Marshal shifted his form once more, this time taking the shape of a tall, thin guard he had seen earlier. If anyone spotted him, he would blend in. Tristan slipped away like smoke, sleep darts ready at his fingertips.

  Favian sent his bird ahead, its eyes spying for him.

  Renn and the others stayed behind. They were too weak to help search, but ready to move the moment they were called.

  Tilda took the left passage, where the map vaguely marked storage rooms and interrogation cells. The air there carried a sharp, metallic scent—blood. She moved silently, dagger drawn, checking each door as she passed. Most cells were empty. Some held only rusted chains or the bones of those long forgotten. Silas was nowhere to be found.

  Darius went another way. He returned to the room with the manifest. The one Tilda had taken listed only the Truthers, but there had to be another—for lesser prisoners. He needed to know exactly where Ron was being held.

  Tristan headed right, toward Block B, where minor offenders were kept. A lone guard wandered the corridor. Tristan sent a dart into the man’s thigh, and he collapsed without a sound. Peering into the cells, Tristan saw thieves and drunkards, but no illusionist. Perhaps Silas had been taken elsewhere. Or the records were wrong.

  Marshal pressed deeper into the Keep. Wearing his borrowed face, he passed through a dim junction without drawing notice. He checked alcoves and side halls, listening for any hint of movement. He found nothing.

  Favian wandered without direction. He had no map and no clear sense of where to search.

  Then his bird returned, landing on his arm.

  “Show me,” Favian whispered.

  The raven shared what it had seen. An abandoned wing, far beyond the marked blocks.

  Favian moved at once, following the path revealed to him. The corridor widened suddenly, stone walls opening into a vast chamber—large enough to have been a banquet hall in better days.

  Only a few torches burned, their light casting wild shadows. Chains hung from pulleys in the high ceiling, like forgotten puppet strings.

  Favian stepped inside, heart hammering.

  And there, in the centre of the chamber hung Silas.

  He was suspended high above the ground, stretched cruelly into an X—wrists and ankles bound in iron, chains running to four distant pillars. His head sagged, hair matted with dirt, but at the sound of Favian’s voice, his eyes fluttered open.

  He was alive. Barely.

  His body bore deep bruises, marks left by strain and suffering, yet he still breathed.

  "Silas," Favian whispered, his voice echoing unnaturally in the vast space.

  He whistled sharply, the signal piercing the quiet corridors. Footsteps hurried in response—Tilda, Tristan, and Marshal converging on the room.

  Elsewhere Darius had reached the guardroom and he searched hurriedly for another manifest.

  Tilda, Tristan, and Marshal burst in, weapons drawn, and froze. The sight stunned them all: Silas, crucified in the air like a macabre display, the chains gleaming with an otherworldly sheen.

  The room was too large and too exposed for a prison cell. The bird perched in a corner, its beady eyes scanning for threats.

  "What in the hells is this?" Tristan muttered, his usual grin replaced by a grimace.

  Tilda shook off the shock first, her commander's instincts kicking in. "Doesn't matter. We get him down. Marshal, help with the pillars. See if we can lower those chains." She stepped forward, dagger raised to slice at the nearest link if needed.

  But as her boot crossed an invisible threshold on the floor, an unseen force slammed into her like a battering ram. The air rippled, a barrier of pure energy flaring to life, hurling Tilda backward through the air.

  She crashed into the far wall with a sickening thud, sliding to the ground in a heap, winded and dazed. Pain exploded in her ribs, but she gasped for breath, forcing herself to her knees.

  “Barrier!” she croaked, but it was too late.

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  A loud crack split the air, like a whip snapping overhead. From the centre where Silas hung, light exploded outward. A blazing flare shot straight up, pierced the vaulted ceiling through a hidden vent, and burst into the night beyond.

  Colour bloomed in the distance—red and gold sparks raining down, visible even from deep within the Keep.

  “Alarm!” Marshal shouted, his voice snapping back to his own in panic.

  Chaos followed. The group spun to flee, hearts pounding… but before they could move, a massive iron door slammed down from above. It struck the stone with a thunderous boom, glowing seals flaring as ancient wards locked it in place. No handle or keyhole. Just solid iron fused to the walls.

