"Everyone ready?" Kael asked.

  There was no answer—only two nods.

  Althéa, to the left of the corridor, back pressed against the wall.

  Lucanis, to the right, torch lowered, hands trembling.

  Kael stepped into the chamber.

  His footsteps made no sound, leaving no trace on the sand.

  He moved forward slowly, without lifting his eyes, until he positioned himself between the center of the room and the corridor opening.

  The space between him and the exit remained clear—measured, precise.

  He inhaled.

  Then set one foot down.

  A sound.

  A human step—short, light… but audible.

  Just enough.

  The silence that followed was so heavy it felt tangible.

  Kael shifted half a step, slid aside without the slightest sound.

  And suddenly—the ceiling moved.

  The lycaon hurled itself toward where the sound had been, headfirst, claws outstretched.

  A violent rush of air swept past Kael, lifting the sand.

  The creature struck emptiness, a harsh growl tearing from its throat.

  It slowly rose onto all fours.

  Its half-open maw let a dark thread of saliva drip down.

  Enormous, uneven fangs gleamed like wet blades.

  Its black fur rippled in places, so thick it distorted its silhouette.

  And its smell—the iron of blood, raw flesh, and scorched dust—filled the chamber.

  Kael didn’t move.

  But his calm was cracking.

  A vein throbbed at his temple, his fingers were trembling.

  He stared at the beast, breath held, not daring to blink.

  The lycaon advanced, slowly, its claws scraping the sand.

  Its muzzle angled toward Kael, then toward the corridor, as if tasting the air.

  That’s when a sharp crack rang out.

  Just one.

  Clean. Human.

  Althéa had stomped her foot against the ground.

  The creature snapped upright, ears taut, head turned toward the corridor.

  Kael used the moment to step back—imperceptibly.

  Althéa, pinned to the wall, felt her heart hammer against her chest.

  Strands of hair, soaked with sweat, clung to her forehead.

  She breathed in short, shallow bursts, every inhale costing her effort.

  She no longer dared move—

  nor even swallow.

  Lucanis, on the other side of the corridor, could barely see her.

  The flickering light from the torch left on the chamber floor made shadows dance across their faces.

  He was trembling.

  His hands clenched around his weapon, but his fingers were so slick with sweat he feared he might drop it.

  Fear was strangling him—literally.

  It was no longer a feeling.

  It was a physical weight, a solid block lodged in his throat.

  The lycaon entered the corridor.

  One step.

  Then another.

  Each movement made the walls vibrate.

  When it passed in front of them, the entire world seemed to contract.

  The beast was thirty centimeters away.

  Its flanks nearly brushed the stone.

  Its half-open maw exhaled a thick stench of blood and rot.

  Its tongue, heavy and blackened, hung to the side, letting a drop of warm saliva fall to the ground.

  They watched it smoke on the ground, as if it were burning the dust.

  Lucanis felt something rise in his throat.

  Not a scream—a reflex, a spasm.

  He shut his eyes, tears pushing up under the pressure.

  The lycaon’s fur almost brushed his shoulder.

  Dense.

  Too dense.

  It seemed to absorb the light, swallow the air around it.

  Every hair vibrated with a life of its own.

  It was like being trapped against a beast made of night and flesh,

  and feeling it breathe—right there.

  Althéa, pressed against the wall, no longer dared breathe.

  She felt a strand of its coat brush her arm—a damp, heavy warmth, almost human.

  Her stomach clenched.

  She wanted to close her eyes, but fear held them open, frozen on the void.

  Each second stretched into an eternity.

  The lycaon moved forward again.

  Its ragged breath brushed their faces.

  Its paws skimmed the stone, leaving behind dark, wet marks.

  Then it stopped.

  Abruptly.

  Right between them.

  Its head slowly turned to the right, then to the left.

  Its ears twitched.

  It sniffed, long and deep, as if it sensed something… without understanding what.

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  Kael, on the other side, watched the scene, motionless.

  His brow was beaded with sweat.

  His mouth was dry.

  But his eyes remained clear.

  Lucid.

  He knew that at the slightest movement, everything would explode.

  And for the first time since they had descended,

  he felt, deep in his throat,

  not fear,

  but the taste of the silence before death.

  Lucanis couldn’t hold on anymore.

  His muscles were shaking, his nerves burning.

  The lycaon was there—within reach, just a few breaths away.

  Its back rose with every growl, massive, alive, monstrous.

