17 Chapter 17 – Dungeon Resurgence
Cyr sat alone in the healing wing, blood drying on his hands. Every healer in the North had tried-her pulse had stopped. Her lungs had fallen still.
Cyr saw red.
Didn’t flinch.
*Her.*
The rebels armed themselves. “We’ll need a diversion.”
He moved like a phantom through the ravaged villages, past smoldering wagons and silent camps.
Deep below High Warden Palace, in a cell carved of obsidian and nullifying wards,
Eileen stirred.
Just silence.
He dropped two with spinning slashes. Blocked a third with his forearm. Braces
cracked but held.
Cyr stood in the sewers beneath the palace, hand pressed to a runed wall.
He closed his eyes.
The governor turned. “Prince Ulmir. Or should I say-traitor of the North.”
“They’re taking her south. Underground”
He tossed aside his sword.
Cyr gritted his teeth. “The governor.”
The sound wasn’t a song.
He reached the cage.
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“I’ll give you one.”
“Then we move tonight.”
Cyr knocked him out cold and ran.
Varek hesitated. “To drain her. Harvest her blood. Use her voice.”
“You want her gift?” he growled. “Then you’ll take it over my dead body.”
“How long?”
Above, the palace burned.
No decay. No rigor. No cold.
Fire exploded into the lower hall.
“Three days before the first extraction. Maybe less.”
–
“She’s in High Warden Palace,” the rebel leader whispered. “Deep underground. The governor’s private lab.”
He felt it.
He tapped her gag.
Too silent.
The governor screamed, blood pouring from his ears.
“She’s not gone,” he whispered. “She’s *not gone.*”
Varek entered, voice low. “She’s missing”
But her body remained… *intact.*
He kissed her forehead. “Let’s go home.”
The man stammered. “Ch-chamber thirteen-below the ritual gate!”
No longer ghosts.
Cyr stepped forward, drew his brother’s sword, and sliced through the seal.
Below, two fugitives walked out of the dark-
Cyr stood, rage blazing through pain. “Get me a cloak. A sword. And the rebels.”
A resonance wave shattered every pylon in the dungeon.
He reached the obsidian hall as the governor’s mages began their extraction chant.
Inside the palace, nobles screamed as wolves in ash-black cloaks surged from hidden
corridors.
“There were no witnesses,” Varek continued grimly. “But the residue on her bed-the resonance field-it’s imperial.”
Whispered.
She gasped.
Cyr caught Eileen as she collapsed into his arms.
Chains bound her wrists. A gag sewn with silencing runes pressed against her mouth.
“Why?”
The alarm bells never had a chance to ring.
He tore the gag from Eileen’s mouth.
Faster than pain. Faster than thought.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “You held on.”
Ten guards charged.
Guards dropped, twitching. Metal bent. Stone cracked.
Cyr led the charge.
The governor smirked. “Gladly.”
“She’s still alive,” Cyr said. “And I’m going to bring her home.”
–
Silver mist already rose from Eileen’s skin.
Cyr gripped his blade tighter.
“You can’t fight like this—”
“Soon we’ll bottle you. Feed a thousand armies. Break every pack’s will with your gift”
But a storm.
It was *vengeance.*
“I’m not here for politics,” Cyr said, voice cold. “I’m here for *her.*”
Like her gift was holding her in a liminal state-between breath and memory.
He tore through guards, braces sparking. The air trembled with each blow.
Drew a short dagger.
Hand in hand.
A faint thrum built beneath the stone-undetectable to most.
–
And the walls exploded.
But she was already singing.
The governor stood beyond the bars, flanked by mages.
Slammed his palm into the rune-lock.
And her fury burned colder than the stone.
A whisper pulsing through his bones like a heartbeat.
“Fascinating” he murmured. “The Silverblood refuses to rot.”
“*Where is she?*” he roared, blade pressed to an officer’s throat.
*Inside.*
It shattered with a spark.
“She’s above us,” he breathed. “Seventh level.”
Her eyes fluttered-conscious, but too weak to move.
He snapped his fingers.
She didn’t blink.
“*Step away.*”
That night, Cyr left Frostfall behind, disguised in ash-stained armor, face hidden beneath a broken guard helm.
Every movement precise. Lethal.
The war room fell still.
–
The Citadel was silent.
But not to one man.
Her voice was barely audible. “I followed your heartbeat.”
“Gone. Before sunrise. Her body. Taken.”
The resistance-wolves who still bore the Starshade crest in secret-met him in the ruins of a chapel.
But her eyes opened.
Cyr’s head snapped up. “What?”
Cyr moved.
