The first blackened claw scraped against the stone, pulling itself out of the stairwell and descending heavily into the chamber.
Then the second.
Two of the massive, black artifacts slithered forward, surrounding the prisoners in a cage of corrupted limbs.
Then the third.
As the third massive limb cleared the entrance of the stairs without anchoring itself to block the path, Ren felt a microscopic knot loosen in his chest. It wasn't nearly enough to drop his guard, but it was enough to marginally shift the odds.
If she betrayed them right now, fighting three artifacts in an open room and pushing only three in the stairs, with Sirius backing him up, was a vastly different scenario than fighting two with the same four in the suffocating bottleneck.
"Don't try to run early," Selthia called out, her voice echoing as if she had plucked the calculation right out of his head. "Really, really gonna keep my word. Just wait. Let the last one come down."