  The torch set farther away cast dark reflections across it—

  red, oily glints, almost liquid.

  Lucanis inhaled, slowly.

  Then he raised his weapon.

  Althéa saw him move and understood without a word.

  She raised hers at the same time, her hands clenched around the hilt.

  Her fingers slipped on the sweat, but she tightened her grip.

  The monster’s hind legs were outlined in the light.

  Tendons stretched taut to the breaking point, visible beneath gray skin, cracked, thick as dried leather.

  The flesh looked dead, yet it still pulsed—

  as if something underneath was alive despite everything.

  Lucanis struck first.

  His sword came down with a dull sound, sinking into the mass of flesh.

  The metal scraped against bone, vibrated in his hand, then cut.

  A tendon gave way with a sharp snap.

  The lycaon’s hind leg buckled violently, the beast howled—

  a guttural, twisted scream that made the entire tunnel vibrate.

  Althéa struck in turn.

  Her blade hit the thick skin, barely sinking in.

  The dulled metal grated against the flesh.

  Not enough.

  She cursed under her breath and struck again.

  Again.

  Nothing.

  So she changed her grip.

  Both hands on the hilt, she began to saw.

  The worn blade bit into the flesh in jerks, tearing fibers, strips, with a wet, horrific sound.

  Dark blood burst forth—hot, dense—splattering her arms, her face.

  The creature screamed again, a cry so powerful that dust fell from the ceiling.

  Its claws lashed the air, scraping stone, carving deep grooves.

  A scorching gust swept past Althéa, tearing a lock of hair from her head.

  Lucanis shouted something, but his voice was swallowed by the roar.

  The lycaon tried to turn, its claws plowing the ground, gouging the stone, throwing up a cloud of sand.

  Its hindquarters gave way, and the monster collapsed under its own weight—a thunderous crash in the narrow corridor.

  Dust rose, choking.

  The world blurred.

  Althéa staggered back, gasping, her blade coated in black blood.

  Her hands were shaking, yet she kept pulling at her sword, as if her body refused to accept that it was over.

  Lucanis had leapt back, eyes wide, breath torn from his lungs.

  The lycaon twitched once more—a spasm.

  Its claws scraped the stone one last time, carving a pale groove before falling limp.

  Silence returned—brutal, deafening.

  Dust settled slowly on their faces, on the blood, on the weapons.

  Lucanis looked at Althéa—she was still trembling, drenched in sweat and blood.

  He opened his mouth, but no words came.

  And without speaking, they ran.

  They burst into the chamber, panting, eyes wild.

  Kael was there, standing motionless in the middle of the sand.

  He saw them coming—ashen-faced, clothes smeared with blood.

  Lucanis nearly collapsed to his knees, unable to breathe.

  Althéa leaned against the wall, one trembling hand pressed to the cold stone.

  Kael hauled Lucanis to his feet with a sharp motion, forcing him back against the damp wall.

  "It’s not over," he said, his voice hoarse.

  He tightened his grip on the Needle-Blade until his knuckles went white.

  The creature, far from lying still, began scraping its way down the corridor toward them.

  The sound of claw on stone—slow, steady.

  Blood flowed from its heels, dripping in black trails across the stone, soaking the sand with every step.

  It reached the center of the chamber, passed the corpse without ceremony, and knocked it aside with a brutal swipe of its claw.

  The body struck the wall, then fell back with a wet, shattering crash, spraying fragments of flesh and blood across the stone.

  Kael exhaled, a bitter grin splitting his face.

  "Great. I think we really got her worked up," he threw out, sarcastic.

  "See how well my plan turned out," he added, a hint of dark pride in his voice.

  Lucanis answered only with a growl. His eyes were wild, locked in.

  "We need to wear it down," he finally spat. "We won’t be able to finish it cleanly while it’s still full of strength."

  "We take advantage of it—we’re three. We cut it, bleed it, until it loses what edge it has left."

  Althéa didn’t hesitate. She surged forward, blade raised, without a second thought.

  Her movement was fast, precise, almost mechanical—the accuracy of a trained gesture, humiliated by sweat and fear.

  "Fuck," Kael muttered under his breath.

  And without further thought, he charged as well, Lucanis right behind him.

  The beast, still crawling, suddenly lashed its claws toward Althéa.

  She moved with cold grace—a step to the right, a slide of the hips—and the attack passed wide.

  Her blade came down on the lycaon’s foreleg; it didn’t cut cleanly the way she wanted.

