Elaine followed one step behind Caldwell as the corridor narrowed and the lighting shifted from the warm, civilian-neutral white of the upper levels to the colder, harder illumination reserved for containment and research. This wing always smelled faintly of antiseptic and ozone, a scent she associated with control, process, and the satisfaction of systems behaving as designed. Today, it grated on her nerves.

  She had been overruled.

  The realization sat like a shard of ice between her ribs. She had argued for separation—methodical isolation, controlled variables, distance. Eric in one direction, Celeste in another. Observe, test, compare, repeat. That approach yielded clarity. Instead, Caldwell had chosen concession, and concession always came with cost.

  Her jaw tightened as her gaze drifted forward to the woman with the long ears walking under armed escort.

  The ears drew the eye in spite of Elaine’s effort to ignore them. They moved subtly with each step, expressive in a way human anatomy never allowed. Cartilage structure alone could not account for it. Muscle groups, perhaps. Neural control adaptations. Elaine catalogued possibilities automatically, the irritation in her chest transmuting into curiosity with sharp edges.

  A biological anomaly wrapped in cultural confidence. Interesting.

  They reached the elevator, a wide industrial platform designed for equipment transport rather than comfort. Armed personnel took positions along the walls, boots planted, rifles angled down but ready. The doors slid shut with a muted thud, sealing them inside a steel box descending deep into Groom Lake’s understructure.

  Silence stretched.

  Elaine broke it deliberately.

  “So,” she said, voice light, almost conversational, “what exactly is it about your biology that allows for ears like that?”

  The reaction came instantly.

  Caldwell turned his head toward her, slow and incredulous, a look crossing his face that carried the weight of a reprimand without a single word spoken. Mike stiffened a half-step behind the detainees, posture shifting from guarded to coiled. One of the guards glanced between them, uncertain.

  Celeste answered anyway.

  “They belong to my people,” she said evenly. “As does the rest of me.”

  Inaria snorted, sharp and humorless. “Ah yes, people. A proud legacy from genocidal murderers.”

  Elaine noted the spike of tension with clinical interest. Celeste’s shoulders remained steady, breath controlled, expression carefully neutral. Inaria, by contrast, radiated agitation—energy leaking from her stance, her jaw set hard enough to creak.

  Elaine inclined her head slightly, as if conceding the point. “Fascinating,” she murmured. “Cultural markers expressed physically. Efficient, really. Saves time in first impressions.”

  Mike shot her a look she chose to ignore.

  The elevator hummed as it descended. One of the younger soldiers cleared his throat, nerves bleeding through professionalism. “So… magic,” he ventured, attempting levity. “That’s really a—”

  “Professionalism,” Caldwell snapped, cutting him off without raising his voice. “You’re soldiers, not media. Eyes forward. Mouths shut.”

  The soldier swallowed and complied.

  Elaine smiled faintly. Stress response noted. Authority reasserted. Caldwell played his role well when he chose to.

  The elevator slowed. A soft chime sounded as the doors slid open, revealing the lab level—glass, steel, and reinforced observation bays stretching down a long corridor. Personnel moved with purpose, tablets in hand, voices low and urgent.

  A staffer approached at a near jog, eyes flicking to Elaine first. “Ma’am. The situation has escalated.”

  Elaine did not break stride. “Define escalated.”

  “You’ll want to see it.”

  They reached the observation window.

  Elaine’s breath caught before she allowed herself to mask it.

  Eric lay on the gurney beyond the glass, restrained by distance rather than hardware. The gurney itself bore the scars of proximity—edges eaten away, metal thinned as though eroded by time accelerated to violence. Black tendrils passed through his body in slow, sinuous arcs, phasing in and out of flesh and matter alike, extending farther than before. Each movement left absence behind.

  Celeste went pale.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh no.”

  Caldwell folded his arms, eyes never leaving the scene. “We honored our agreement,” he said. “You’ve seen him. Talk to me. What’s happening?”

  Celeste’s gaze remained fixed on Eric. “His power is destabilizing.”

  Elaine leaned closer to the glass, mind racing. The tendrils responded subtly to environmental stimuli—light shifts, electromagnetic noise from nearby equipment. Patterns emerged when viewed long enough.

  Tools failing. Systems blind. Something present and yet unreachable.

  Opportunity.

  Elaine straightened, already recalibrating. Whatever that man was, whatever he carried inside him, it lay beyond the reach of her instruments.

  Which meant she needed another way in.

