Chapter 74: Time to Run

The air in the dungeon changed.

Footsteps in the deep corridor came faster and denser than usual. Voices shouted. Metal clanged in layers beyond what a shift change would produce.

Seraphina sat on the thin blanket inside the iron bars. She set down the half piece of bread in her hand and tilted her head, listening.

She walked to the bars just as the young guard came jogging from the far end of the corridor. His face was tight, wound up. Nothing like the man who'd complimented her stew with a bowl in both hands.

"What's happening out there?" Seraphina asked.

The young guard glanced left, then right. He leaned close to the bars and dropped his voice.

"We've been found. Someone's closing in on the safehouse. Don't know whose side they're on."

Seraphina studied his face. The fear was genuine. She considered for a moment.

"Then let me go. You can run faster, and I can go home. Everyone wins."

"No." The young guard shook his head. Before he could explain, footsteps echoed again from the corridor. This time it was the sharp click of heels on flagstone. The guard snapped his mouth shut and stepped aside.

The Researcher arrived.

Same white coat. Same monocle. The expression behind it was colder and more rigid than usual. Two unfamiliar faces followed him. His usual assistants had been swapped out.

Seraphina noted the detail. Said nothing.

The Researcher unlocked the iron gate. The two strangers pinned her shoulders from either side, pressing harder than before. He drew the phlebotomy needle from his case. His movements were rushed, sloppy. The puncture was rough. Seraphina's brow tightened. That one hurt. Dark red blood climbed the glass vial, rising higher than any previous draw.

He pulled the needle. No gauze this time. He pressed a wad of cotton into the crook of her elbow, packed his instruments, and left. Seraphina held the cotton herself. A smear of blood she hadn't managed to wipe clean stained her fingertips.

Before she could work out whether that last draw had broken a volume record, someone else came.

This arrival was different. The man in front was tall, middle-aged, broad-shouldered, draped in a dark robe. Armed guards followed at his back. He stopped before the iron bars and looked down at Seraphina. A small metal case hung from his hand.

"Administrator." The Researcher appeared behind him, stopping two paces back.

The Administrator opened the case.

Inside lay a syringe. The barrel was a size larger than standard. The liquid inside was a deep, bruised purple, gleaming with an oily, unnatural sheen in the torchlight.

The two guards holding Seraphina loosened their grip without meaning to and stepped back half a pace. The Administrator lifted the syringe. A few drops beaded at the needle's tip and slid down the shaft.

Seraphina's left arm was pulled straight. Before she could say a word, the needle sank in. A sharp hiss escaped her teeth. A bead of blood welled at the puncture site, larger than any mark from the blood draws. She looked down at her arm. Then looked up.

"What is this? Poison? Are we doing the silence-the-witness thing now?"

Her tone was the one you'd use to ask if the cafeteria had switched mushroom varieties in today's soup.

The Administrator returned the empty syringe to the case and clicked it shut. He raised his eyes to Seraphina. The corner of his mouth lifted into the pre-arranged smile of an adult about to lecture a child.

"Something to make you stronger."

Seraphina said nothing.

"Do you know how powerful your cousin Estella is?" The Administrator's pace was measured, as if reading from a prepared script. "The Kingdom's number one adventurer. A Hero candidate. In a few years, Radiant-rank. Everyone knows the Valdreich family produced a genius. And you." He paused deliberately. His gaze swept Seraphina from head to toe. "What's your rank? Did you even break thirty?"

Seraphina didn't answer. She sat against the wall. The needle mark on her left arm still throbbed.

"Wouldn't you like to be as strong as she is? To put her beneath your feet?" The Administrator leaned in slightly. "Growing up with a peer like that for comparison. It must have been suffocating. Every family gathering, they introduce her first. Then they introduce you. The tone changes, doesn't it?"

Seraphina's eyebrow moved. Barely. A fraction of a millimeter.

