The cavern still throbbed with echoes of the Wraith Choir's song when Moro moved forward. His body rippled, his form flowing from humanoid shape to a hulking wolf-beast, his liquid mass swelling until his claws scraped the stone. His amber eyes burned bright.
But they weren't on Kael.
They were locked on Reina.
"You," Moro's voice resonated, deep and distorted, as though spoken through water. "I can smell it. The dungeon is in you. Thick, rotting. You speak of freedom, but you reek of chains."
Reina tilted her head, unbothered, her golden eyes flashing like a predator's. "Careful, slime. You bare fangs at one who allowed you to keep your shape."
"Allowed?" Moro snarled, his body boiling, his form half-wolf, half-liquid. Fangs dripped with black slime. "You wrapped Kael in hunger! You are no savior—you're another leash."
Kael's claws tightened around his living weapon, heart hammering. Leash. The word struck like a knife. He could almost hear the Choir whispering it, reminding him that every bond he held could also strangle him.
Reina's lips curved in a blade-thin smile. "Better a leash he chooses than one strangled around his neck since childhood." Her gaze flicked toward Kael. The challenge in her voice wasn't for Moro—it was for him.
Moro lunged.
The cavern exploded into violence. His slime-body twisted as he struck, claws lashing out, body flowing like liquid shadow. Reina's golden arms flared into curved blades, clashing against Moro's strikes in a storm of sparks. Where Moro's blows landed, the stone hissed as if corroded; where Reina struck, the air rang with music like a battle hymn.
Chains burst from the ground, slamming into the stone and binding the battlefield into a circle. The Wraith Choir melted into the walls, leaving behind laughter that wormed into Kael's skull.
Kael staggered back, breath ragged. He watched his oldest companion—the one who had clung to him since he was a broken child in the dungeon—tear into Reina, who claimed to guide him. Both were fighting for him. Both could destroy him.
His living weapon pulsed, whispering in his skull: Choose. One to cut. One to keep.
Kael bared his fangs, torn apart.
Reina's blades whirled, slicing through slime-tentacles Moro sprouted from his shoulders. "See, Kael?" she shouted. "He fights like the dungeon's slave! Instinct alone, chained to hunger, never free!"
Moro's laugh was guttural, bubbling. He lashed out, his body expanding and snapping back like a whip. "And you? You'd have him drown in hunger until he's nothing but your puppet! You are a chain in gold!"
Kael's stomach burned. His past, his present, his future—torn between two truths that strangled him both.
And then—another shape entered.
From the ground, a wolf erupted. Not flesh, not slime. Chains made its ribs, shadow its fur, fire its eyes. It was not Moro, not Reina.
It was the dungeon.
The chain-wolf lunged—not at Moro or Reina—but at Kael. Its fangs sank into his shadow.
Kael screamed, his chest burning as if his soul had been pierced. The wolf pulled something from him, something small, trembling, bleeding light.
A child.
A boy with wide eyes, skinny limbs, wearing rags that stank of fear and blood. His voice cracked as he cried:
"Stop! Don't fight! Please, don't leave me alone again!"
Lyra gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "That's… that's him. Kael. From before the dungeon."
The chain-wolf released the boy, who stumbled forward, eyes locked on Kael's beastly form.
Kael's throat tightened. His younger self. The child who had been dragged screaming into the dark, who had clawed and bitten to survive. The boy he thought he'd buried.
Reina froze mid-strike. Moro's form wavered, slime dripping, his eyes dimming.
The dungeon's voice trembled through the cavern, deeper than stone:
Chains are not only iron. Chains are hunger. Chains are loyalty. Chains are the past. Which will you break, Kael?
The living blade throbbed in his hand, hot as fire. It whispered, Cut. Choose. Feed me.
Kael's younger self shook his head, tears streaking his dirt-stained face. "No. Don't choose either. Don't be like me. Break them both."
The cavern split with a howl. The chain-wolf lunged for the boy.
Kael roared, his fangs bared, and leapt. His blade screamed with hunger, clashing against the wolf's chains in a shockwave that shattered the stone.
Not Moro. Not Reina.
This time, Kael chose himself.