Chapter 67: The Weight of Witnesses

The ridge hunter pack leader arrived at the war chamber at 0600 hours. Not invited. Not announced. Just—there.

Liam smelled it before Kael's report came through. The musk of a territorial predator operating outside its assigned corridors, the chemical signature of aggression held in check by something more dangerous than instinct: calculation. The pack leader had traveled from Floor Three to Floor Twelve without triggering a single alert relay, which meant it had used the old paths—the maintenance corridors that predated Liam's territorial grid, the routes that the dungeon's original ecology had carved before any lord claimed the space.

It knew the dungeon better than Liam did. That was the message. The route was the message.

Kael intercepted it at the war chamber entrance. The beetle defender's prosthetic arm shifted to its combat configuration—the mechanical joints unlocking, the crystal brace humming with stored energy. His body filled the doorway.

"Name and purpose."

The ridge hunter pack leader was female. Larger than the male that had attacked Sarah's party—broader through the shoulders, the forelimb claws worn smooth from years of corridor stone, the jaw scarred from dominance fights that had left her in charge of eleven subordinates. Her name, in the chemical language of the ridge hunter species, translated roughly as Scraping-Sound-Before-Strike. Kael's reports had shortened it to Scraper.

"I speak to the lord." Not a request. The vocal apparatus of a ridge hunter wasn't designed for nuanced speech—the sounds came out as guttural compressions, the syllables forced through a throat built for killing rather than conversation. But the grammar was correct. The intent was clear.

"The lord receives petitions at scheduled intervals. Next session—"

"Now."

Kael didn't move. The prosthetic arm hummed. The beetle plates locked.

Liam spoke from inside the chamber. "Let her in."

The beetle defender stepped aside. One inch more than necessary. A petty statement of territory from a soldier who didn't appreciate uninvited guests.

Scraper entered the war chamber. She was massive—twice Liam's mass, the body built for the ambush hunting that ridge hunters had perfected over thousands of generations. The forelimb claws, retracted, still showed their tips at the knuckle joints. Her eyes swept the chamber: the damaged map table, the territorial overlays on the walls, the bioluminescent moss at its morning brightness. She cataloged the room the way a predator cataloged a hunting ground—exits, obstacles, the position of the threat.

Her gaze settled on Liam.

"Your wolf killed one of mine."

"My wolf drove one of yours away from a contact it was ordered not to engage. The ridge hunter retreated with minor injuries. Shade didn't draw blood."

"Shade attacked a ridge hunter conducting a lawful territorial response to human intrusion. The humans crossed into active hunting corridors on Floor Three. My hunter was within rights."

The statement was accurate. Under the dungeon's territorial protocols—the biological hierarchy that governed predator-prey relationships within the territory—a ridge hunter encountering humans in its active corridor had full authority to engage. The protocols didn't distinguish between human invaders and human visitors. They didn't need to. Before Liam, the distinction hadn't existed.

"The human party was under my observation."

"Under your wolf's protection."

"Under observation. The party carried intelligence relevant to the dungeon's external security situation. The Ashwick occupation demonstrated that human interest in this territory is ongoing. Understanding the nature of that interest requires monitoring human approaches, not killing them on contact."

The words came out in the clinical register he'd learned from Elena. Intelligence assessment. Strategic framing. The vocabulary of a commander explaining operational decisions to subordinates who didn't have clearance for the full picture.

Scraper didn't buy it.

The ridge hunter pack leader stood in the center of the war chamber and looked at Liam with the flat, assessing stare of a predator that had survived decades of dungeon politics by reading the difference between what creatures said and what they meant.

"The younger human. The female. She carries your scent."

The floor dropped out of the conversation.

"She carries the scent of a creature that has been in proximity to the lord's quarters. The residual chemical markers on the corridors she walked—Floor Two, western branch—match the lord's pheromone signature. She touched surfaces the lord has touched. She held paper that carries the lord's chemical trace." Scraper's claws extended. Not a threat display—an emphasis. The ridge hunter equivalent of pointing. "Your wolf protected a human who smells like you. The population is not stupid, lord."

Liam's retractable tips pressed against the table. New punctures joining the constellation.

"The human is an intelligence asset. Her proximity to the dungeon provides information about human investigative patterns and—"

"She is your blood."

Silence. The mana field hummed through the walls. Kael stood in the doorway, prosthetic locked, plates sealed. Shade was somewhere on the upper floors—still shadowing Sarah's camp.

