The first ritual site's chamber had gone quiet after the circle's disruption, the Eternals that had been defending it losing their coordinated purpose and becoming manageable. Gideon's group had swept through the remainder in no time, the ward disc keeping them safe while they worked, and now they were moving through the chamber doing the work of ensuring nothing had been left behind that could cause problems later.
That was how Gideon found her.
She was in a side chamber that had probably been a Golgari storage room before the ritual site's installation, its organic walls stripped back to bare stone and covered in inscriptions that made his eyes hurt if he looked at them directly. The inscriptions pulsed with a dark purple energy that felt more personal malice and considerably more unpleasant.
Liliana sat in the center of the floor, bound by chains made of solidified shadow. Her white hair was disheveled and her expression, when she looked up at Gideon's entrance, cycled through relief and shame.
"Gideon," she said. Her voice was controlled, but the effort required for that control was visible.
"Liliana." He stepped into the chamber, hand on his sword but not drawing it. "You disappeared from the merchant hall right before the Eternals hit. We thought you'd either been captured or you were working with whoever set the trap."
"The second one," she said flatly. "In a manner of speaking." She shifted against the chains, which responded by tightening slightly before settling back. "I'm not here voluntarily. I'm not doing any of this voluntarily."
Gideon studied the chains binding her. The construction was unusual, not physical restraint so much as magical compulsion in the shape of restraint. He'd seen enough magic to recognize the difference between someone imprisoned and someone bound to a demonic contract. These chains weren't just keeping her in the room; they were also keeping her compliant.
"It's a major demonic binding." She met his eyes directly, which he recognized as costing her something, given the circumstances. "I can't tell you who holds it. The binding prevents me from naming them directly. I've been trying to find ways around that specific restriction for years, and every approach closes off before I can use it." Her jaw tightened. "What I can tell you is that I've been directing the Eternals under compulsion, not choice. Every moment I've been here, I've been trying to find ways to minimize the damage while appearing to comply."
She continued. "The binding required results. I made the Eternals inefficient where I could without triggering the contract's penalty clauses. There were supposed to be hundreds of spark extractions by now." She paused. "That's not absolution. I know that. But it's the truth. I couldn't spare your group, as your group is the most watched."
Gideon was quiet for a moment, working through the layers, what this meant and what it cost. He'd known Liliana long enough to understand that taking her statements at face value was unwise and dismissing them entirely was equally unwise. The truth with her was almost always somewhere in the complicated middle.
"Can you break the binding yourself?" he asked.
"If I could, I would have done it years ago." The flatness in her voice carried "The binding needs someone who works with the architecture how binding intent anchors to will, how conditions root into consciousness, and how the structure holds under strain."
Gideon thought about the conversation that had happened in the underground tunnel, the four-armed woman in the wide-brimmed hat speaking to Heph about strings and bindings and the craft of severing what couldn't be broken through force. He thought about what Ranni had said: that the guidance had led her to someone who worked in bonds and bindings and understood the craft of connecting disparate things.
He thought about the ward disc taking shape in the merchant hall, the craftsman's hands steady while chaos erupted around him, light threading through metal in patterns that would have scattered under anyone else's touch.
"I might know someone," he said. "Can you move?"
Liliana's gaze dropped to the shadow chains. "The binding forces me to keep controlling the Eternals. With the circle destroyed and the Eternal network in chaos, the compulsion doesn't know what to make me do. I've got hours at most before it figures out new orders." She rose, the chains shifting with her movements. "That's all the time I have."
"Then we're moving now." Gideon turned toward the chamber entrance. "Ajani, Samut, with me. Everyone else, in formation to the convergence point." He looked back at Liliana, his jaw tight, shoulders squared.
"When have I ever given you a reason to regret anything?" she asked.
He didn't dignify that with a response, and they moved.
Hephaestus
We reached the convergence point from the western approach to find Gideon's group already there with a surprise addition Teferi hadn't mentioned. Liliana Vess, bound in shadow chains that shifted with her, standing beside Gideon. Her mouth was tight at the corners, her gaze steady, but her fingers curling and uncurling against her palm.
I noted her presence and the nature of her chains and set both aside for later consideration.
The beacon rose above the plaza ahead of us, the column of light that had been visible from across the city now clearly identifiable as a physical structure of lazotep and crystallised mana, perhaps twenty feet tall. The barrier stood unchanged, that same shimmer where it met stone, that same rhythm of energy adjusting and readjusting to maintain itself.
With one significant difference.
The power flowing through it had dropped considerably. The disruption of both ritual sites had severed the supplementary energy feeds sustaining the barrier at full capacity, and the structure was visibly compensating, drawing harder on its internal reserves. The adaptive responses were slower. The light was inconsistent. The barrier hummed at a pitch half an octave lower than before, its shimmer catching and stuttering where it had previously flowed smooth as water.
"It's vulnerable," Niv-Mizzet said from behind me, having apparently followed our group from the second ritual site.