"You are too weak." The Administrator's voice dropped like a hammer. "A disgrace to the Valdreich name."

The corridor fell quiet. Even the guards holding her looked away, unable to meet her gaze.

Seraphina blinked. Her expression remained as violently blank as a freshly whitewashed wall.

"That's it?"

The Administrator's smile froze.

"I was genuinely curious what sophisticated manipulation you'd prepared." Seraphina's voice was flat, clinical, the tone of a critic reviewing a particularly lazy student production. "What I got was a third-rate teacher's pep talk for failing students, mixed with the kind of useless advice you get from a distant relative you only meet once a year. How long did you workshop that script? What a waste of everyone's time."

She even had a follow-up question.

"Quick side note. That thing you just injected me with. Does it activate when I get angry?"

The Administrator's expression twisted. The muscle in his jaw twitched. His lips compressed into a line so thin it nearly ceased to exist. He did not deny it. Seraphina nodded. Silence was an answer too.

The Administrator spun. He signaled the guards to restrain Seraphina again.

"Bring him in." He pointed toward the corridor.

Two guards dragged a figure through the doorway. The Researcher. His face was the color of old parchment. His lips trembled. Several dark handprints stained his white coat. The guards' hands locked his shoulders in place.

"The work is done. The formula is secured. The blood has been drawn." The Administrator looked down at the Researcher pinned to the floor. His voice became cold again. "This site is spent. All that remains is housekeeping."

He nodded to the guard restraining the Researcher. The guard seized the man by the hair and forced his head down, exposing the back of his neck. The Administrator opened the metal case and withdrew a second syringe. The needle punched into the nape. He pushed the plunger harder than he had with Seraphina. The Researcher released a short, strangled grunt. His entire body began to shake.

The Administrator pulled the needle and hurled the empty syringe at the floor. Glass shattered. The sound ricocheted off the stone walls, bouncing back and forth until it faded.

"Dispose of him. We're not bringing him. Leave him here. Move out."

The Administrator gave Seraphina one last look and walked out. The guards scrambled to erase traces of the operation.

Seraphina looked down at the rope around her wrists. Tighter than before. She worked her wrists against it. The coarse fibers bit into her skin.

The young guard walked to the iron bars. He tugged the lock with theatrical thoroughness, confirming the gate was "secure." His fingers lingered on the clasp for one extra moment. In that moment, his foot nudged something into the shadows on the inside of the bars.

"Coming, coming!" he called in response to another guard's shout. He kept his head down and walked fast.

Seraphina watched his back. Then she looked at the floor.

In the shadows lay a thin sliver of iron. Its edges had been filed smooth. The shape was irregular, deliberately chosen.

She studied it quietly. Before she could reach for it, another guard passed by. He pretended to inspect the hinges of the iron gate, fished something from his pocket, and dropped it. Nail clippers. He didn't say a word. He didn't even spare her a glance before walking away.

The third was the one with the scar across his face. He moved fast, clearly being rushed to evacuate. He didn't even slow his stride at the bars. But his arm swung. A small object sailed through the gap between the bars, bounced twice on the thin blanket, and came to rest. A paring knife. The blade was dull, but the tip could be ground to a serviceable edge.

Seraphina gathered this uninformed parting gift alongside the others. She decided the iron sliver was the most reliable option and began sawing at the rope.

She was halfway through the hemp when the sounds started from the next cell over.

The Researcher was tied to a chair on the other side of the corridor, separated from his former test subject by a single iron barrier.

His body began to convulse. His spine twisted like an over-wrung towel. His torso arched at an angle that had no business existing, then snapped flat. A garbled moan rolled out of his throat, climbing, climbing, until it tore into a ragged scream.

Seraphina turned her head. Through the gaps in the iron bars, she watched.

His hands clenched at wrong angles. Fingernails scraped the wooden armrests in long, shrieking groans. Veins rose beneath his skin one by one, shifting from blue-purple to deep, arterial black. The whites of his eyes flooded, turning dark crimson. His pupils oscillated wildly, left and right, unable to fix on anything.