  Her eyes slid back to Celeste, thoughtful now rather than antagonistic.

  And the pieces began to align.

  Inaria stood three steps back from the glass, far enough to breathe, close enough to feel it.

  The thing on the other side of the barrier refused to stay still. Black tendrils slid through the man’s body in slow, searching arcs, phasing through flesh, bone, and metal alike. Each pass stripped something away. The gurney beneath him bore shallow hollows where solid matter once existed, edges scalloped and uneven, as if reality itself had been gnawed rather than cut.

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  Her stomach twisted.

  She had seen death before. She had seen battlefields after the fighting ended, bodies stacked where they fell, armor torn open by blade and spell alike. This felt different. This felt patient. Hungry.

  Inaria’s hand curled into a fist at her side as memory surged unbidden—creatures swallowed whole, erased mid-stride, their screams cut short by the same dark, reaching shapes. She had watched warriors far stronger than herself vanish into nothing under that power.

  And now it lay contained behind glass, wearing a human shape.

  Her eyes flicked to Celeste.

  The elf-woman’s face had drained of color, lips pressed thin as she stared through the window. Fear radiated from her in tight, controlled bands. Not panic. Recognition.

  Caldwell’s voice carried from beside her. “You said his power is destabilizing. Explain.”

  Celeste swallowed. “This level of spread means he’s losing internal cohesion. The drain isn’t balancing anymore.”

  Elaine stepped closer to the glass, eyes sharp with interest rather than fear. “You’ve seen this before.”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  Celeste hesitated, then exhaled. “Long ago.”

  Inaria snorted softly. “Convenient.”

  Celeste did not turn. “Accurate.”

  Elaine’s gaze shifted, not offended, merely recalculating. “Then you’ll also know what happens if it continues.”

  “Yes,” Celeste said quietly. “Everything nearby becomes fuel.”

  The word struck Inaria harder than she expected.

  Fuel.

  The tendrils lengthened another handspan, sweeping through the air with lazy intent. A nearby equipment cart shuddered as a corner simply ceased to exist.

  A technician swore under his breath.

  Elaine lifted a hand. “Back the staff away from the glass.”

  The order came fast, practiced. People moved.

  Inaria felt suddenly small.

  Elaine turned toward Celeste. “You said you had tools.”

  Celeste nodded once and reached for the plate affixed to her thigh. Her fingers tapped a precise sequence, and space folded.

  Inaria sucked in a sharp breath.

  The air rippled, then opened, revealing a dark aperture rimmed with faint light. Celeste’s arm vanished into it up to the elbow, emerging with a compact, angular device Inaria recognized instantly.

  A mana reader.

  The same kind they had used before. The same kind Inaria carried.

  Every eye in the room fixed on the impossible storage space. One guard raised his weapon instinctively.

  Caldwell caught the barrel mid-lift and pressed it down with calm authority. “No. Stand down.”

  Elaine’s pupils dilated. Not fear. Interest.

  Celeste turned toward Inaria at last. “I need yours.”

  Inaria crossed her arms. “You forget yourself.”

  “We need both.”

  “I owe you nothing.”

  Celeste’s gaze hardened. “Look again.”

  She gestured toward the window.

  The tendrils writhed, brushing closer to the glass now, their movement gaining subtle urgency. The air vibrated faintly, a pressure Inaria felt against her scales and bones alike.

  “You saw what happened earlier,” Celeste continued. “You saw what this power does when it meets resistance. If this facility fails to contain him, nobody here escapes. Not you. Not them. Not me.”

  Inaria’s throat tightened.

  She remembered the way the void had carved through living bodies without slowing. Remembered the silence afterward.

  Elaine watched the exchange closely, head tilted. “You’re saying these devices can tell you something my instruments can’t.”

  “They measure mana directly,” Celeste said. “Not energy. Not emissions. Presence.”

  Elaine’s lips parted slightly. “Of course they do.”

  Inaria clenched her jaw. She hated this. Hated helping her. Hated that the logic pressed in from every side.

  She reached for the plate at her own thigh.

  The room seemed to hold its breath as she tapped the sequence.

  Space folded again.

  A second aperture opened, mirroring Celeste’s. Inaria drew her mana reader free, its familiar weight grounding her even as fear coiled tight in her chest.

  Celeste met her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Inaria said flatly. “If this goes wrong, I will kill you myself.”

  Celeste inclined her head. “Fair.”

  Beyond the glass, the tendrils surged.

