The barracks felt different tonight.Quieter, but charged — as if the air itself was holding its breath.
Eliakim's fingers brushed the inside seam of his prison tunic, feeling the cold, invisible weight of the Bracelet of Kharuun. Inside it, every weapon they could smuggle now waited — except Caleb's bow, which the archer had reclaimed with surgical precision.
The shift change clanged through the courtyard. Two guards passed the stable without looking inside. That was the moment Eliakim moved.
He slipped through the shadows, Gideon and Ezra playing casual conversation at the barrack door, blocking the view. Inside the stable, Skyling stirred, sensing him before she saw him.
The null-binders shimmered faintly around her wings and talons. They were meant to be unbreakable — unless you had the right key. Eliakim didn't.
But he had something else.
A single shard of Godsteel, filed thin enough to slide under the cuff's locking plate. He worked in silence, his breath steady, until the first cuff gave a faint click. Skyling froze, as if understanding the need for silence. The second cuff fell away into his palm.
He pressed his forehead briefly to hers."We fly soon," he murmured in the tongue they'd invented together. She gave a low, soft cry — the kind that, for once, didn't draw laughter from nearby guards.
Outside, Caleb moved along the outer wall, his bow hidden inside a hollowed plank in the work cart. If anyone asked, he was hauling scrap wood to the pit. If no one asked, he would be carrying the one thing that mattered more than his life to freedom.
Eliakim reappeared with Skyling at his side, her magic still dormant but her claws now free.
The others were waiting. Gideon lifted the loose stone by the yard wall. Ezra went in first, hands and knees. Skyling followed, her body folding into the space with precision. Caleb slid in after, bow first.
Eliakim went last — sealing the stone just as a distant shout split the night.
The alarm bell rang a heartbeat later.
They froze.
Shouts grew louder. Torches flared across the yard. The first volley of arrows slammed into the wall above the tunnel entrance — too high to hit them, but close enough to bite the air.
They moved. Fast. Dirt shifted under their palms. The tunnel felt tighter than ever. Every scrape of cloth against stone sounded like a war drum.
Far from the prison, in the mist-shrouded sanctuary of the exiled queen, Captain Vaeryn Solthir stood near the great map table as a hooded messenger approached from the shadows.
A whisper, no more than three words, slid into his ear.
Vaeryn's expression didn't change. He turned to the queen with a courtly bow."Majesty, if you permit — I must see to a matter of supply in the eastern ridges. We cannot afford to starve the third company before the rains."
She waved him away without suspicion.
The moment he cleared the gate, his pace changed. The misted cliffs fell behind him. His mount thundered down the ravine path — not toward the ridges, but deeper into enemy-held territory.
The Dark Elf Legion awaited.