The corridors felt as though they were stretching, an impossible geometry of lengthening shadows and endless doorways.
Every turn she took felt like a gamble she was losing. Terror, cold and sharp as an icicle, wedged itself beneath her ribs.
What if she was already too late? What if the scratching she had heard wasn't just a premonition, but a memory in the making?
She refused to think it. She slammed the door on the image of a broken nursery, focusing instead on the singular, golden point of Rael's face.
Behind her, the palace continued to die. The roar of the serpent, the thunder of Soren's desperate ice, and the crashing of masonry formed a distant, horrific symphony.
She saw maids huddled in alcoves, weeping into their hands, and nobles stumbling over their own finery in a blind quest for shelter. She didn't stop. She couldn't. She had tunnel vision, a narrow, burning path that led only to her son.