"The younger human is your blood kin. Your wolf knows it. The corridor populations know it. The scent signatures confirm genetic similarity that is not coincidental." Scraper's guttural voice dropped to a frequency that the war chamber's acoustics amplified into something almost conversational. "I did not come to challenge your authority, lord. I came to tell you that the lie you are preparing—the intelligence asset, the strategic monitoring—will not hold. The population smelled the truth before you spoke it."

She turned. Walked to the door. Kael stepped aside again—the same deliberate inch.

At the threshold: "My pack does not contest the wolf's action. The sister of the lord is under blood protection. Even ridge hunters understand blood." The claws retracted. "But the shadow stalkers do not understand blood. They understand territory. And they are petitioning for relocation to the upper floors today. You should know this."

She left. The sound of her claws on stone faded down the corridor with the heavy rhythm of a creature that had delivered exactly what it came to deliver and nothing more.

---

"She's right." Kael spoke before the silence could settle. "The intelligence framing is compromised."

"I heard her."

"The shadow stalker petition was filed at 0400 hours. Before Scraper arrived—they coordinated. The shadow stalkers want Floors One through Three as their new territory. If granted, they'd establish hunting patterns throughout the upper corridors. Sarah's party—" He caught himself. Corrected. "The human party would encounter active predation on every floor."

"They timed this."

"The shadow stalker colony has wanted the upper floors since before the occupation. The ridgeline ecosystem on Floor Four has been their primary territory for decades, but the upper floors offer better hunting and less competition. They've been building this petition for months. The Shade incident gave them leverage—the lord prioritizes humans over the population, so why shouldn't the population prioritize its own interests over the lord's preferences?"

The logic was clean. Infuriating and clean.

"When's the assembly?"

"Midday. The floor representatives will attend. Scraper will speak for the ridge hunters. Kallix is speaking for the shadow stalkers." Kael's prosthetic arm whirred. "Kallix has been lobbying the deep-floor representatives for support. The thermal worm colonies, the crystal shapers. Populations that have no direct interest in the upper floors but resent the suppression order you issued yesterday. You overrode their territorial instincts to protect human intruders, Liam. That's not a footnote. That's a grievance."

"What's the deep-floor sentiment?"

"Mixed. The populations that interacted with you during the occupation—the ones you fought beside, the ones that saw you hold the territory when everything was falling apart—they'll support you. The populations that didn't see the occupation firsthand are relying on secondhand accounts, and the accounts they're getting are colored by the shadow stalkers' messaging." Kael paused. The beetle plates shifted. "Kallix is good at this. He was a territorial negotiator before he became a colony leader. He understands how to frame a grievance as a systemic concern rather than a personal grudge."

Wonderful. A monster politician.

The old Liam would have found this absurd—dungeon creatures engaging in political maneuvering, forming coalitions, timing petitions for maximum leverage. The old Liam had grown up in a world where monsters were mindless. This Liam ran a bureaucracy of sentient predators who understood coalition politics better than most human legislators.

"Get me the assembly agenda. I want to know who's speaking, in what order, and what they're going to say before they say it."

"Already compiled." Kael placed a thin sheet of dungeon-bark on the ruined map table. Neat marks—the administrative script that Kael had developed for inter-species record-keeping. "Twelve representatives. Six confirmed supportive, three confirmed opposition, three uncommitted. The uncommitted are the ones that matter."

"Names."

"The fungal network on Floor Seven—collective consciousness, hard to read, votes based on resource allocation impact. The deep crystal colony on Floor Nine—isolationist, doesn't care about surface issues unless it affects their mineral access. And Venn."

"Venn."

"The Tier Four shade-weaver on Floor Six. Controls the silk-producing population that supplies half the dungeon's construction material. She's been neutral since the occupation ended—supported your lordship during the crisis, withdrew to her territory after. Hasn't taken a public position on anything since."

"Why is she uncommitted?"

"Because she's smart. She's waiting to see which way the wind blows before committing resources to a position." Kael's prosthetic tapped the bark sheet. "Venn's vote is the assembly. If she supports you, the fungal network and crystal colony will follow—she supplies their construction materials, and they won't antagonize a supplier. If she opposes you, the uncommitted bloc breaks against you and you lose the vote six to six, which functionally means the petition passes because a tied assembly defaults to the petitioner's position."