Seraphina pulled her gaze back and worked faster. The iron sliver's edge sawed back and forth. Hemp fibers snapped one by one. The Researcher's screams bounced off the corridor walls, pitch climbing, shedding syllables, shedding anything recognizably human. She heard bone crack. A rapid, staccato series of pops, like someone snapping a bundle of dry kindling across their knee.

The rope gave way.

Seraphina stood. She moved several steps toward the exit, pressing her back against the stone wall, and peered around the edge.

The Researcher had broken his restraints. The bindings tore like wet paper, leaving ragged stumps. His body swelled. Muscle surged in every direction. The white coat split across the shoulders and back with a sharp, fabric-shredding rip. His spine lengthened. His shoulders widened. He grew a full head taller. Then another.

The worst part was the forehead. Two symmetrical bulges rose beneath the skin, swelling, sharpening, until the flesh split open and two curved horns bored their way out of the skull.

Ram's horns.

Every muscle fiber across his body looked rewoven. Blue-black veins spread across his arms and chest like something unnatural growing beneath his skin. His breathing turned ragged and furnace-hot, each exhale a bestial rasp. His shoulder hit the iron gate's hinges and sheared them clean off. The next impact punched through the corridor wall. Rubble and dust exploded outward. The detonation of cracking stone rolled through the dungeon and the floor shuddered.

The massive shape lingered in the dust cloud for a single heartbeat. Then it charged toward the surface, footfalls hammering like war drums.

Seraphina stepped out from behind the wall.

She lowered the arm she'd raised to shield her face and shook limestone dust from her hair. She looked at the hole in the wall.

She didn't linger. She turned down the corridor leading out, pace quick. The flagstone sloped gently upward. The dampness in the air thinned. After several dozen steps, she rounded a corner.

She stopped.

A knight stood ahead. Standard-issue armor. The Knight Order's insignia engraved on the pauldron. No helmet. A sharp-featured face, mid-forties. The corner of his mouth curved upward, as if he'd just spotted something that improved his evening.

He was alone.

"Knight Order?" Seraphina stopped and gave a small nod. "Hello. Are you here for the rescue?"

The knight tilted his head. His gaze settled on her. The smile didn't change. It also didn't reach his eyes.

Seraphina noticed.

A pause stretched between them, thin as wire.

"You came alone." A statement. Not a question. This didn't look like a rescue.

"Kargas." The knight spoke. "Don't look at me like that, girl. I ain't your knight in shining armor."

"Then what are you here for?"

Kargas rolled his neck. Two vertebrae popped. He exhaled, and there was genuine enjoyment threaded through the breath.

"Simple. I like breaking things.The cult wants you alive for some boring ritual. I just want to see how much pressure a Valdreich skull can take before it pops."

Seraphina processed this. The internal logic didn't fully parse. She landed on one clear thread.

"You're working with the Administrator."

"Yes." Kargas admitted it without a blink.

"Your operational philosophy doesn't match his. He never said anything about killing me."

"He's him. I'm me." Kargas shrugged. "I'm just here to have fun."

Seraphina watched him. Her mind ran a full circuit.

"If I die, it creates enormous problems for the organization backing you. Far larger than you're imagining right now. You're here to rescue me. I'm very grateful."

Kargas laughed. The kind of laugh you give a joke that wasn't quite clever enough to deserve one.

"Let you walk back, pretend nothing happened. Sure. The cult stays buried in the Royal Capital, preps the next operation. I collect commendations from both the Knight Order and the cult. Maybe a promotion. Lovely."

Seraphina listened. But his face wasn't saying what his words were saying.

"But that's what a coward thinks." The amusement drained from Kargas's eyes. Something cold and sharp moved in behind it. "Come on. Show me what the Valdreich name is actually worth."