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She was already at the platform, her cloak snapping behind her like a banner. I followed, vaulting over a fallen soldier, eyes on the captives.

Ysella met my gaze. “You came,” she rasped.

I cut through her bonds, the iron cuffs clattering to the stone. Raw burns marked her wrists where the metal had bitten deep. “We're not leaving you.”

She didn’t smile. She just turned to the girl beside her, lifting her with surprising strength despite her injuries. “Can you manage the stairs, child?”

“Aye, ma'am,” the girl whispered.

I helped Astrid to her feet while Lily freed her restraints. “Can you walk?”

“I’ll crawl if I must,” Astrid croaked.

“Good.” Lily slung her arm around her and helped her toward the steps. “Go!”

Behind us, the sound changed—deeper, heavier.

I turned and saw him emerging from the shadows of the main archway—Elias, moving with deliberate calm across the courtyard. He'd been watching. Waiting. His robes were pristine white against the chaos, and in his right hand, dark energy began to coalesce like smoke given weight.

The Unraveling. Not just gathered magic, but concentrated obliteration.

“Barrier, now!” I yelled to the Bonders.

A hum cracked through the square as a dome of magic formed overhead, but I could see it wouldn't hold against what Elias was building.

“We’re clear!” Mira called.

“Go!” I barked.

Ysella and the girl ran with Garrick toward the tunnel entrance, twenty paces to safety. Lily moved slower, weighed down by Astrid's stumbling steps.

Elias stepped fully from the archway, robes pristine. He didn't shout. He didn't snarl. He just looked at Lily with cold calculation, as if she were nothing more than a problem to be solved.

He raised his hand. The Unraveling magic pulsed, ready to release.

The magic erupted from his palm—not chaotic, but precise. A lance of pure dissolution aimed directly at her back.

“No,” I breathed, throwing myself forward. But I was too far away. Too slow.

Lily had just reached the tunnel entrance when I saw the attack coming.

That's when Ysella turned.

She'd reached the tunnel mouth with the girl, safety just steps away. Freedom. Survival. Everything we'd risked this for. But she looked back and saw the Unraveling magic streaking toward Lily like a spear of darkness.

For one suspended heartbeat, I saw the choice written across her face—the war between self-preservation and sacrifice. Then her jaw set with terrible determination. She stepped back from the tunnel and placed herself between the Unraveling and Lily.

Golden threads already spun between her hands. Not to attack; Ysella was a Bonder, a builder of connections and barriers. The iron had burned her wrists raw, weakened her connection to the Weave, but she pulled on it anyway.

Gold flared between her palms as she wove a protective barrier—layer upon layer of binding magic. It was the strongest barrier a Bonder could create, one that should have been impossible while injured.

“I cannot hold it long—” she gasped, sweat beading on her brow.

For a heartbeat, gold met darkness. Ysella's binding ward flared like a star, her magic literally holding the fabric of reality together against the dissolution magic trying to tear it apart.

Then the weakened threads snapped.

“No!” Lily's scream shattered the air.