The Council guards came for her at dawn.
They didn't try to disguise it as anything else. A dozen of them, dressed in the silver and black of the inner guard, entered the servants' quarters and surrounded her before she could move. She had been sleeping—one of the rare times she could do so peacefully, now that her bond with Kael provided some stability—and she woke to the sensation of swords being drawn.
"Liriel Ashenbrand," one of the guards said, his voice carefully neutral. "You're under arrest for unauthorized cultivation of forbidden Resonance. Come quietly, and you won't be harmed."
Liriel didn't resist. There was no point—she was outnumbered and exhausted, and the guards had specifically chosen this time because Kael was in a different part of the Sect. She let them bind her wrists with cultivation-suppressing cuffs and lead her through the corridors of Moonveil Sect to a place she hadn't known existed: the Council's private chambers, deep within the administrative tower.
They locked her in a cell that was more like a stone box—no windows, no furniture except a sleeping mat, no way out except the sealed door. She could feel the wards woven into the stone itself, specifically designed to suppress Void Resonance. It was like being buried alive in ice.
She waited, feeling Kael's growing panic through their bond, and prepared herself for execution.
Instead, Elder Kaito came to see her.
He looked smaller than she remembered, and infinitely more tired. He settled onto a small stone bench that one of the guards had brought, and studied her with eyes that seemed very sad.
"Do you know why I performed your Awakening Ceremony?" he asked.
"Because it was your duty," Liriel said.
"Because Master Yun asked me to," Kaito corrected. "He has been asking me to do things for thirty years, and I have been too afraid to refuse him. I guided your core to break, you know. Not deliberately, but Yun showed me how, in his mind—he showed me how to shape my Resonance in a way that would shatter a latent Void Bearer's core and activate the Resonance. I thought I was helping to suppress a threat."
"But you weren't," Liriel said quietly.
"No." Kaito's expression grew haunted. "I was helping to activate it. I was doing Yun's work all along."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I'm dying," Kaito said, and Liriel could see it now that he mentioned it—the paleness of his skin, the tremor in his hands, the way he seemed to be fading even as they spoke. "Yun poisoned me, months ago, in a way that would only manifest after I had helped awaken you. He wanted me unable to speak against him when the time came for the final confrontation."
"Why didn't you tell the Council?"
"Because half the Council is loyal to him," Kaito said bitterly. "Two of the Elders have been working with him for years. They've been waiting for someone like you to be born, someone to break the seal completely." He looked at her. "Yun doesn't just want to control the Void Resonance, Liriel. He wants to free it. He wants to let it reshape the world."
Liriel felt cold spread through her chest. "And Kael?"
"Is making his way to your cell as we speak," Kaito said. "We've allowed him to. The guards have been paid to look away. You're going to escape with him, and the two of you will run into the world, Void Resonance blazing like a beacon." Kaito smiled sadly. "And in doing so, you'll fulfill Yun's plans perfectly."
"Why would the Council allow that?" Liriel demanded.
"Because those who aren't Yun's followers believe you're too dangerous to keep alive, and they'll be relieved to see you gone. Because Yun's followers expect you to run, to use your power, to destabilize the world enough that a coup becomes possible. And because," Kaito said softly, "sometimes the best trap is the one where you want to spring the mechanism."
The lock on the cell door clicked open.
"Go," Kaito said. "Kael is waiting. Run with him. Live with him. And try to make Yun's victory into something he didn't anticipate. That's the only way any of this ends well."
He closed his eyes, and Liriel understood that he was dying—that he had come here to say goodbye, and that his death had been part of the plan all along.
She ran.
The passage Kael led her through were different from the training routes they'd used before. These were older, carved by hands that belonged to the original Order of Eternal Night. The walls hummed with ancient power, and Liriel could feel her Void Resonance responding to the echoes of centuries past. With each step deeper into the mountain, she felt the power inside her growing, expanding, as though the closer she got to the source of the seal, the more the Void wanted to be free.
"Where are we going?" she asked Kael as they ran through darkness lit only by the faint glow of his cultivation.
"Out," he said. "Away from the Sect, away from the Council, away from everyone who wants to use you."
"We can't outrun this," Liriel said. Her fingers were starting to glow now—literally glow, with an inner darkness that didn't quite fit the definition of light. "I can feel it. The Void is calling to me. The further I am from the Sect, the stronger it becomes. I'm destabilizing."
"I know," Kael said. He grabbed her hand, and she felt his Resonance anchor her, give her something to hold onto. "That's why we're not going to run forever. We're going to find somewhere safe, and then we're going to figure out how to stop this before Yun breaks the seal completely."
"And if we can't?" Liriel asked.
"Then we'll face the Void together," Kael said. "That's what the bond means."
They emerged from the mountain passage to find themselves in a forest at dusk—a place where the trees were impossibly tall, their bark silver-gray and covered with moss. A river ran nearby, and the air smelled of ancient growth and deep earth. Behind them, the mountain rose like a tooth, and Liriel could feel the seal within it pulsing like a wounded heart.
They walked through the forest for hours, not quite fleeing but not quite standing still either. Liriel's control was slipping further with each passing moment. Her power was taking on a life of its own, hungry and demanding and so beautiful it hurt to feel it.
At one point, Kael stopped.
"What is it?" Liriel asked.
"Listen," he said.
And she heard it: the sound of horses, moving fast, and the clang of armor. The Council's personal guard, following their trail.
"We have minutes," Kael said. "Maybe less."
They ran again, but they both knew there was nowhere left to run to. The guard was too fast, too numerous, too well-trained. Soon, they would be caught.
And then the trees around them began to move.
Not grow—move. They stepped aside, creating a path where no path had existed. The roots beneath Liriel's feet transformed into something like stairs, spiraling downward into the earth itself. Kael grabbed her hand and they descended, down into a cavern that smelled of deep time and deeper power.
And then the trees sealed behind them, and the sound of the guards faded to nothing.
In the darkness of the cavern, Liriel felt the Void wrap around her like an embrace.
"What did we just do?" Kael asked, his voice small and afraid.
"We went deeper," Liriel whispered. "We went toward the source of the power instead of away from it."
"What happens now?"
"Now," Liriel said, and her voice was starting to sound strange to her own ears, layered with harmonics that hadn't been there before, "we find out if I'm still human."