  And the clock resumed ticking.

  The room held its breath as Inaria’s dimstore flared to life.

  A second mana reader emerged from the violet distortion, solidifying in her hand with visible reluctance. She passed it to Celeste without ceremony, her expression tight, eyes flicking once toward the writhing tendrils spreading across Eric’s body.

  Celeste took it immediately.

  Her gaze swept the room. “I need precision tools,” she said. “Small. Fine-edged. Something meant for delicate separation.”

  One of the soldiers reacted before the words fully settled.

  He reached to his vest, produced a worn Gerber multi-tool, and stepped forward, offering it hilt-first.

  Caldwell turned on him. “What do you think you’re—”

  “You heard her, sir,” the soldier said evenly. “If she can’t stabilize this, nobody walks out. I’ve got a date tonight. I’d like to be there for it.”

  The room paused on that.

  Elaine stared at the soldier as if he’d insulted her. “We’re standing in front of the single greatest scientific discovery in human history,” she said. “And you’re worried about dinner?”

  The soldier shrugged. “You’ve got your priorities, ma’am. I’ve got mine.”

  Elaine dismissed him with a sharp exhale. He remained completely unbothered.

  Celeste accepted the tool without comment and moved to the table, laying both mana readers open. Her hands worked with speed and certainty, crystal matrices lifted, rotated, slotted together in configurations that bore no resemblance to their original design.

  She glanced once at Eric.

  The void tendrils stretched farther now—three feet at their longest reach—passing through steel, air, matter alike. Chunks of the gurney lay missing where they had been devoured mid-extension.

  Her expression tightened.

  “This is escalating,” she said. “And you are making it worse.”

  Elaine folded her arms. “By observing?”

  “By feeding him,” Celeste replied.

  She finished the reassembly and activated the device.

  The projection shifted.

  Numbers resolved across the air between them.

  Current Mana Reserves: 28%

  Baseline Recovery: Unstable

  External Intake: Ongoing

  Rachel stepped closer, eyes alight. “What is this telling us?"

  “Five percent is the amount of mana Oryx had amassed when I first tested him upon the early portion of my arrival in your realm,” Celeste said. “ He was, all things considered, barely alive.”

  Elaine’s jaw set. “And now he’s climbed past twenty-five while unconscious.”

  “Yes,” Celeste said. “Because he consumes energy.”

  The display scrolled.

  A wireframe expanded through Eric’s body—iridescent, layered, alive. Colors crawled along the channels in structured patterns, intersecting where they should not, binding where flow should have remained free.

  Rachel frowned. “Those lines don’t behave like circulation.”

  “They aren’t circulation,” Celeste replied. “They are restraint.”

  Elaine’s eyes narrowed. “Restraint on what, exactly?”

  Celeste did not answer immediately. She adjusted the scan parameters, then gestured toward the lattice.

  “If these channels were active,” she said, “you would see only void. One color. One path.”

  Her fingers traced the spectrum now visible.

  “Instead, you see many. Each color represents an alignment—Embaria, Galea, Terra, Tidea. Paths one is born to. Paths one remains bound to for life.”

  Rachel tilted her head. “So everyone gets one?”

  “Yes.”

  “And deviation?”

  Celeste’s mouth curved faintly. “Traditionally, none.”

  Elaine stepped in. “Traditionally?”

  “There are exceptions.”

  The projection shifted again.

  Elaine studied it. “You’re telling me he’s one of those exceptions.”

  Celeste shook her head once. “No.”

  Her voice lowered.

  “This is not what he is.”

  She highlighted the lattice.

  “This is what has been done to him.”

  Rachel’s breath caught. “You speak as if he’s imprisoned.”

  “He is.”

  Elaine scoffed. “By unconsciousness? Fatigue?”

  Celeste scrolled.

  A new section appeared.

  Seals of Bahamir:

  — Seal I: Fractured

  — Seal II: Active

  — Seal III: Active

  The first designation bore a clean rupture, torn through as if by force.

  Silence spread.

  Elaine finally asked, “Bahamir.”

  Celeste turned.

  “Who,” she corrected.

  Her posture straightened, authority settling into her frame.

  “Bahamir is King of the Western Dragons,” she said. “Ruler of one third of all Nytheris. Sovereign by conquest, by law, and by blood.”

  Her gaze returned to Eric.

  “And king,” she finished, “to myself and to Oryx.”

  The room remained still.

  The seals glowed, and the void stirred.