tonight; it felt like a grave that had been prematurely opened.
I moved through the service tunnels, my boots silent on the damp moss and slick stone. My heart was a frantic bird trapped in a cage of ribs, hammering out a rhythm of pure, unadulterated terror. The connection to Alaric was no longer a hum; it was a scream. Through the bond, my skin felt like it was bubbling, the phantom heat of the shattered tidal crystals making every breath I took taste like scorched earth.
Hold on, I pleaded into the void of my mind. I am coming. Just hold on.
I reached the final iron grate that overlooked the lower interrogation tier. Below me, the shadows were thick, but they were being systematically murdered by a harsh, orange glare. I peered through the bars, and my blood turned to ice.
My father was there.
King Malachai stood three feet from the salt-veil, his golden robes shimmering like a taunt in the artificial heat. He wasn't alone. Kaelen stood just behind him, his arms crossed, his face a mask of bored indifference that chilled me more than my father's cruelty. Two members of the Gilded Hand stood like statues at the door, their spears grounded.
"He's remarkably resilient," Kaelen noted, his voice echoing off the curved walls. "Most men would have passed out from the lung-scorch ten minutes ago. The Islanders must have thicker blood than we thought."
"It's not his blood," my father replied, his voice thin and clinical. He stepped closer to the veil, squinting at the slumped figure of Alaric. "It's the anchor. He's tethering himself to something. Or someone."
I held my breath, pressing my forehead against the cold iron of the grate.
Inside the cell, Alaric was a ruin. He was on his knees, his forehead pressed against the stone floor. The heat coming off the shattered crystals was so intense it had turned the air into a shimmering haze. His black hair was plastered to his neck with sweat, and his breathing came in agonizing, wet rattles.
"Alaric," my father called out, as if speaking to a hound. "The messenger from your father is at my gates. He speaks of a 'Blood-Key' and a war that will level my cities. Tell me, does he know you are currently being slow-roasted in a hole?"
Alaric didn't look up. But his hand—trembling and red from the heat—clenched into a fist on the floor.
"Your father thinks he can threaten me with the Winter Solstice," Malachai continued, his voice rising with a frantic, manic energy. "He doesn't realize that by the time his ships reach our coast, I will have your power. My daughter will drink you dry at dawn, and I will use your shadow-essence to weave a shroud over this entire kingdom. Oakhaven will not just survive the winter; we will become the darkness that the rest of the world fears."
"She... won't... do it," Alaric rasped. The words sounded like they were being dragged over broken glass.
My heart leapt. Even now, half-dead and suffocating, he was defending the girl who had spent her life as a weapon.
My father laughed—a dry, rattling sound. "She is my Silence. She has no will but mine. She is a vessel, Prince. You don't ask a cup for permission before you pour the wine."
"She's... not... a cup," Alaric groaned, finally lifting his head.
Even from my vantage point, I could see his eyes. They weren't silver anymore. They were glowing with a fierce, unstable white light—the light of the energy he had stolen from me, or perhaps the light of a man who was about to explode.
"Enough of this," my father snapped, turning to Kaelen. "The heat is sufficient. We don't want him dead before the ritual. Extinguish the crystals and double the guard. If he so much as breathes out of turn, use the iron collars."
I watched, paralyzed, as my father and brother turned to leave. They walked with the effortless grace of men who believed they had already won. As the heavy iron doors slammed shut behind them, leaving only the two Gilded Hand guards outside the cell, I knew I had a window of seconds.
I didn't use the stairs. I used the shadows.
Drawing on the spark Alaric had left in me, I didn't fight the dark—I invited it. I let the shadows in the rafters coil around my waist like a silken rope and lowered myself down through the grate, landing silently on the stone floor behind the guards.
They never even turned. I didn't use a blade. I didn't use a spell. I simply reached out and touched the back of their necks with my bare, un-gloved hands.
The siphoning was instantaneous and violent. Because I wasn't being careful—because I was fueled by a cold, righteous fury—the energy I pulled from them felt like fire. They collapsed without a sound, their life-force rushing into me like a tide, leaving them unconscious and gray.
I stumbled toward the cell, my skin vibrating with the stolen strength.
"Alaric!" I hissed, reaching the salt-veil.
He didn't move at first. Then, slowly, his head rolled toward me. His silver eyes were bloodshot, his face mapped with burns from the heat.
"You... came back," he whispered.
"I'm going to get you out," I said, my voice shaking. I looked at the salt-veil. It was designed to repel magic, but I wasn't just magic anymore. I was a bridge.
I reached out, ignoring the way the salt-barrier hissed and began to blister my fingers. I shoved my hands through the shimmer, the iron filings biting into my skin, and grabbed the edges of the enchantment.
Give me your hand! I screamed in my mind.
Alaric dragged himself across the burning floor, his fingers catching on the stone. As our hands met through the veil, the world didn't just shake—it tilted.
The feedback was a physical explosion. The salt-veil shattered into a cloud of white dust, and the orange glow of the crystals died instantly. We were plunged into total, absolute blackness, save for the silver veins glowing on our arms.
I caught him as he collapsed forward, his heavy, heat-drenched body slamming into mine. We fell to the floor together, gasping in the sudden silence of the dark.
"Elara," he breathed against my neck, his hands clutching my cloak. "The Blood-Key... it's not just a tracker. My father... he's using it to pull the islands toward us. If I don't get back... the collision... everyone dies."
I pulled back, looking at his battered face. The weight of what he was saying hit me. This wasn't just an escape anymore. This was a race against two kings who were willing to break the world to own it.
"Then we leave," I said, my voice hardening. "Now."
But as I stood up, helping him to his feet, the bells of the palace began to toll. Not the slow, rhythmic bells of the hour, but the frantic, clanging alarm of a prison break.
My father knew.