The prison did not announce itself.
There were no gates. No towers. No obvious threshold where you crossed from outside to inside. No dramatic shift in air pressure or temperature, no clang of iron or echo of stone doors sealing behind us.
It simply… closed around us.
One step forward, and the sound of our breathing dulled. Another, and the air thickened—not enough to slow movement, but enough to make every inhale feel deliberate. The stone beneath my boots wasn't cold the way rock usually was. It was neutral. Neither welcoming nor hostile.
Indifferent.
That was worse.
"This is the first ward," Willow murmured quietly, her voice barely carrying more than a few feet before the stone swallowed it. "It doesn't stop you."
I glanced around, eyes adjusting to the dim, steady glow embedded in the walls—crystals set so deep into the stone they might as well have grown there.
"Then what does it do?" I asked.
She didn't answer immediately.
We stood in a wide corridor, arched overhead, its surface smoothed to an almost unsettling perfection. No seams. No visible joins. Just a continuous flow of carved rock, gently curving away from us like a ribcage opening to swallow prey.
Raiden—still silent, still unreadable—had already moved a few paces ahead, posture loose but alert.
On guard as usual. I guess some traits stay with you even when corrupted.
Willow finally spoke. "It convinces you that nothing has changed."
I frowned. "That's… ominous."
She nodded once. "Good. You're paying attention."
We moved deeper.
The prison revealed itself slowly, like it knew it didn't need to rush. Corridors branched—not sharply, but subtly—the angles just different enough that your sense of direction began to blur. Sound didn't echo properly. Footsteps didn't bounce back the way they should. Even the faint scrape of fabric against stone seemed to die an arm's length away.
I slowed without realizing it.
Not from fear.
From habit.
Thief's instinct.
I didn't grow up stealing prisoners.
I grew up stealing bread.
I learned early how silence worked. How sound carried. How much noise a step made depending on where you placed your foot, how to shift weight so a loose stone didn't betray you, how to breathe shallow when guards passed close enough that you could smell them.
Magic never taught me that.
Hunger did.
I watched the walls as we walked—not just looking at them, but looking for rhythm. Pattern. Repetition. I counted paces in my head, tracked how long it took the embedded lights to brighten and dim as we passed, noted how the air currents shifted at intersections.
"This place eats sound," I murmured.
Willow glanced back at me. "It eats certainty."
That earned her a look.
She continued, quieter now. "The wards aren't meant to restrain the body. They exhaust the mind. They make you doubt your memory. Your direction. Your progress."
"So you walk in circles," I said.
"Yes."
"And panic," I added.
"And panic," she agreed.
Raiden stopped suddenly, raising one hand.
We froze.
Ahead, the corridor narrowed—not visibly, not sharply—but just enough that the walls felt closer. I stepped carefully, eyes on the floor.
And there it was.
A hairline seam.
Not a crack. Not damage.
Intentional.
I lifted my foot slowly, testing the stone ahead with the ball of my boot. No give. No shift.
Pressure plate, then.
But not the kind that drops spikes or collapses floors.
The subtle kind.
The kind that listens.
I withdrew my foot.
Raiden tilted his head toward me, a silent question.
I shook my head once.
Trap.
Willow's breath hitched. "We can't go back."
I nodded. "We don't need to."
I scanned the corridor again, eyes narrowing.
The prison wasn't built by fools. It didn't rely on obvious mechanisms. It relied on assumptions. That you'd step where the floor looked safest. That you'd rush. That you'd trust symmetry.
I took a step sideways instead.
The stone did nothing.
Another step.
Still nothing.
I exhaled slowly and gestured for them to follow—placing their feet exactly where mine had gone. No rush. No noise.
We made it halfway across.
Then the prison reminded me who was in charge.
A soft click.
Not loud. Barely more than a breath.
The corridor shuddered.
Stone slid—not violently, not dramatically—but enough that the seam beneath us widened, the floor shifting just slightly out of alignment.
Sound returned all at once.
Too much of it.
The scrape of stone screamed in my ears. The echo bounced and multiplied, ricocheting down branching corridors like a signal flare.
I swore.
"Move," I hissed.
Raiden grabbed my arm—not pulling, just steadying—while Willow spun, hands lifting instinctively.
"Don't," I snapped.
She froze.
Magic here wouldn't explode.
It would answer.
The walls moved.
Not collapsing.
Reconfiguring.
The corridor ahead split like a slow-opening wound, stone sliding apart to reveal descending steps. At the same time, the path behind us sealed, the walls knitting together so seamlessly it was like it had never existed.
"No," Willow breathed. "That's not—"
The floor tilted.
Gravity shifted.
I felt it in my stomach a heartbeat before my boots lost traction.
"RA—"
The ground dropped out from under us.
We fell.
Not far—but far enough.
I hit hard, rolling instinctively, breath knocked from my lungs as my shoulder slammed into stone. Pain flared white-hot and immediate.
I sucked in air and scrambled upright.
A groan answered me.
He lay a few feet away, already pushing himself up, face twisted in pain but conscious.
"I've had better landings," he muttered.
Relief hit me so hard my knees went weak.
Revik.
How?
Then I looked around.
The corridor above was gone.
Not collapsed.
Gone.
Smooth stone sealed overhead, unbroken and absolute.
"Revik?" I whispered.
The prison had made its choice.
"Lyra?" Revik said, scanning the space. "How did—"
"It's a long story," I said quietly.
My mind drifted elsewhere.
I could feel it.
His absence.
The pull I'd felt toward Raiden since entering the Earth Kingdom—the strange, fractured awareness that had tugged at my chest—wasn't just muted.
It was garbled. Unfocused. Hard to pinpoint.
I pressed my hand to the stone wall, heart hammering.
He was being taken elsewhere.
Not closer.
Further.
The prison was separating us.
And it was doing it deliberately.
"Lyra," Revik said again, sharper now. "Talk to me."
I swallowed hard.
"We're cut off," I said. "From Willow. From him."
Revik went still. "Who's him?"
"…Raiden," I answered.
"Raiden? He's with you?" He sounded genuinely confused. "I don't understand—how is it bad being separated from the people who held us prisoner?"
"Yes," I said. "It's very bad."
I forced myself to breathe.
Panicking would get us killed faster than any ward.
I looked around.
The corridor we'd fallen into was narrower, lower, the walls rougher. Less polished. Less ceremonial.
A working vein.
Guards would come through here.
Which meant—
I closed my eyes briefly.
—blind spots.
"I swear this place is a maze," Revik muttered. "I've been trying to escape for gods know how long. Walls changing, floors opening beneath you, corridors that never seem to end."
"This place doesn't keep people in by force," I said. "It keeps them in by convincing them escape is impossible."
I opened my eyes.
"Well," I murmured, "that's their second mistake."
Revik huffed weakly. "And the first?"
I checked the corridor ahead, listening to the way sound died after a few steps, feeling the subtle shift in air pressure.
"They assumed everyone who came in relied on power," I said. "Instead of skill."
I started forward.
Slow. Quiet. Counting steps again.
Whatever this prison was—
It had never met a starving girl with nothing to lose.
And somewhere beyond layers of stone and corridors and silence, I felt him.
Not reaching.
But guiding.
Pulling me back.
The realization hit me hard.
I can't communicate with the gods down here.
Which means—
Maybe Mortimer doesn't have as strong a hold on Raiden in this place.
And for the first time since entering the prison, hope crept in.
Not that I could save him completely.
But maybe—
Just maybe—
I could carve cracks through the darkness before Mortimer had the chance to steal him back.