POV: Soraya
I wake to the sound of metal breaking.
At first, it folds into my dreams—clashing swords, shattering cups, my father’s blade hitting stone. Then another crack splits the air, sharp and close, jerking me fully awake.
I bolt upright.
The dungeon is dim, the torch in the corridor replaced sometime while I slept. My body aches in new places. My mouth is dry. My heart stutters as last night’s events slam back into focus.
Kaelen. His promise. The rut.
The sound comes again—iron grinding against stone, followed by a low, guttural growl.
I scramble to my feet, clutching the thin blanket around me, and cross the cell in a few quick steps.
“Kaelen?” I hiss.
He’s standing now–not hunched or restrained. Just standing.
He faces the wall where his chains are anchored, muscles bunched, sweat beading on his forehead. The links between his wrists are taut, pulled nearly straight. The iron ring set into the rock—once immovable, unshakeable—is bent.
“Stop,” I whisper, panic flaring. “If they hear—”
“That’s the idea,” he grunts, voice rough but clearer than last night. “They’re too used to me being obedient furniture. Time to remind them why they chained me down in the first place.”
His arms strain. Veins stand out along his biceps and forearms. With a roar that vibrates in my chest, he wrenches his fists outward.
The ring in the wall rips free. Chunks of stone fly, clattering across the floor. Dust plumes into the air.
I stare, heart hammering. “You—”
He turns toward me, chains hanging loose now between his hands, still attached at the cuffs but no longer tethered to the wall. His eyes are focused, sober. Rut’s haze has faded, leaving only sharp intent.
“I told you,” he says. “I’m getting you out.”
Heavy footsteps pound above us.
“That did it,” he mutters. “We don’t have long.”
“Won’t there be more rings?” I demand. “More binds? More—”
He flashes me a grim smile. “Let me worry about that. You? You’re going to worry about keys.”
The dungeon door at the far end bangs open. Two guards rush in, armor clanking.
“What the—”
Kaelen moves. If the arena was a display of controlled violence, this is something else entirely.
He launches himself at the bars of his cell, chains whipping. The first guard barely has time to raise his baton before Kaelen wraps the links around his neck and yanks, dragging him forward into the iron. The sound of skull meeting metal is sickening.
The guard slumps, choking. The second lunges for the keys at his partner’s belt.
“Now,” Kaelen snarls, and I realize he’s talking to me.
Adrenaline shoves me into action. I press against my own bars, reaching through as far as I can. I stretch my arm until my shoulder screams.
“Almost,” I grit out. “Just— little more—”
Kaelen bares his teeth and gives one last vicious yank. The guard’s hip slams into the bars. The keys leap on their ring.
I hook one finger through and drag them toward me before they can fall. Got them! The second guard snarls and draws a knife, rushing at Kaelen’s cell.
“Behind you!” I yelp.
Kaelen turns, releasing the first guard, who crumples to the ground, gasping. The second thrusts the knife through the bars, aiming for Kaelen’s gut.
He’s too slow.
Kaelen catches the man’s wrist mid-thrust, twists, and slams it into the iron. Bones crack. The knife drops. Kaelen snatches it out of the air with his free hand and rams it back through the bars, catching the guard under the ribs.
The man’s eyes go wide. He collapses, blood spreading.
I swallow hard against the bile rising in my throat.
It’s one thing to hear about Kaelen fighting. Another to watch up close, to see how fast he is, how efficient, how wholly unbothered by the closeness of death.
Legend, my mind whispers. Monster, my fear counters.
He steps over the bodies without a glance.
“Open your door,” he says. “Now.”
My fingers fumble with the keys, slick with sweat. Click. The door swings inward. I stumble out, clutching the keys and the blanket.
Shouts echo from above, faint but drawing closer.
Kaelen straightens. “There’s a service tunnel behind the last row of cells,” he says. “They use it to move supplies and bodies they don’t want seen. It leads to the lower canyon exit. If we’re lucky, they haven’t posted heavy guard there since they think I’m chained.”
“And if we’re not lucky?” I ask.
He glances at the dead guards. “You’ve seen what I can do.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
He takes my wrist—not roughly, but firmly—and pulls me toward the far end of the dungeon. His skin is still warm, but it’s a normal warmth now, not the feverish blaze of rut. His grip grounds me.
We move past empty cells.
We reach the back wall. Kaelen shoves aside a loose crate, revealing a low, narrow doorway braced with old wood.
He kicks it open. A rush of cooler air hits us, scented with dust and stone.
“Stay close,” he says.
I already am. The tunnel slopes downward, then curves left. After what feels like forever, we see a faint hint of light ahead—pale and shifting.
“Exit,” he murmurs.
He slows, gesturing for me to stay back, and edges forward alone. I press myself to the wall, listening hard.
There’s a brief scuffle—a grunt, the wet sound of a blow, a muffled cry. Then silence.
Kaelen reappears, one more smear of blood on his arm, keys to the outer gate in hand.
“Clear,” he says.
We step out into the canyon’s lower mouth. The world assaults me.
Wind howls down the rock corridor, dragging sand with it. The sky above is a furious swirl of gold and gray—the beginnings of a sandstorm gathering on the horizon, rolling toward us like a living thing.
“It’s getting worse,” I shout over the wind.
“Good,” he shouts back. “It’ll cover our tracks.”
He unlocks the iron gate and hauls it open just enough for us to slip through. We emerge onto a rocky path that winds away from the fortress’s foundations, half-hidden by boulders and scrub.
Behind us, the Obsidian Bastion looms, its black stone cutting against the sky.
He grabs my hand again. “We move fast. Stay low when the gusts hit. If you get lost—”
“I won’t,” I say, though the wind nearly shoves the words back down my throat. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
He squeezes my hand once, then leads the way. The sandstorm hits us halfway down the canyon. One minute, the air is sharp and clear. Next, it’s a choking wall of grit and dust.
Sand whips into my face, stinging my eyes, filling my mouth. I cough, pulling my arm up to shield my nose and lips. Kaelen angles his body in front of me as much as he can, taking the brunt of it.
We stumble forward, half-blind, leaning into the wind.
“This way!” he yells, tugging me toward the right. “There’s a break in the rock ahead—a way out to the open dunes. Once we’re there, we turn away from every patrol route I know.”
“Won’t that make us easier for… other things to find?” I shout back.
He doesn’t answer. The wind does—it shrieks.