Nitron stepped through the rubble as if the house bent to make way for him. Black sigils crawled over his skin like living ink, pulsing with each measured step. His pale eyes locked onto Elma, unblinking, and the corridor seemed to shrink around his presence.
"Vessel," he said, voice thick with contempt. "You think a shard makes you free? The leash is not a chain of iron. It is your blood. You were made for me."
Elma's chest burned, veins lit with fire that answered him with every heartbeat. The shard roared inside her, not with submission but with rage. Her body trembled under the weight of it, but she lifted her chin.
"I'm not yours."
The denial cracked the air like a whip.
Calista slid forward until she stood at Elma's side, every inch the queen she had always been in secret. "And you never owned me," she said, her voice like glass shattering. "Look at your perfect leash now, Nitron. Broken. Worthless."
For a moment, the mask of icy composure slipped. Nitron's jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing to slits. His hand lifted, and the walls screamed.
The corridor convulsed. Chandeliers tore free, crashing down in showers of iron and flame. Servants shrieked in the distance as the house groaned under the violence of its master.
Elma staggered, but the shard answered in a rush of white-hot light. It burst through her palms, a wave of energy that shattered the falling wreckage into dust before it could strike. The backlash scorched her arms, smoke rising from her fingertips.
Nitron only smiled. A jagged, unhinged smile.
"Good," he murmured. "Burn yourself out for me."
The shard's whisper hissed in Elma's mind, clearer than ever:
Take him. Break him. Burn the throne until nothing remains.
Her vision blurred, edges of the world searing white. For a heartbeat, she could see it—Nitron on his knees, the house aflame, Calista's hand gripping hers as they stood over the ruins. Desire, rebellion, hunger—indistinguishable.
"Elma!"
Calista's voice cut through the haze, grounding her. Fingers wrapped tight around her wrist, steady, pulling her back from the brink. Their eyes met—Calista's dark, commanding, achingly human.
"Stay with me," she said. Not an order. A plea.
Elma dragged in a breath. "Always."
Nitron's fury snapped the moment. He surged forward, the floor splitting beneath his boots as sigils erupted around him. The leash's phantom form materialized in his grasp—an ethereal chain of light, jagged and pulsing. He hurled it toward Elma.
For an instant, she felt it tighten across her throat, phantom links digging into her skin. The memory of servitude, of nights bent and broken under his command, flooded back.
But then the shard screamed—defiance made flesh. The chain snapped like glass. Sparks burst into the air, scattering like dying stars.
Nitron froze.
Elma's glow burned brighter, veins blazing from collarbone to wrist. She straightened, shoulders squared, fire pouring from her in waves.
"The leash is gone," she said, her voice a raw snarl. "And so are you."
Calista's smile was sharp enough to cut. "Your reign ends in the Tower, husband. Try and follow—if you dare."
They didn't wait for his reply. Hand in hand, they turned and ran, the Tower's silhouette burning ahead through the fractured halls.
Behind them, Nitron roared—a sound not of command but of something breaking.
The hunter's mask was gone. What followed them now was wrath.