The walk back through the palace was a journey through a graveyard of memories, each stone corridor a monument to a life spent in frozen isolation.
Soren moved with a clinical, automatic grace, his boots striking the floor in a rhythm that felt detached from his physical body.
His mind was a frantic loom, replaying Vetra's words until the fibers of his sanity began to fray. A dragon. A wearing core. A matter of time.
The syllables looped like a dirge, suffocating and relentless. He ascended the stairs from the dungeon, the air growing warmer but his blood remaining a stagnant, icy slurry.
Vetra had finally done what no battlefield enemy could; she had found the one truth capable of paralyzing him.
The impending death of Eris wasn't just a possibility anymore; it was a countdown, a mechanical ticking deep within the red-gold hearth of her chest that he was powerless to halt.
