I woke up gasping.

  I sucked in air too thin, too hot, too close. The ceiling above me was ceiling-tile white, dotted with harsh fluorescent lights. The kind that hummed and flickered with disinterest. Machines beeped. Monitors blinked. Somewhere a nurse's shoe squeaked in a zy, indifferent rhythm.

  The smell hit me next—too sharp, like bleach and metal and something faintly sweet. Like rot, concealed and sanitized.

  Except none of this should have existed anymore.

  I didn't need to see the IV tubing in the crook of my arm to know exactly where I was: a dream.

  Back then I was skin and bones under hospital sheets, sweating through thin cotton gowns that never kept the cold out. Anyone passing the door would gnce in, pity sharpening their eyes just for a second—before they crossed themselves and hurried away like my death was contagious.

  Breathing was effort. Everything was effort.

  But here—I could breathe. My hands weren't trembling. I wasn't fading.

  I reached a hand up to my face.

  Then I saw it.

  A flicker of red near the door—red too vivid, too alive for this world. Not rust or dye or false sunset. It was real. Saturated.

  Seraphine.

  The figure turned the corner in a swish of hair—not a hospital gown, not scrubs—but robes. I swung my legs over the bed and stumbled after her. It was stupid. My body wasn't even built for running anymore—at least it shouldn't have been. But my blood was fire, my heart a hammer. The floor swayed beneath me as I chased that impossible fsh of color down the hall, past rooms that flickered as if caught between memories.

  "Seraphine!" I called. My voice sounded wrong—too full. Too alive.

  She didn't look back.

  The hallway bent unnaturally ahead of me, turning where it shouldn't. I followed anyway. Had to. Her voice was the only thing calling me forward now. A whisper first—then clearer, too clear. Desperate, almost frightened.

  ...Cire?

  I sprinted around the corner—but my feet found no purchase. The floor vanished beneath me.

  Then I was falling—through shadow, through air, through myself.

  Darkness swallowed everything.

  And then—

  I woke up.

  Salt and stone beneath me. Cold. Damp. My breath came out in a ragged gasp.

  I wasn't lying free—I was folded forward, forced to my knees. My arms were bound behind me, wrist-deep in rope that ran taut into a pulley overhead. They didn't keep me suspended—not fully—but angled just enough that every breath strained against my own weight. Every shift sent fire tearing through my shoulders.

  The cell was unchanged. Silence sealed it like a tomb.

  But my ears rang with Seraphine's voice.

  Not imagined. Not dream-distorted. But spoken with intent.

  I swallowed hard. It shouldn't be possible. Her leaking thoughts were meant for Rocher alone. He was the one who was supposed to hear her. To find her. To follow her to the end of her arc.

  Not me. Not like this.

  I pressed my forehead to the cold stone and breathed. Not for calm, but to feel it—the sting of air in my lungs, the cold blooming across my skin. Proof it wasn't just a dream.

  Seraphine's voice had reached me when it should not have.

  Something was broken. Something was changing that would not be undone.

  The story was derailing again. I could no longer afford to wait.

  I focused mana into my fingertips.

  They trembled—not from weakness, but from the cold. And the fear. And the absence of certainty I'd gotten too comfortable with. I cupped my fingers and willed heat into them.

  "Spark."

  A small fme answered. Faint. Reluctant. But mine.

  Good.

  I closed it before anyone could see. My magic was weak. Small. But it existed. Spite and survival were fuel enough.

  Now I just needed to make noise.

  I let myself keen—a low, jagged sound that scraped out of my throat and turned hollow in the stones. I rocked gently, deliberately, making myself small. Defeated.

  Because prey invites inspection. And inspection opens doors.

  It didn't take long.

  Heavy armor shifted outside. Someone leaned toward the small window. Listening.

  I kept crying, uneven, like someone who didn't know they were being watched.

  The lock turned. The door scraped open.

  The padin on night duty stepped inside, holding the back of his glove to his nose.

  Days trapped in this room with no ventition meant the smell of waste had seeped into everything.

  He didn't ask if I was hurt. Didn't look at the food I'd barely touched. Just inhaled through his glove and grimaced like I was the filth.

  He was big—but not impressive. A gut pushing against his breastpte. Jowls too soft for his rank. But his eyes glinted behind the ntern's glow, hungry and awake.

  "Be quiet," he said.

  His voice had no edges—just a smothering contempt.

  I made myself smaller. Vulnerable. Then I lifted my eyes slowly—and smiled.

  "Got you," I taunted. "You must be dumb as rocks. Guess they make anyone a padin these days, as long as they know the right end of a sword."

  His expression didn't twist. It dropped.

  The ntern fme caught something dead and purposeful in his eyes.

  He stepped closer—slow, deliberate.

