Lucien swallowed hard.
Self. He muttered
So the rumors had been right. Not all of them, perhaps, but enough.
His hand tightened around the torch bundle.
He was in the right place.
He wanted to drink the poison immediately. Every instinct screamed that waiting was dangerous, that he had come here for this exact purpose, that hesitation killed more men than bad luck ever did. But he forced the urge down. He did not know how far he needed to go. He did not know where the trial began. Poisoning himself at the entrance and collapsing before reaching the central chamber would be an idiotic death, and Lucien had already spent one lifetime collecting those.
Not yet.
He lit the torch.
Orange light filled the narrow passage, pushing shadows back along uneven stone. The dungeon's entrance looked almost disappointingly natural. Rough walls. Damp patches. Tiny roots threading through cracks. Small bats stirred above him, irritated by the light, and a few pale insects scattered along the ground. Once, something with too many legs vanished into a hole near his boot.
Nothing attacked him.
That made the silence heavier.
Lucien moved deeper.
The passage went on longer than the hill should have allowed. That was the first true sign that this was no ordinary cave. The slope curved downward, then straightened, then widened by slow degrees. The air grew colder with each step, but not stale. It felt preserved. Waiting. His torch flame burned steadily, no sudden gusts, no hidden drafts, no warning. Only stone, darkness, and the faint sense that he was walking into a mirror too large to see.
Eventually, the passage opened.
Lucien stopped at the threshold.
Before him lay a circular chamber carved into the heart of the hill. It was far too large to fit beneath the slope above. The ceiling vanished into darkness, but the platform below was well lit by several pillars arranged around its edge. Blue flames burned atop them, silent and smokeless, bathing the chamber in cold light. The floor was smooth stone, circular, marked by faint rings that converged toward the center.
And in the center waited a blob of water.
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That was the first shape Lucien's mind gave it.
A large, trembling mass of clear liquid, raised slightly from the ground like a pond that had forgotten to spread. Its surface rippled slowly, though nothing touched it. The blue flames reflected across it in curved, shifting lines. It looked harmless in the way deep water looked harmless to a man who could not swim.
Lucien did not step onto the platform.
Not yet.
His mouth had gone dry.
He set the torch into a crack near the wall, then lowered the satchel from his shoulder. His hands were steady as he removed the three poisons and the green-glass treatment, but his breathing had begun to feel too loud in the vast chamber.
He looked at the treatment.
Renn's warning returned.
Immediately after exposure.
If your heart stops first, this won't help.
If your organs fail first, this won't help.
If you take too much poison, this won't help.
Lucien uncorked the first vial.
"Small sips," he said to himself. "Not heroic ones."
The first poison was almost tasteless, which somehow made it worse. It slid cold over his tongue and vanished down his throat before his body understood treachery had entered it. The second, the dark powder, he mixed with a mouthful of water and swallowed before the bitterness could fully bloom. The third ampoule stung his lips the moment it touched them, sharp and resinous, and he took only the smallest sip before resealing it.
For three breaths, nothing happened.
Then his veins began to burn.
Lucien clenched his teeth.
Black lines crawled beneath the skin of his wrist, thin at first, then thickening as though ink had been poured into his blood. His hands cramped around the empty vial. Heat flashed through his lungs so violently he nearly doubled over. When he inhaled, it felt as if he had dragged flame down his throat. His muscles tightened all at once, then spasmed, his shoulder jerking hard enough to make pain tear across his neck.
He reached for the treatment by instinct.
Stopped.
Not yet.
"Move," he rasped.
His own voice sounded wrong.
He took one step toward the platform. Then another. His vision narrowed at the edges, blue flame stretching into long smears. The blob in the center rippled more violently now, responding to his approach. Lucien tried to keep his breathing even, but the poison had already taken that choice from him. Each inhale came shallow and broken. His heart pounded too fast, then seemed to stumble, then pounded again.
The world tilted.
He kept moving.
The moment his boot touched the first ring carved into the platform, the water-thing rose.
It did not stand. It unfolded.
The blob stretched upward, clear mass thickening, shaping, pulling color from the air. A head formed first, then shoulders, then arms, then a torso draped in the suggestion of clothing. Its surface clouded, darkened, and became flesh. Hair spilled down. Eyes opened. A sword formed at its side. A satchel took shape across its shoulder.
Lucien watched himself appear.
The process felt too slow.
Far too slow.
His skull was full of bells. His lungs were closing. His stomach clenched so hard he nearly vomited. His knees struck the stone before he realized he had fallen. The treatment flask was still in his hand, clutched with such force that his fingers had gone numb around it.
The copy finished forming.
It looked like him.
Not perfectly. Not yet. Its skin was pale, but not ashen. Its breathing was shallow, but steady. Black veins marked its wrists, yes, but they did not spread as quickly as Lucien's. Its eyes were clear. Too clear. It looked down at him, then smiled.
Lucien's blood went colder than the poison had made it.
"No," he breathed.
The copy took a step forward.
It was not dying.