"Since when?"

"Since the territorial protocols were codified three generations ago. Ties favor the petitioner to encourage population mobility. It's an adaptive mechanism—prevents the lord from blocking all relocation through inaction."

A system designed to limit lord's power. Built into the dungeon's governance before Liam had been born the first time, let alone the second.

"Set a meeting with Venn before the assembly. Private. Floor Six."

"She'll want something."

"Everyone wants something. Find out what she wants before I get there."

Kael left. The clicking faded.

---

Elena's crystal activated at 0800.

*"Voss moved."*

The words hit the war chamber like a change in air pressure. Liam's hands went flat on the table.

"Details."

*"My Thornfield contact—the surveillance team I positioned on the residential street—reported activity at the facility at 0200 local time. Three individuals loaded crates into a covered wagon. Standard cargo configuration—nothing that would attract attention in a residential district. Voss supervised. He left the facility with the wagon at 0230 and traveled north on the secondary trade road."*

"North."

*"Toward the mountain passes. The road connects to the northern trade routes that service the highland mining communities and—" A pause. The organizational kind. "—and the territories controlled by independent monster populations in the Greypeak range."*

The Greypeak range. Two days north. The mountain territory that housed creatures too powerful or too isolated to participate in dungeon politics. Including, according to Elena's intelligence network, several Tier Five entities that had carved out autonomous domains in the peaks.

"He's taking his research to someone."

*"Or selling it. Or trading. The crates were handled carefully—the loading team used cloth wrapping and suspension harnesses. Whatever's inside is fragile or sensitive. Not weapons. Equipment or materials."*

"Can you track the wagon?"

*"I've dispatched a relay team along the northern road. They'll maintain visual contact through the first mountain pass. Beyond that, the terrain limits surveillance."* Another pause. Different quality. *"Liam. The timing is notable."*

"I noticed."

*"Voss has been stationary in Thornfield for months. His power consumption has been consistent—research-scale activity, no spikes, no anomalies. Then within twenty-four hours of your sister entering your dungeon, he moves. I'm not suggesting a causal connection. I'm noting a temporal one."*

"Sarah's dungeon visit isn't public knowledge."

*"Sarah's dungeon visit involved four people, three of whom are civilians with no operational security training. Pell—the one who ran—reached the surface at 0945 yesterday. He's been in the tree line since. If he returns to Ashwick, he'll talk. People who experience terror in dungeons talk about it. The story of a shadow wolf saving a civilian party from a ridge hunter will reach the Ashwick taverns within days."*

"And from there to anyone listening."

*"Voss may not have heard about Sarah's visit specifically. But information about unusual activity at this dungeon—a dungeon that was occupied three months ago and has demonstrated unusual characteristics—would be valuable to anyone studying monster behavior. Voss has contacts. Information networks. The kind of connections that a disgraced professor builds when he leaves academia and enters the private sector."*

Liam absorbed this. The two developments—the internal political crisis and the external threat of Voss's movement—converged at a point that felt less like coincidence than he wanted it to.

"Keep tracking the wagon. Priority."

*"Understood. One additional item."* Elena's voice shifted to the register she used for information she'd been holding. The calculated delivery. *"Your sister's camp."*

"What about it?"

*"She hasn't left. Shade's reports confirm—Sarah Hart is still in the tree line, sixty meters from the entrance. She slept for four hours, woke at 0400, and has been writing since dawn. Dennon is awake—he's moving gingerly, the rib injury is limiting him. Vora is maintaining a perimeter. Pell is sleeping apart from the group."*

"She's not leaving."

*"She found what she came for. She won't leave until she's processed the evidence and determined her next approach. Based on her behavioral pattern—systematic, methodical, obsessive—she'll re-enter the dungeon within forty-eight hours. Probably sooner."*

"With a plan."

*"With a better plan. She'll study what she found, identify gaps, and return specifically to fill them. The handprint told her the creature is real. The wall told her the creature is aware. The wolf told her the creature is protective. Her next entry will be designed to force contact."*

Force contact. Sarah Hart, planning an operation to make a monster show itself. Because the monster was her brother and the brother was hiding and Sarah Hart did not tolerate being hidden from.

"Elena. The assembly today. Internal politics."