  "We'll see who's the dumb one," he murmured.

  His hand gripped the rope beside my head—and yanked.

  My spine arched. Both shoulders screamed—but only one finally gave.

  A violent pop.

  My left arm tore out of its socket.

  The pain was immediate. Absolute. My scream ripped out of me like flesh torn from bone.

  It hung crooked behind me now—nothing holding it but skin and shredded muscle.

  He didn't flinch. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and leaned in close.

  "If you're lucky, you'll live through the night," he said ftly. "Priest won't be in until morning."

  No pity. No consequence. Just schedule and procedure.

  He let go—and left. The door smmed. The ntern glow vanished. I stayed crooked in the dark, half-hung and half-kneeling, like a butchered thing waiting its turn.

  I sagged, breath sawing out of me in uneven bursts.

  Pain swarmed every thought. Every instinct begged me to lie still. Wait for help.

  But no one was coming.

  It had to be me.

  I braced my legs. Teeth clenched until blood pooled on my tongue. My right hand found the rope—it was still looped high above me, but sck now, hanging with just enough weight to keep me angled forward.

  He'd dropped me after the dislocation. A mistake.

  I used it.

  I twisted. Shifted. Curled upward. Every motion sent white-hot shrapnel through my shoulder. But I endured it—inch by inch.

  My fingers brushed the knot overhead.

  I summoned fire. Not magic—but fury.

  I pressed the fme into the rope.

  It seared my skin, but I didn't let go.

  The rope bckened. Smoldered. Frayed.

  And then it gave.

  I dropped like a stone.

  Both arms still bound behind me—but no longer suspended.

  I screamed into the floor.

  The knot was too tight to pull free. My fingers were numb. There wasn't time.

  I could still feel the dislocation—the hollow where bone should anchor flesh. If I moved wrong, I'd shred what little was holding the joint together.

  But pain was no longer a deterrent. It was a tool.

  I twisted—awkwardly, painfully—until I'd pulled my arms under my legs and in front of me.

  "Spark."

  My bindings smoked. Then burned. Slowly, painfully. The heat crawled toward my skin.

  But I held on.

  It finally fell away. My skin blistered. Wrists free.

  I rolled hard, grinding my shoulder against stone. I wedged my knee against my own arm and shoved the dislocated limb back into pce.

  The pop was worse than the first—ugly and wet.

  Sound vanished. My mind went gray around the edges.

  Tears leaked onto the floor. Not from fear. From the sheer force of will it took to stay conscious.

  I breathed. Once. Twice.

  That was enough.

  Bruised and aching, I whispered, "Healing Touch."

  Without the Bell of Castle Greymane, the effect was weak. A flicker. A coolness under the bruises. But I could move. That would have to be enough.

  The rope—now just a frayed length—fell to either side. I dragged what was left of it around my right forearm, looping it tight.

  A snare. A noose.

  Not dignified. But effective.

  I crawled to the bars.

  "What's the matter?" I shouted, voice hoarse and cracking. "Afraid to finish the job? Don't worry—I still got one good arm left!"

  That got him.

  Whether it was pride or curiosity didn't matter.

  There was hunger in his eyes.

  "Still talking. Don't know when to quit, do you?"

  The lock turned slowly. Dramatically.

  His boots echoed like mock appuse.

  He stepped in, ntern raised. Smile thin and bent like a hook.

  "After I'm done with your arm," he said softly. "I think I'll break in your pretty mouth too."

  He didn't close the door. He wanted me to know I couldn't escape.

  Then he began to notice. First, his brow knit. Confusion, then panic fshed across his face.

  But he was too te.

  The rope snapped tight around his throat.

  I braced both feet. Pulled with everything I had.

  He was rger. Stronger. But leverage is its own kind of strength, and I had the wall, the angle, and the single-minded fury of a trapped animal on my side.

  He thrashed—armor cnging against the bars—and his panic suffocated him faster than I could've hoped. The more he struggled, the tighter the rope dug.

  My good arm went numb. My bad arm screamed.

  I fought through the pain, holding on as tight as I could. Not giving him a single inch of sck.

  His fingers cwed at his neck. The fibers cut into my palms, grinding burned rope against burned skin.

  He slowed. His swings grew aimless, boneless.

  At long st, he went limp, all the fight gone from his body.

  I rolled him off me, breath ragged. His armor cnged against the stone as he fell.

  My body was destroyed. But my mind—my will—that was still sharp.

  Seraphine's voice still clung to the edges of my hearing, an echo stuck in the wrong skull.

  A note. A breadcrumb—I had to leave one for Rocher. My one chance to repair the game state.

  My hands shook. I nearly dropped the keys I'd pulled off the padin's belt.

  I drew a deep breath and crossed the open threshold, the first unsteady step toward freedom.