The cage didn’t bring Ariaxa to a dungeon.
It brought her to ruin.
An enormous crumbling structure carved into the side of the mountain — pillars split in half, stone etched with ancient sigils, statues of long-dead kings and long-forgotten sun gods shattered across the floor.
It reeked of old magic.
Old cruelty.
The Triarch armies hauled her inside, shadows crawling across her skin as they dragged her across the cracked marble.
When they chained her to the center of the ruin, she realized what it was.
A Temple of Binding.
Her heart stopped.
In Elyndor, these temples were forbidden. The last attempt to enslave Sun-mages had been centuries ago, the practice outlawed long before her birth.
This place was older than Vharon.
Older than any Triarch.
A relic of a time when magic itself was shackled like livestock.
And now she was shackled the same way.
Shadow-iron thorns wound around her wrists and ankles, their roots digging into her skin, burning with every heartbeat.
They weren’t just restraints.
They were torture.
Each breath she took made them tighten.
Each flicker of sunlight inside her veins made them sear hotter.
Each thought of fighting back made the pain double.
And still—she tried.
Fire sparked in her palms—
A flash of gold—
A spark of hope—
Then the thorns constricted like living serpents.
Her scream tore through the ruin, echoing off ancient stone.
The Triarch guards laughed.
They left her there, kneeling, gagged, trembling, magic flickering like a dying star.
Hours passed.
Or minutes.
Or centuries.
She couldn’t tell.
Then footsteps.
Soft.
Measured.
Smug.
Rhaelle.
She entered the ruin with the confidence of a queen approaching her coronation. Her melted armor had been replaced with ceremonial lunar silk. The burns Ariaxa gave her still snaked across her chest, but she wore them like trophies.
“Princess,” Rhaelle purred, trailing her fingers along a broken sun statue. “How fitting to see a Sunborn heir on her knees.”
Ariaxa lifted her chin despite the gag.
Rhaelle smirked.
“Let me explain what will happen. Tradition matters.”
She circled Ariaxa slowly, every step filled with cruel grace.
“At moonrise, this temple will awaken. As it did in the old wars. As it did for the first Sunborn captives.”
She touched Ariaxa’s cheek.
The contact burned.
“You will be sacrificed upon the Binding Altar.”
Ariaxa’s breath hitched—rage and fear flooding the bond.
Rhaelle continued, voice honey-sweet and poison-sharp:
“Your power will be extracted—your sunlight drained drop by drop, your magic funneled into a weapon.”
She leaned in.
“A weapon designed to kill your beloved Emperor.”
Ariaxa convulsed as the chains tightened, reacting to her rising fury.
Rhaelle only smiled wider.
“Don’t worry. It will be fast. For him, at least.”
With a flick of her hand, she stepped back—and Vaelen replaced her.
Cold as winter.
Expression carved from stone.
Eyes sharp as knives.
He crouched before Ariaxa.
“Do you want to know the best part?”
Ariaxa glared, magic sparking uselessly.
Vaelen chuckled softly.
“Your Emperor is mad.”
Ariaxa’s heart leapt painfully.
Vaelen’s smile grew chilling.
“He attacks everything in his path. Friend. Foe. It doesn’t matter.”
He lifted her chin with one finger.
“Do you know why?”
Ariaxa tore her face away, but the chain yanked her back.
Vaelen whispered:
“Because of you.”
Her breath fractured.
“He is obsessed,” Vaelen murmured, almost tenderly. “Rhaelle and I simply underestimated it. We expected attachment. Perhaps fear. But this—”
He gestured toward the mountains, toward the distant war path Kaedan carved through their forces.
“This is devotion. Madness. A blood-rage unlike anything we’ve seen in a century.”
Brakus entered then, twitching, sniffing the air, drooling.
“We tasted it,” he growled. “His fury. Delicious.”
Vaelen continued smoothly.
“And now we will use it.”
Ariaxa’s entire body trembled.
This wasn’t just torture.
This wasn’t just war.
This was calculated.
Brutal.
Precise.
They wanted Kaedan to come.
Vaelen’s smile thinned.
“He will walk into this Temple. Into our trap. Into his death.”
Rhaelle folded her arms, satisfied.
“And when he dies, the bond shatters. The Sunborn bloodline returns to heel.”
Ariaxa shook her head violently, screaming behind the gag.
Rhaelle sighed.
“Oh, don’t cry. He was already half a corpse when we last saw him. You simply sped up the inevitable.”
Ariaxa’s soul writhed.
Her bond burned like a fever.
Her heart pounded in her throat.
Her wrists bled against the thorns.
She forced herself to go still.
To focus.
To breathe.
Because even now — gagged, bound, bleeding — she felt him.
A pulse through the soul-bond.
A storm.
A god of wrath.
Coming.
Then, suddenly—
the ruin trembled.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
Brakus flinched. “What—what is—”
A second tremor—
Louder.
Strong enough to shake pillars.
Then—
A sound.
Far away, but unmistakable.
A roar.
Not human.
Not monster.
Not magic.
A being made of fury and love and ruin.
Ariaxa’s heart exploded with wild hope.
The Triarchs’ faces paled.
Rhaelle froze.
Vaelen hissed.
Brakus snarled, stepping back like a beaten dog.
Because echoing across the mountains—
Carving through stone—
Shaking the ancient temple to its roots—
Was Kaedan.
Coming for her.