Planeswalkers moved toward the barrier's edge, footsteps spreading in opposite directions along the perimeter. Spaces opened between them, gaps wide enough for different energies to build without collision. Karn stepped into the centre, both ward discs held ready in case of further surprises, the metal surfaces angled toward those who would stand nearest the beacon. Bodies shifted into formation around the structure, arranging themselves at precise intervals.
Teferi moved to stand beside me. "Coordinated assault on your mark?"
I examined the barrier once more, divine perception tracing its present configuration in ways the earlier evaluation hadn't managed to capture. The destruction of the ritual sites had accomplished more than diminishing the energy flow. It had transformed the barrier's core weight-distribution. The auxiliary feeds had served as foundational components alongside their function as energy conduits, and their absence had left particular locations weakened.
"Aim for these specific points," I said. "Sequential strikes, approximately several seconds between each. The adaptive system will try to redirect power to compensate for each failure, while the disruption keeps it occupied with several simultaneous problems it can't solve simultaneously."
"Overloading all of them at once would trigger the failsafes," Niv-Mizzet added, which confirmed he'd reached the same conclusion independently.
I indicated the locations.
The first strikes hit. The barrier's pitch dropped to something felt rather than heard, vibrating through ribs and sternum. Light flickered wildly across the dome's surface as power redirected, flowing away from intact sections toward the failing point.
The second strikes landed. The barrier's pitch climbed higher, the surface light now convulsing between two failing points as power tore itself in opposite directions.
The third point, and the barrier's surface shattered into fragments of light that scattered and vanished. One moment the dome strained above us, flickering between the failing points, and the next moment only empty air remained where the construct had stood.
We moved forward.
The Eternals remaining in the area froze mid-step, then broke apart, some wandering in erratic circles, others collapsing where they stood. The beacon's physical structure stood exposed, its inscriptions glowing with the remnant energy of something that had been feeding itself for weeks.
Dismantling it took several seconds of focused work that left a pile of deconstructed components where an interdimensional trap had been standing.
The suppression field dropped.
I felt it in the dimensional ring immediately, the runes shifting from the frustrated red flicker they'd been maintaining for weeks back to their proper golden shimmer. The pathways between realities were once again accessible.
Several planeswalkers began preparing to leave immediately, the instinct to exit a trap overriding tactical patience.
"Wait," I said.
They waited.
"Try to actually travel. Don't fully commit, just attempt it."
Several of them did. Shoulders tensed. Fingers curled into fists. Eyes narrowed at nothing, inward-focused on something. The beacon's suppression was gone. The pathways were technically accessible. But transit wasn't happening, a different resistance blocking movement between realities, heavier and more deliberate than the beacon's broad suppression had been.
"Something is still anchoring this plane," Teferi said. "It's not the beacon. It appears to be something separate that was always underneath it."
Niv-Mizzet had already extended his perception across the leyline network, drawing on a thousand years of accumulated knowledge and long familiarity with Ravnica. When he looked up from that assessment, his expression was surprised.
"The leylines have been modified," he said. His claws traced patterns in the air, following invisible connections. "They used to be anchored at multiple points throughout the city." His gaze remained distant, focused on something beneath the visible world. "The working predates the beacon's construction by several months. The beacon attracted planeswalkers and prevented the obvious exits." His tail swept across the broken ground. "The leyline modification sits underneath, waiting." He looked at me directly. "The beacon is rubble and This is what remains. The anchor points converge, and not at a structure or an artifact."
"Who?" Gideon asked.
"Nicol Bolas," Niv-Mizzet said. "He has anchored himself personally to Ravnica's leylines. He is the lock on the door. It is not a mechanism that can be disrupted remotely or a power source that can be severed. He anticipated that the beacon might be found and destroyed. He built himself into the working as the final contingency." His wings shifted, scales catching the light. "To break the anchor, he would need to be defeated directly. The anchor is him. There is no structural weakness to exploit and no power source to disrupt because the anchor is a being rather than a construction."
No one spoke. Feet shifted against broken stone. Someone exhaled slowly. His words settled over us like ash, and every face turned inward, working through what they'd just heard.
"So we have to fight Nicol Bolas," Chandra said.
"To leave this plane, yes," Niv-Mizzet said.
"The elder dragon who planned this entire operation across months or years," Teferi said. "Who has been collecting harvested sparks. Who anticipated every countermeasure we've taken and built in contingencies for each of them."
The quiet persisted.
Gideon's attention shifted to the group's edge, where Liliana stood with chains trailing behind her like smoke. "Before we address that." He paused. "There's something else."
Liliana's jaw tightened.
"She's been operating the Eternals under compulsion," Gideon said. "Under a demonic binding. She can't name who holds the contract." His gaze moved across the assembled faces. "Although we know who it is. She still needs someone who understands how bindings are constructed and who can break it."
He looked at me.