Thunk.

  The padins hadn't held it for very long.

  My hand went into my satchel with shaking speed, fingers fumbling past gss, cloth, and metal caps.

  Nothing useful. Nothing fast enough.

  No. Stop.

  I forced myself to slow down.

  I'd asked Nyxara about her constructs once, out of idle curiosity. She'd said they sensed many things... but not with equal precision.

  That mattered.

  With one deliberate motion, I snuffed out my Holy Light.

  Darkness smmed down. Vision vanished with it.

  I took several steps deeper into the passage, quiet. Hurried.

  But a sudden thought gave me pause.

  Too narrow. If it pinned me here, there would be nowhere to go.

  A mistake.

  Thunkthunkthunk.

  I dropped ft before thinking.

  Wind and weight roared over my back. The golem thundered past and smashed into the wall hard enough to shake dust loose from the mortar.

  Stone boomed. Metal shrieked.

  I scrambled to my feet and started to run, heart in my throat.

  My boot caught on broken debris. I pitched forward.

  A pted fist smmed down where my head had been an instant before. The impact split a door like kindling and drove splinters across the floor.

  I crawled through the open doorway and hurled myself into the corner, trying to make myself small.

  The darkness swallowed me.

  For one fragile heartbeat, there was silence.

  The ground beneath my palms vibrated.

  Then metal struck stone.

  The golem had crossed the threshold.

  I backed away, breath shallow. It was still tracking me somehow.

  What was it following?

  Not sight. Not mana alone.

  Sound then. Maybe heat.

  I reached into my bag, fingers tightening around a vial.

  "Ignite." A small fme blossomed in my palm.

  Firelight shimmered across stone walls and metal pte.

  The golem turned, head first, then the rest of it followed.

  It lunged.

  I dove aside as it crashed forward, its bulk smming into the far wall hard enough to rattle my teeth.

  I tore the stopper from my Fire in a Bottle and flung the burning pile into the opposite corner, then rolled toward the door, praying.

  The golem pivoted, committing its mass to the new signal.

  I ran.

  Back into the corridor. Past drifting dust and shattered wood. Past the ringing echo of impact.

  My stride hitched where I'd stumbled, forcing me to slow. The fire in my lungs caught up to me.

  I braced against the wall and looked up.

  The faint glow.

  The same door. The same cold light bleeding through the narrow aperture.

  The keystone.

  Thunk.

  Behind me, a small quake shook dust from the ceiling.

  It had found me again.

  I stared back into the darkness, breath quickening, and pressed myself against the glowing door.

  Thunk. Thunk.

  Closer. Louder.

  I had seconds now. It would reach me before I reached the others.

  My own pulse thundered in my ears, threatening to drown it out.

  I forced myself to separate the rhythms—heartbeat against impact—until only the sound of its approach remained.

  Speed and distance. That was what I needed.

  I shifted my weight forward, muscles coiled, waiting.

  Now.

  "Ignite." I lit the fme once more.

  Thunk. Thunk. Thunkthunkthunk.

  I lunged.

  Not far. Just enough to clear the path.

  The golem hit the door hard.

  The impact boomed through the corridor like a struck bell.

  Wood exploded. Iron bands shrieked. The door smmed inward with a crash that shook the corridor and sprayed splinters and dust.

  The golem's momentum carried it through the wreckage, armored limbs catching briefly on the frame before it tore itself free.

  I was already moving, sprinting past it into the cell.

  The mana crystal pulsed at the edge of my vision, a steady glow in the dark. I aimed for it, feet sliding on stone dust, one hand reaching out so I could snatch it and run.

  The golem recovered too fast.

  A metal arm smmed into my side and drove me into the wall.

  Pain detonated. Breath left my lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp. My vision went white at the edges.

  The golem pinned me there, pressing with its forearm like it was bracing me for execution. The pressure was not precise, but it did not need to be. My ribs screamed. My arms filed for leverage and found none.

  I raised a shaking hand, and forced the words out.

  "Holy Light."

  The cell filled with pale radiance. The golem's facepte caught it and reflected nothing human back at me. It didn't react.

  But the light did what it needed to do.

  Thoom.

  A bolt of lightning arced the corner, then struck the keystone dead-on.

  The crystal fred, bright enough to hurt, then fractured with a sound like ice breaking underwater. Light spilled out in a brief, violent surge, then vanished.

  The golem shuddered.

  It held pressure on me for a heartbeat longer, then its limbs went sck.

  The forearm slid down my chest and cnged onto the stone.

  I slid with it, colpsing to the floor, breath dragging back into my lungs in ragged pulls.

  My hands shook. From shock. From pain. From the aftereffects of casting when I did not have the air for it.

  Boots pounded into the cell.

  Padins surged in, shields up, then stopped when they saw the golem inert.

  A priest dropped to his knees beside me immediately, hands hovering, eyes wide.

  "Where are you hit?" he said, voice tight.

  I tried to answer and my body gave me a hiss instead.

  Sir Tomás hurried over, lifting his visor. "Miss Cire," he said, breathless, "you're bleeding."

  I looked down.

  Darkness at my side. Wetness spreading across cloth.

  I pressed a hand to my fnk and felt something sharp under my fingers.

  A shard of gss—one of my potion bottles must have shattered.

  My fingers tightened automatically around it, then went sck. I grimaced, forcing my mind to stay functional.

  "Don't pull," I said, more to myself than to anyone else. "Not yet."

  The priest's hands hovered closer, then froze. "How deep is it?"

