The corridor beyond the summoning chamber sloped upward through the palace.
Mara ran in unfamiliar boots, one hand clasped around Elias’s wrist.
Their reflections flashed in polished black stone—beautiful strangers with their faces, older by a few years, eyes glowing like dusk.
Behind them, bells began to ring.
“We need a door,” Elias said.
“We need to know what’s happening.”
“Door first. Existential crisis later.”
A pair of guards turned the corner ahead.
One raised a crossbow.
Mara saw the bolt leave the string.
Elias saw it too.
He twisted, but the bolt struck his shoulder.
Pain tore through Mara’s arm.
Elias gasped.
The bolt had stopped against his skin as if it had hit stone.
It dropped to the floor, bent in half.
Mara’s arm burned.
She looked down.
No wound.
The pain faded, leaving a strange warmth behind it.
“It went through the bond,” she said.
“Good,” Elias said, turning toward the guards.
“Let’s send it back.”
He lifted one hand.
The air compressed.
The guards’ armor groaned as invisible force picked them up and pinned them against the wall.
Their helmets clanged together.
“Eli, don’t crush them.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re thinking about it.”
He glanced at her.
“I am.”
Mara stepped close to the guards.
“Where’s the nearest way out?”
One of them pointed toward a narrow staircase.
Elias lowered his hand.
The guards crumpled, alive and breathing.
The staircase ended at a bronze door marked with a sunburst.
Mara touched its surface.
The symbol flared.
A ribbon of light snapped around her wrist and crawled up her arm.
She jerked back.
The flare hit Elias at the same instant.
He grunted and slammed a fist into the door.
The bronze buckled inward.
Mara pressed her other hand to the symbol.
Instead of pushing against it, she felt for the pattern inside.
The light was not a lock.
It was a command: stay, serve, obey.
She hated it on instinct.
The sigil cracked under her touch.
Elias’s hand closed around her shoulder.
The sunburst shattered, and the door swung open.
They found a terrace overlooking a vast city.
White towers climbed toward the clouds.
Farther away, beyond the palace walls, a dark ring of storm circled the horizon.
The wind smelled of wet stone and flowers.
A river cut through the city in bright silver bends.
Tiny figures crossed bridges far below, unaware that two strangers had just fallen into their morning.
For one suspended moment, the view was beautiful enough to quiet the panic.
Mara gripped the wall.
“If this is another life, I want to know what happened to the people in the building.”
“They got out,” Elias said.
He sounded certain because she needed him to be.
“The kid got out. Mrs. Alvarez got out.”
“We don’t know.”
“No. We don’t.” He put his forehead against hers.
“But we got them to the stairs.”
She closed her eyes.
They had no proof that the last thing they had done mattered.
They had only the knowledge that they had tried.
When Mara opened her eyes, the storm ring still waited at the horizon.
The city was beautiful.
The storm was not.
“Aurel,” Mara said.
“They said the kingdom of Aurel.”
“And we’re apparently the chosen heroes.”
“I’ve had worse jobs.”
“Name one.”
Before she could answer, a horn blared from the palace roof.
The terrace doors opened behind them.
The blue-cloaked knight stepped through with a dozen soldiers at his back.
“I’m Captain Arden,” he said.
His face was young, no older than they were, and tired enough to be honest.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then move,” Elias said.
“I can’t.”
“You can,” Mara said.
“You’re choosing not to.”
Arden’s jaw tightened.
The soldiers raised their weapons.
Mara felt the power moving through Elias before he did.
The air around them bowed inward.
She laid her hand on his chest.
“Not yet.”
His breathing slowed.
The pressure eased.
Arden watched the exchange.
“The Crown will call you dangerous if you leave.”
“It called us heroes before we could speak,” Mara replied.
“I’m starting to think the Crown calls people whatever it needs.”
She stepped backward over the terrace’s low wall.
Elias’s eyes widened.
“Mara…”
“Trust me.”
He followed without asking again.
They fell three stories.
Mara braced for impact, but violet light wrapped around them.
Their boots touched the palace garden without a sound.
The two of them looked up at the terrace.
Arden stood at the edge, watching.
Then the palace gates opened, and the city’s alarm bells began to ring.