*"I'm aware. Kael briefed me through the secondary channel."* The military register, clean and unadorned. *"The shadow stalker petition is a problem, but it's not the problem. The problem is external perception. Your dungeon's internal politics don't stay internal—the monster communities outside your territory monitor your governance as an indicator of stability. If word reaches the independent lords that your population is fracturing over a human-related incident, it signals weakness."*

"How fast does that kind of information travel?"

*"Faster than you'd like. I received intelligence this morning through a Borderlands contact: a neutral monster lord in the Greypeak range—designation Gorath, Tier Five Stone Wyrm, controls the northern mountain passes—has dispatched an emissary to assess your territory."*

Liam went still.

"An emissary."

*"Gorath has been monitoring the aftermath of the Ashwick occupation. A dungeon that survived a human military operation is noteworthy. A dungeon lord who held his territory against professional hunters is more noteworthy. Gorath's interest is strategic—he wants to determine whether you're an asset, a threat, or an opportunity. The emissary is a fact-finding mission."*

"When does it arrive?"

*"Estimated three to four days. The emissary is traveling through the Greypeak passes—standard diplomatic pace, not rushed. They'll approach through the northern entrance to your territory."*

Three to four days. An outside monster lord sending a representative to evaluate Liam's dungeon at the exact moment his population was questioning his leadership over a human-related decision. The emissary would arrive, assess the territory, and report back to a Tier Five Stone Wyrm whose opinion carried weight with every independent monster community in the northern ranges.

If the emissary arrived during or after a fractured assembly where Liam's authority was visibly contested, the report would be simple: *unstable lord, divided territory, human loyalties.*

If the shadow stalkers won their petition and occupied the upper floors before the emissary arrived, Gorath's representative would encounter aggressive predators on the first three floors—the kind of hostile reception that communicated either territorial strength or internal chaos, depending on interpretation.

And if Sarah re-entered the dungeon while the emissary was present—

"Elena. The Voss movement and the Gorath emissary. Connected?"

*"No evidence of connection. Gorath operates independently—his territory is autonomous, his intelligence comes from his own scouts, and his relationship with human elements like Voss is nonexistent as far as my network can determine. The timing appears to be coincidental."*

Coincidental. Three separate crises—political, external, familial—converging in the same four-day window through independent causal chains. Not conspiracy. Just the universe's sense of humor.

The old Liam would have called this bad luck. This Liam recognized it as what it actually was: the inevitable consequence of being a human mind in a monster lord's body, trying to hold together a post-traumatic population while protecting a sister who was trying to find him while a disgraced professor moved research materials toward unknown buyers while a foreign power sent scouts to evaluate his weakness.

This was what power looked like. Not the ability to crush threats. The inability to address them one at a time.

---

The assembly convened at midday on Floor Eight—the neutral ground between the upper and deep territories, a natural amphitheater where the dungeon's architecture had carved a bowl-shaped chamber large enough to hold the twelve floor representatives and their attendant populations.

Liam stood at the chamber's focal point. The mana field hummed through the stone beneath his feet—the full territorial awareness, sharp and present, reading every biosignature in the room.

Twelve representatives. Arranged in a rough semicircle. Scraper at the far left, her bulk filling the space, the forelimb claws retracted but visible. Kallix—the shadow stalker colony leader—at the far right. Smaller than Scraper but radiating the coiled tension of a species that hunted through ambush and misdirection. Between them, the other ten: the fungal network's spokesperson (a tendril-cluster that communicated through chemical emissions), the deep crystal colony's representative (a silicon-based creature that reflected light from internal structures), Venn the shade-weaver (still, watching, her eight limbs folded in the precise arrangement of a creature that gave nothing away), and the others.

Kael stood behind Liam. Prosthetic arm in neutral. Beetle plates locked. The soldier's posture that communicated: *the lord's authority is backed by force, if required.*

Kallix spoke first. The shadow stalker's voice was a sibilant whisper—the species communicated through vibrations that traveled along surfaces rather than through air, and the adapted speech that emerged when they addressed other species had a quality like silk being torn.

"The colony petitions for relocation to Floors One through Three. The grounds are territorial efficiency—the upper floors offer superior hunting density and reduced competition. The petition was filed at 0400 hours in accordance with established protocol."

Clean. Professional. No mention of Sarah, Shade, or the previous day's events. Kallix was a politician. He wasn't going to swing at the ball Liam expected.

