Mireya waited for the corridor to breathe like boredom again.
Guards had rhythms.
Stomping meant they wanted to sound important. Shuffling meant they were tired. Too-still meant they were listening. The smart ones tried to sound like nothing at all—until they wanted you to forget they were there.
Right now: bored.
Good.
A bored guard was a predictable guard. Predictable meant survivable.
Mireya sat with her back to stone, wrists chained low, chin dipped like she was conserving strength. She let her breathing slow just enough to look weak—just enough to invite underestimation.
Not enough to actually become it.
Her shoulder pulsed with borrowed pain—faint now, like an echo after a strike.
Not hers.
Stellan's.
The fact that it still existed meant he was still moving somewhere. Still alive. Still attached to a body that could hurt.
Mireya needed more than alive.
She needed terms. Direction. A way out of this cell before the interrogator returned with tools and patience.
The torch hissed once, a small spit of resin.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Somewhere beyond the wall, a rat scratched. A chain farther down the hall rattled and then went quiet, like someone had shifted in sleep.
The two boots outside her door stayed put.
Bored. Stationary. Half paying attention.
Mireya let her eyes unfocus as if she was staring at nothing. She let her Silence settle close to her skin—tight, careful. She didn't blanket the room; too much magic in a dungeon always invited questions. She only stole the things that mattered most.
Her breath. The tiny swallow in her throat. The small sounds that told predators she was awake.
Then she tested the link.
Not with emotion. Emotion was sloppy.
With observation.
She closed her eyes.
Forest canopy.
Bright sky through leaves. Wind moving branches. A leather strap across a chest.
Stellan's shoulder.
And there it was again—pain, deep and dull, the ache of ribs arguing with every breath.
So close it felt like her own.
Mireya held that view for a beat longer than last time, until nausea started to creep in.
Then she opened her eyes.
Dungeon.
Torch. Stone. Bucket.
Her stomach rolled. She forced it down.
The link wasn't a hallucination. It had rules. And if it had rules, it could be used.
She couldn't speak. Not safely. Not now.
But she could make a sound small enough to vanish into prison noise.
A signal.
Mireya shifted her shoulders, letting her hair fall forward to shadow her mouth from the door slit. Her gaze slid to the chain ring bolted into the wall.
Iron. Solid. Good resonance.
She hooked a finger into the chain ring and pulled it taut—just enough tension to make the wall answer. Not enough to rattle like panic.
She let the corridor noise continue. Let the guards stay bored.
Then—
Tap. Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
Long pause.
Tap.
A Ministry cipher drilled into muscle. Not taught to be pretty. Taught to be survivable.
IDENTIFY.
Mireya held still after the last tap, face blank, shoulders slack. The best spies looked tired when they were most awake.
Nothing happened.
No barked order. No key turn.
Good.
She repeated it once, identical spacing.
Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap… pause… Tap.
Then she stopped. Hands relaxed. Head lowered.
Listen.
The corridor remained bored.
One guard shifted his weight. Leather creaked softly. The other exhaled, long and slow, like he was trying to stay awake and failing.
Mireya didn't allow herself to feel relief yet.
Signals were only useful if they were received.
She closed her eyes again.
Forest.
Stellan's hut flickered in, but only in pieces. Rough rafters. Smoke haze. A plank on a table dusted with ash.
His hand—large, steady despite injury—hovered over the ash like he was about to write a confession.
Mireya's pulse quickened.
Not panic.
Focus.
Her shoulder pain throbbed once—his ribs complaining as he shifted. He was close enough to a table to write. Close enough to do something deliberate.
She opened her eyes.
Dungeon.
The torch hissed again.
Mireya waited, motionless, until her breathing settled back into "weak."
Then she heard it.
Not from the corridor.
Not from the torch.
A sound inside her skull, faint as a thread pulled tight.
Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap… pause… Tap.
The same pattern.
Returned.
Mireya didn't move. If she reacted too fast, the guards would notice. If she smiled, she'd give herself away.
But inside, something in her tightened and held.
He heard her.
And he answered in the only way he could.
Mireya closed her eyes and leaned into the link, careful not to drown in it.
Ash board. Charcoal. A hand scratching large block letters that formed slowly, stubbornly, as if the man didn't trust flourishes.