  "I don't know," I breathed.

  The leader snapped, "Make space. Give them room."

  I shifted carefully, keeping pressure with my palm. Pain pulsed through me, a deep, steady throb that made the world feel slightly far away.

  "Check my bag," I said, breath catching. "Health potion. Careful. There's broken gss."

  The priest nodded and reached for the satchel with forced delicacy, fingers trembling as he opened it. "I don't—"

  Seraphine reached into her own pouch and held out a vial.

  "Forget it," she said. "Take mine."

  I blinked at her, then took it. "Thank you."

  "Just hurry up and drink," she said, too quickly.

  I drank. The potion hit my tongue and went down fast, bitter and metallic. Warmth spread through my chest and limbs—not healing yet, but preparing, knitting pain into something my body could tolerate.

  "On three," I said, swallowing hard. I looked at the priest. "You ready?"

  His hands glowed faintly with Healing Touch. "Yes."

  "One," I said, bracing. "Two."

  "Three."

  I yanked the gss out.

  It came free with a wet pull and pain spiked sharp enough that I saw stars.

  Blood surged. The priest's hands pressed down immediately, light intensifying as he worked. The warmth from the potion caught, spreading outward from the wound, pushing back against the panic of blood loss.

  I y there, breathing through clenched teeth.

  Seraphine crouched nearby, fists tightening at her sides.

  The priest stayed firm. The bleeding slowed. My breathing began to ease with it.

  She lingered one heartbeat longer, jaw tight—then stood and redirected her attention to the circle.

  "Seraphine," I called as the light of Healing Touch flowed into me.

  "Hush," she said. "You focus on your end of things."

  Her brow furrowed, one finger tracing just above the etched lines without touching them.

  "You won't be able to dispel it," I said weakly.

  "I noticed," she said without looking back. "There is a secondary weave. A lock. It isn't just yered, it's interdependent. If I pry at the wrong thread, the whole circle will probably... do something unpleasant."

  "That's where Phymera comes in," I said. My breath hitched slightly.

  She nodded once, but her gaze flicked back to me before returning to the circle, as if verifying I was still conscious.

  "Yes. We'll need her to untangle it safely."

  She studied the lines another moment.

  "How many of these did you say there are?"

  "Eight."

  Seraphine's mouth twisted. "Seven more of these?"

  "That's why we have basement duty," I huffed. "You and I are best-suited to recognizing Nyxara's work."

  She gave me a look that suggested she found that distinction unhelpful.

  "Do you remember where the others are? It'd save us some time."

  The squad leader's attention sharpened. The padins around us did too. If we could pick our fights, we should.

  I shook my head slowly. It hurt to do even that.

  "If the information exists, it was in my journal," I said. "The little bck one I used to write in."

  Seraphine's eyes narrowed, then understanding flickered. "You mean the one the Tower's padins burned."

  "Yes," I said, swallowing.

  Seraphine exhaled through her nose. "Wonderful."

  For a moment, we were quiet.

  Then I angled myself toward the leader, testing the tightness in my side.

  He stepped, as a small mercy, to where I could see him. He was a head shorter than Tomás, but his presence was no less felt.

  "I should know the name of the man whose shield line got us through this," I said.

  He gnced down at me, visor shadowing his expression.

  "Compared to what you've done, it was—" he started.

  He hesitated, as if remembering himself, and removed his helmet. Damp hair spilled from beneath the metal and fell around his eyes. A scar cut from the corner of his eye to his jaw.

  "Sir Sylvio," he said. "Second Choir."

  A pause. Then, almost as an afterthought: "From Brackenridge."

  Tomás made a small sound beside him that did not suit his size.

  "We grew up together," he said. "Sir Sylvio was the one who trained me."

  Sylvio's mouth twitched. That admission did not seem to please him.

  He bowed slightly. "Thank you for looking after my idiot protégé."

  I inclined my head.

  "And the others?" I asked. "How are they faring?"

  He peered over the dozen men beside him. One was being propped up by the others, but the rest, though they seemed ragged and their armor dented in pces, managed to stand on their own.

  "A little dazed," he said, shrugging. "But they'll live."

  "Good." I moved to stand.

  The priest's light dimmed slightly. He gnced up, face pale.

  "Miss Cire," he said. "I'm not finished. You need to remain still until the rite completes."

  I pushed up onto an elbow anyway.

  Pain protested. The potion and the Healing Touch muted it enough that I could move, but it was still there, waiting with teeth.

  The priest frowned, torn between obedience and medical sense. "Please. You could reopen your wound."

  "I know," I said through grit teeth. "Let's save the full regimen for ter." I looked at Sylvio, then to Seraphine. "There's still work to be done."

  I forced myself upright.

  The cell spun for half a second. I kept my hand at my side, feeling the tightness of newly closed flesh, the lingering ache beneath it. I stumbled.

  Seraphine was on her feet instantly.

  Her hand caught my arm before I fully lost bance—firm, steady—gone again as soon as I found my footing.

  She gnced once at the dark stain on my side, then deliberately looked away.

  "Next time," she said, voice tight with irritation, "don't volunteer as bait without telling me first."

  I let out a short breath that might have been a ugh if it didn't hurt.

  "If Miss Cire intends to continue in this state," Sir Sylvio barked, "the rest of you have no excuse."

  They answered in unison, standing a little straighter.

  He raised his shield again, eyes trained on the corridor beyond the broken door. "Let's move. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can focus on recovery."

  I nodded once.

  We had found one anchor point.

  Seven remained.