"The petition is noted," Liam said. "The assembly will consider—"

"Additionally." Kallix's whisper cut through the formal response. "The colony requests that the assembly address the lord's territorial suppression order issued yesterday. The order overrode the natural defensive responses of every population on Floors One through Three for a period exceeding six hours. This override was conducted without consultation, without explanation, and without precedent."

There it was. Not the relocation petition—that was the vehicle. The payload was the suppression order. Kallix wasn't asking for upper-floor territory. He was challenging Liam's authority to override the population's instincts.

The fungal network's tendril-cluster pulsed. Chemical emission: *query—the override purpose.*

"The suppression order was issued to manage a potential intelligence-gathering opportunity," Liam said. The words tasted like copper in his mouth. "A civilian human party entered the upper floors. Their behavior and equipment suggested investigative purpose rather than hostile intent. The order was issued to prevent engagement that would have eliminated the intelligence value of the contact."

Scraper's gaze landed on him. The ridge hunter pack leader sat in her position and said nothing. She'd told him the lie wouldn't hold. She was watching it fail in real time.

"Intelligence gathering." Kallix's whisper carried the weight of a question mark without the punctuation. "The lord overrode the territorial instincts of three floors of population—instincts that evolved to protect this dungeon from the species that occupied it three months ago—for intelligence gathering."

"Correct."

"And the wolf's intervention against my colleague's hunter—a lawful territorial response to intrusion—was also intelligence gathering."

"The wolf was monitoring the party. The ridge hunter's attack would have terminated the monitoring."

"The wolf attacked a ridge hunter." Kallix's eight legs shifted. The shadow stalker repositioned itself—a movement that, in the species' body language, was the equivalent of leaning forward. "A dungeon predator exercising its territorial rights was attacked by the lord's personal asset to protect human intruders. The lord's justification is intelligence gathering. The population's observation is that the lord has human loyalties that supersede dungeon governance."

The chamber went quiet. The mana field carried the chemical signatures of twelve representatives processing the accusation—some with agreement, some with discomfort, some with the neutral detachment of creatures waiting to see which way the argument broke.

Venn hadn't moved. Eight limbs folded. Eyes—all six of them—fixed on a point midway between Liam and Kallix. Giving nothing.

"The population's observation is noted," Liam said. His voice was level. The retractable tips were pressing into his palms behind his back where the assembly couldn't see. "The lord's response is this: three months ago, this dungeon was invaded. Generators burned the mana channels. Suppression fields starved the population. Creatures died on every floor. The occupation succeeded because we didn't understand the humans who came for us—their tactics, their priorities, their decision-making patterns."

He looked at Kallix. Then Scraper. Then, deliberately, at Venn.

"The civilian party that entered yesterday is connected to the humans who organized the occupation. Monitoring their behavior, their investigative methods, and their knowledge of this territory provides information that improves our defensive posture. I suppressed the territorial response because killing four civilians would have eliminated an intelligence source and potentially triggered a retaliatory response from the human settlement one day's travel away. That is not human loyalty. That is dungeon governance."

The lie landed. Solid enough to stand on, thin enough to crack if anyone pressed.

Kallix pressed.

"Then the lord will have no objection to the colony's relocation to the upper floors. If the human party returns—for intelligence monitoring—the shadow stalker population will refrain from engaging. We are, after all, capable of following suppression orders." The whisper turned silk-smooth. "Unless the lord's objection to our relocation is not strategic but personal. Unless the upper floors must remain clear not for intelligence purposes but because the lord wishes to protect specific humans from contact with dungeon populations."

Silence.

Liam felt it—the moment when the assembly's attention shifted from the argument to the answer. Twelve representatives waiting. The mana field carrying their collective chemical signature: *anticipation, assessment, judgment.*

He couldn't refuse the relocation without confirming Kallix's accusation. He couldn't approve it without putting Sarah in danger.

Venn unfolded one limb. Just one. The shade-weaver's version of raising a hand.

"A question for the colony leader." Her voice was different from the others—layered, as if multiple vocal channels operated simultaneously. "The petition requests Floors One through Three. The colony's current territory on Floor Four provides adequate hunting density for the population's size. What specific resource deficiency drives the relocation request?"

Kallix turned to the shade-weaver. "Overcrowding. The occupation compressed multiple populations into Floor Four's corridors. The resulting density—"

"Is temporary. Post-occupation population redistribution is ongoing. Floor Four's density will normalize within two cycles." Venn refolded the limb. "The petition's timing is political, not ecological. I suggest tabling it until the redistribution is complete and the actual resource data supports or refutes the claim."