WHO ARE YOU?
The letters looked crude.
They also looked honest.
Mireya watched them form and forced her mind to stay cold.
Names were power. Names were leverage. Names were traps.
But right now, she needed contact more than she needed pride.
She opened her eyes and stared at the stone wall like she was staring into it.
Then she tapped again—shorter this time. Not a full cipher sentence. A controlled reply.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A pause.
Tap.
Not IDENTIFY.
A question mark made with rhythm.
You heard me?
She waited.
—
Stellan heard the tapping again inside his skull.
Not from the hearth. Not from the door.
Inside.
Tap. Tap. Tap… pause… tap.
A response.
His skin went cold, then hot.
He stared at the ash board like it might suddenly speak back.
Mave stood across the hut with her arms folded, watching him like he was an idiot she loved anyway.
"It's her again," Mave said, flat.
Stellan nodded once.
He didn't trust his voice not to shake. He didn't trust himself not to say something stupid like I'm in someone else's head.
The banquet noise was gone now. Thank the gods. In its place was this—clean, deliberate contact.
Pattern.
Meaning.
Mave's eyes narrowed. "You're hearing… tapping."
Stellan's jaw flexed. "Yeah."
"And you're writing in ash because you think she can see it."
Stellan didn't look up. "Yeah."
Mave let out a breath through her nose. "You've finally lost your mind."
Stellan dragged the plank closer anyway. Spread the ash smoother with his palm.
"If you're wrong," Mave said, voice sharper now, "you're scaring yourself for nothing."
Stellan picked up the charcoal and wrote slower, more careful this time:
YES.
He paused. Stared at it. Then added:
CAN YOU SEE THIS.
Mave leaned forward, squinting at the words like she could force them to make sense. "So what, you just… talk to her with dirt."
"Try," Stellan muttered before he could stop himself.
Mave blinked. "What did you say."
Stellan swallowed. "Nothing."
Mave's eyes narrowed. "You keep saying that. Like it's your favorite prayer."
Stellan didn't answer. He didn't have one.
The tapping came again. Faster now, less cautious.
Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap. Tap.
Stellan froze.
Not because he understood the cipher.
Because he understood urgency.
Mave saw his face change and snapped, "What."
Stellan listened.
The taps stopped mid-pattern.
A beat of silence.
Then—something else filled his skull.
Not tapping.
Footsteps.
Not in his hut.
Through her ears.
Soft. Measured. Too careful.
His stomach dropped.
Those weren't bored guard steps. Those weren't "I'm walking past your cell" steps.
Those were "I'm approaching something I intend to enter" steps.
A key ring shifted—one quiet kiss of metal.
Cloth brushed stone.
Someone moving like they didn't want to be heard.
Someone who understood Silence.
Stellan's hand tightened around the charcoal until it snapped.
"Stellan?" Mave demanded. "What is it?"
He didn't answer.
Because answering meant wasting seconds.
He grabbed the charcoal again—another piece, smaller—and started to write fast, the way you did when the world was collapsing and you needed words to be weapons.
OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR.
He hesitated—because she might not see it in time.
He pressed harder, carving the next words deeper into ash.
QUIET STEPS.
KEYS.
Mave moved toward him. "What are you—"
Stellan lifted a hand—stop.
Mave stopped, but her face tightened. Fear and anger fighting for space. She wanted to shout. She didn't because she'd learned that shouting never fixed anything.
Stellan heard the footsteps draw closer in his skull.
Closer.
The cadence tightened. One step. Then a pause. Like the person was listening for breath.
Stellan tasted something faint at the back of his tongue—copper, sharp.
Not his.
Mireya's throat wound? No. Not yet. Earlier. Different time.
Fear-metal. The kind of taste that came when someone pressed poison close to the tongue.
Stellan's fingers shook once.
He wrote one last word, big and ugly:
HIDE.
The footsteps stopped.
Right outside her cell door.
Stellan held his breath, waiting for the sound of a lock turning, a latch lifting, a door creaking.
In the hut, Mave's silence was heavy.
In Stellan's skull, Mireya's corridor went perfectly still.
No bored shifting. No cough. No chain rattle.
Just the quiet pressure of someone standing at the threshold.
And the soft, almost affectionate click of a key finding its lock.