They didn't go back through Orrin's corridors.
They went out the way blood goes—fast, ugly, and hard to stop.
Stellan wrapped his forearm in torn cloth and kept moving. Mireya kept her Silence tight enough to blur their escape without making the wards scream. Tess didn't ask questions when they stumbled into her cellar again.
She took one look at Mireya's face, one look at Stellan's bleeding hand, and said, "Sit."
Mireya sat.
Stellan didn't—until his knees betrayed him and he dropped onto a crate with a sharp inhale.
Tess tossed a cloth at Mireya. "Throat."
Mireya wiped. Blood. Always blood.
Tess's eyes flicked to Stellan. "And you?"
Stellan's voice was flat. "Later."
Tess snorted. "Men."
Mireya didn't laugh. She couldn't. Her bones still buzzed from mirrored pain. Her head still swam from the handoff. Her skin felt too close to her body, like it didn't fit right anymore.
Tess pointed at the trapdoor. "Sleep. Both of you. You look haunted."
Mireya's mouth tightened. "We don't sleep."
Tess raised a brow. "Then die awake. Your choice."
Stellan's voice came low. "We need a few hours."
Mireya shot him a look.
He didn't flinch. "Try."
She hated that she didn't argue.
They lay down on opposite sides of the cellar, backs to shelves, coats pulled tight. Tess left the lantern low and climbed out without another word.
The trapdoor shut.
Darkness settled.
Mireya tightened her Silence out of habit—then let it go. No point. The cellar was already quiet enough to hear your own blood.
Stellan's breathing evened out first.
Of course it did.
He was the kind of man who could sleep in a war.
Mireya stared at the ceiling beams until her eyes burned.
Then the bond tugged.
Soft at first. Like a thread caught on a nail.
Then harder.
A pull behind her eyes. A taste in her mouth she didn't recognize. Pine smoke and cold air.
Stellan.
Mireya's stomach rolled.
"No," she whispered, and meant it like an order.
The Concord didn't care.
Her eyelids went heavy anyway.
And the dark changed.
***
Snow under boots.
Not her boots.
Too big. Too heavy. Moving through a forest that smelled like sap and iron.
Stellan's forest.
Mireya tried to open her eyes and found she already had.
Only the eyes weren't hers.
Everything was too sharp. Too wide. Too… alive.
A boy's hands held a spear.
Not Stellan's hands.
Smaller. Trembling.
First hunt.
Mireya felt Stellan's memory like cold water poured down her spine.
A man's voice came from behind the boy. Rough. Patient.
"Don't chase the noise," the voice said. "Chase the beat."
The boy—Stellan—swallowed hard. "I can't see it."
"You can," the man replied. "You're just scared."
Mireya tasted the fear. Young and raw. Bitter as bark.
Stellan's fear.
She tried to step back out of it.
The dream didn't let her.
The boy's breath steamed in the air. His fingers tightened on the spear until the wood creaked.
A rustle in the brush.
Not sound.
Pulse.
A wrong rhythm.
Beat, beat, pause, beatbeat
The boy's eyes widened.
Mireya felt the boy's heart slam against his ribs like it wanted out.
Then the brush parted.
A Hollowbeast crawled out low to the ground, skin stretched too tight over bone, eyes too bright. It moved like it had forgotten how bodies were supposed to work.
The boy froze.
The mentor's voice stayed calm. "Now. Before it learns you're prey."
Mireya's stomach dropped.
Because the mentor didn't say kill it.
He said before it learns.
Mercy as timing. Mercy as violence.
The boy lifted the spear.
His hands shook.
Then,
A voice slid into the scene that didn't belong.
Soft. Controlled. Female.
"Good boy."
Mireya's voice.
Except she hadn't spoken.
The boy jerked, confusion flashing.
The Hollowbeast snapped its head toward him.
It lunged.
The spear went up too late.
Claws hit flesh.
Pain flashed through Mireya's ribs—Stellan's pain, old pain, remembered pain—so sharp it made the dream blur.
The boy screamed—
No sound came out.
Silence swallowed it.
Mireya's Silence.
The dream stitched her into his memory like she'd always been there.
***
Stone under knees.
Cold iron around wrists.
Mireya's wrists.
Her cell.
Only it wasn't the Sun Palace dungeon.
It was smaller. Meaner. A room built to teach obedience.
A candle burned low. Wax pooled. Shadows crawled.
A woman knelt across from her, hair pinned tight, coat plain, hands clean. Ministry clean.
Handler.
The woman held a bowl of broth.
Hot broth. Salt and onion. Soft bread sinking into it.
Mireya's stomach clenched with want.
The woman smiled. "Eat."
Mireya, small, younger reached for the bowl.
A hand caught her wrist.
Not the handlers.
A boy's hand.
Small. Warm. Shaking.
Stellan's hand.
Mireya jerked her head up.
In the dream, a boy stood beside the handler. Not Stellan as he was now—Stellan as a child, eyes too old, face smudged with ash.
He looked at Mireya like he knew her.
Like he'd been ordered to.
The handler's voice was gentle. "Show her."
The boy's lips moved.
Mireya heard his words through her own ears like they were inside her skull.
"Trust her," the boy said.
Mireya's young self frowned. "Trust who?"
The boy looked at the handler.
Then he looked back at Mireya, and his face did that blank thing, steady hands, empty expression, even as a child.
"Trust her," he repeated.
Mireya's throat tightened.
Because she remembered this part.
Not the boy.
But the moment.
Someone telling her to trust.
Someone smiling while holding the leash.
The handler reached out, thumb brushing Mireya's cheek like affection.
"Good girl," she whispered. "Prove it."
A door opened behind the handler.
A second child stepped into the candlelight.
A girl. Barefoot. Eyes wide.
Friend.
Mireya's friend.
The friend's mouth formed Mireya's name.
But it didn't sound right in the dream.
It sounded like two names stacked wrong.
"Mire—Ves—"
The handler cut in, calm. "Which one do you save?"
Mireya's young self shook her head. "What."
The handler smiled. "One of you leaves this room."
Mireya's chest tightened so hard it hurt.
Stellan's chest tightened too—mirrored, confused, trapped inside her memory now.
The friend started crying. "Vesper—please—"
Vesper.
The word hit the air like a brand.
Mireya tried to deny it.
The Concord flared.
Pressure behind her eyes.
Lie.
She saw Stellan's reaction inside the dream like a ripple—his attention snapping to the name, the way his pulse jumped.
He didn't ask questions.
He couldn't.
The dream didn't let him.
The handler placed a small knife on the floor between Mireya and her friend.
"Choose," she said softly. "Prove you can."
Mireya's hand moved toward the knife.
Her fingers hovered.
She didn't want to do it.
She did it anyway.
Because the room was built to make "anyway" feel like the only option.
The dream blurred.
The forest flashed.
The Hollowbeast's claws.
The boy's blood.
The dungeon's iron.
The broth taste—hot and loved—draining out of her mouth like someone stealing it.
Everything stitched together, wrong.
Then a new shape stepped into the seam.
Not Orrin.
Not the handler.
Not Stellan's mentor.
A boy-shaped shadow.
No face. Just outline. Child height, adult stillness.
It stood between forest and cell like it owned both.
Mireya tried to speak.
No sound.
Stellan tried to move.
No control.
The shadow leaned closer.
And the voice that came out of it was gentle. Devout. Certain.
"You were always meant to be bound."