  It tore more than it sliced, ripping strips of skin instead of severing cleanly. The creature let out a low, clenched growl and recoiled in a brutal motion.

  Kael, clumsy, tried a thrust at its flank.

  The beast reacted in a flash: a sideways swipe of its paw, like brushing away an overly persistent fly.

  Kael was sent flying across the sand and slammed into the stone. He rolled, pain exploding through his ribs in sharp waves.

  Lucanis seized the opening. Without hesitation, he drove his sword into the lycaon’s right thigh, plowing the flesh to accelerate the bleeding. The beast released a roar that made the chamber tremble; its claws raked the stone beneath the sand, carving deep gouges.

  Althéa, gasping, chained dodges and strikes. Each blow was measured, precise, but the dulled blade tore away only shreds. For a brief moment, she realized they had been right to cripple its legs—without that, they would already be crushed.

  Kael hauled himself upright, cursing, his chest burning, his ribs on fire. He spat sand from between his teeth and charged, Needle-Blade forward. The beast, blind, groped clumsily, no longer certain where he was. Kael didn’t hesitate.

  He drove the Needle-Blade straight in, deep, toward the creature’s head—a precise motion, forced by anger and necessity. The tool struck something vulnerable—its dull, lifeless eye—a stroke of luck. The lycaon convulsed violently, wracked by a spasm.

  A heartbeat later, the creature tried to rise despite its severed tendons, instantly lost its balance. It lashed out again, but coordination failed it.

  One last rasp, a dull crash against the stone, and it collapsed—finally motionless.

  Silence fell again, heavy, almost unreal.

  Althéa leaned back against the wall, her hands trembling, the blade slick between her fingers.

  Lucanis remained bent over, gasping, sweat and blood running down his cheeks.

  Kael slowly pulled the Needle-Blade free, his body still shaking from the effort; he cast an empty look at the inert carcass.

  No one spoke right away.

  It didn’t feel like a victory; it felt like survival torn from the brink at the cost of their nerves.

  Kael, in a low voice, almost without conviction:

  “Well. There it is… it’s done.”

  Althéa drew a long breath, then was seized by a tremor she didn’t even try to hide.

  Lucanis, fingers clenched tight, closed his eyes for a moment to push the image away.

  Around them, the dust settled slowly.

  The corridor reeked of sweat, iron, and churned earth.

  They were alive—shaken, stripped raw, but alive.

  And at the far end of the chamber, the corpse the beast had shoved aside lay scattered, a grim warning.

  Kael pressed a hand to his chest, feeling his heart hammer as if it wanted to break free.

  Around him, not a sound.

  Only the short, uneven breathing of the three young Trame Bearers.

  They stood there, unmoving, long enough to understand that they were still alive.

  No serious wounds, no blood that wasn’t the creature’s.

  But their faces—their eyes—said everything: they were exhausted.

  Not the body—the mind.

  Drained, trembling from the inside, as if something within them had cracked during the fight.

  Althéa slowly leaned back against the wall, letting her blade fall into the sand.

  Lucanis did the same on the opposite side, head bowed, breathing uneven.

  Both held onto that heavy silence that follows fear, the silence in which you don’t dare believe you survived.

  Kael, meanwhile, took a few steps around the Overdrawn they had just brought down.

  The beast lay twisted, its fur still twitching in places, blood slowly seeping into the sand.

  He looked at it without satisfaction, without triumph.

  Just a cold, distant gaze.

  “Do you realize we just took down a Class-three Overdrawn?”

  Althéa’s voice barely trembled, but it remained steady.

  “Latents, without proper equipment, without support… That’s insane.”

  Lucanis nodded, head bowed, his hand still clenched around the hilt of his sword.

  “Inconceivable,” he breathed.

  “We never should have made it out.”

  Kael slowly turned his head toward them.

  A shadow of a tired smile formed on his lips.

  “Well… there are two left to kill, right?”

  He shrugged.

  “Well… two. Maybe more.”

  He nodded toward the carcass.

  “Because that one wasn’t like the ones from yesterday. Not at all.”

  Silence answered him.

  A heavy silence, where Kael’s humor sounded like a buoy thrown into emptiness.

  Lucanis lifted his eyes, uneasy.

  Althéa, for her part, kept her gaze fixed on the creature, without a word.

  And all three of them understood, without needing to say it:

  what they had just faced wasn’t a wrong turn.

  It was a warning.