  “Back door… find another way!” Tilda shouted, struggling to her feet, one hand pressed to her side.

  The room answered first.

  From the shadows around the pillars, chains lashed out like living serpents, driven by the same dark magic that fed the barrier. They sliced through the air with terrifying speed.

  Tristan dodged the first strike, rolling aside and hurling a dagger. It rang uselessly off metal. A second chain wrapped around his ankle, ripping him off his feet and dragging him toward a pillar.

  Favian slashed at a chain reaching for his throat, but another coiled around his waist and hauled him upward. His bird cried out, diving to peck at the links, only to be knocked aside by a snapping tendril.

  Marshal shifted rapidly, his body swelling into a massive, powerful form. The chains tightened at once, reshaping to bind him, slamming him to the ground before lifting him helplessly into the air.

  Tilda fought hardest.

  With a roar, she charged a chain bare-handed. It looped around her torso like a noose, pinning her arms. Another snapped around her legs, wrenching her upside down. She screamed as she was hauled skyward.

  Still she fought. Her dagger flashed, severing one chain mid-flight in a shower of sparks. Three more answered. One locked around her wrist, forcing the blade from her grasp. Another crushed her throat, stealing her breath. The last bound her legs, lifting her to join the others.

  In moments, it was over.

  They hung helpless, tangled in a web of chains etched with faint, pulsing runes. Outside, the echo of the flare faded, replaced by distant shouts and the boots of guards flooding the Keep.

  Silas, still stretched in his cruel X, raised his head weakly. His voice was little more than a breath.

  “It’s a trap,” he said.

  ?══════? ?─?─? ?══════?

  Darius was still rifling through the guardroom when the flare went up.

  For a heartbeat, he didn’t understand what he was seeing—red and gold light blooming against the slit window like a second dawn. Then the alarm bells began to scream.

  His blood went cold.

  “No…” he breathed.

  He swept the table clean with one arm, parchments scattering. Beneath them lay a thinner ledger, bound in black leather, unmarked. He snapped it open.

  They were names but not Truthers, nor criminals. It was marked as Assets.

  His eyes raced down the list—codes, dates, notes written in a tight, deliberate hand.

  Then he saw it.

  RON — STATUS: STABLE

  LOCATION: SHADOWS KEEP, LOWER VAULT

  CLASSIFICATION: CONTROL SUBJECT

  Darius’ heart jumped.

  The Lower Vault wasn’t on Tilda’s map.

  Boots below the guardroom door, barking orders. The Keep was fully awake now.

  Darius should have run. Instead, his gaze dropped to the final column beside Ron’s name. Then he stopped.

  Another page lay beneath the first, half-shifted, its heading catching the torchlight.

  SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION: RAGELER—CLONE VARIANTS

  Darius slowly drew the page out.

  Line after line blurred past his eyes, then sharpened as understanding settled in.

  Replication batches, Stability trials, Behavioural degradation.

  Containment failure risk: HIGH.

  His breath caught.

  These weren’t prisoners, they were stock.

  Truthers in the cells above. Ragelers below, altered and tested. Monsters, grown in the dark, not summoned or unleashed blindly, but cultivated.

  Darius’ hands trembled as the final note burned itself into his mind:

  Deployment authorised upon civic destabilisation.

  A faint sound reached him, then, a slow, grinding groan. The guardroom door began to open. Not forced, it unlatched itself.

  The iron hinges moved without touch, inch by inch, as though the Keep itself had decided he was no longer meant to be alone.

  Cold air seeped in, carrying with it the low, animal rasp of breathing somewhere in the corridors.

  Darius raised his head slowly. “By the gods,” he murmured.

  The truth assembled itself with brutal clarity. The rescue had been expected.

  The prisoners above were bait, and the festival was nothing more but a cover.

  And the flare… It was more of a signal, not an alarm.

  The door finished opening with no one standing at the other end, so did other doors nearby. It felt like they had been controlled by magic.

  Beyond it, the corridor stretched downward into darkness he had not seen marked on any map.

  Something moved within it.

  Darius’ hand slid to his side, to the place where his sword waited.

  Not yet, he told himself. But he knew.

  If the clones were released, this night would not end in an easy escape.

  It would end in slaughter.