Kallix's legs shifted again. The shadow stalker's chemical signature spiked—anger, controlled, compressed.

"The shade-weaver's suggestion is noted. The colony maintains its petition."

"And the assembly will vote on tabling." Venn's six eyes finally moved. Settled on Liam. "Unless the lord objects."

Liam didn't object.

The vote to table passed seven to five. Venn's support pulled the fungal network and crystal colony into the tabling bloc. The shadow stalkers, their deep-floor allies, and two other representatives voted against. The petition was shelved. Not killed—shelved. It would come back. Kallix would make sure of it.

The assembly dispersed. Representatives filing out through the amphitheater's exits, chemical signatures carrying the residue of political calculation—who had supported whom, what debts had been incurred, what alliances had shifted.

Venn remained. Eight limbs folded. Six eyes on Liam.

"The shade-weaver supported the lord's position today."

"You did."

"One expects the lord understands that support was a purchase, not a gift." She unfolded two limbs. Adjusted something in her silk glands—the displacement gesture of a species that processed stress through production. "The emissary from the Greypeak territory. Gorath's representative. I assume you're aware."

He was aware.

"The emissary will assess this dungeon's stability. If the assessment is favorable, Gorath may offer an alliance—trade access through the mountain passes, mutual defense protocols. If unfavorable, Gorath designates this territory as unstable and the independent lords avoid engagement. Avoid engagement means avoid trade. Avoid trade means the silk markets I've been developing with the northern communities collapse."

"You need Gorath's good assessment."

"One needs the lord to present a unified territory when the emissary arrives. Factional disputes, human entanglements, population grievances aired in public assembly—these are not the indicators of stability." The six eyes held steady. "I tabled the petition. The lord owes me a stable dungeon when that emissary walks through the northern entrance."

She left. Eight limbs carrying her out of the amphitheater with the measured pace of a creature that had made an investment and intended to see returns.

Kael stepped forward. The prosthetic arm clicked.

"Venn bought you three days."

"I heard."

"The emissary arrives in three to four. Kallix will refile the petition immediately after—he's not the type to let a tabling stand longer than required. If the emissary's visit overlaps with the refiled petition, the assessment goes badly regardless of what you present."

Three days. To stabilize the population, prepare for a foreign emissary, manage his sister's inevitable return to the dungeon, and track whatever Voss was moving north through the mountain passes.

"Kael. The Voss shipment. Elena said it was heading north. Through the Greypeak passes."

The beetle defender processed this. The plates unlocked. Relocked. The involuntary response of a tactical mind connecting two pieces of information that hadn't been connected before.

"Gorath's territory is in the Greypeaks."

"Yes."

"Voss is moving materials toward the same mountain range that houses the monster lord who just sent an emissary to your dungeon."

"Yes."

The prosthetic arm whirred. Kael stood in the empty amphitheater with the expression of a soldier who had just watched the operational landscape double in complexity.

"Your orders."

"Tell Elena to push the tracking on that wagon. I want to know where those crates go. And get me everything we have on Gorath—history, territory, alliances, known interactions with human elements."

"We don't have much. Gorath is isolationist."

"Then get what exists and fill in the gaps. Three days."

Kael left. The clicking faded down the amphitheater's exit corridor. Liam stood at the focal point of an empty chamber where twelve representatives had just weighed his authority against his humanity and found the balance wanting, and outside—sixty meters from the entrance, sitting in a tree line with a sketch and a notebook and the Hart family jawline—his sister was writing notes about a ghost that made walls glow.

Through the pack bond, distant and steady: *She watches the entrance. She has not moved. She writes and watches and writes.*

Sarah Hart, planning her next approach. The approach that would be smarter, more targeted, designed to force the thing in the dungeon to reveal itself.

Three days until the emissary. Three days until Kallix refiled. Three days until whatever Voss was moving reached whatever destination waited in the mountain passes.

And Sarah—Sarah would come back before any of it.

The mana field hummed through the amphitheater's stone walls. Liam pressed his hands against nothing and walked back to the war chamber through corridors that smelled of politics and predator musk and the faint, impossible trace of a human sister's handprint on Floor Two that the stone would carry until it wore away.