The box split down the center like a wound, and what came out did not move, it unfolded.
Teeth. Sinew. Shadow soaked in something older than time.
Kael swore and shoved Lira toward the hall.
"Go. I'll hold it off."
"You're not dying here," she snapped.
"Not planning to," he said.
The thing in the box heaved upward shapeless. No eyes. No arms. Just hunger. It shrieked again, a pressure, not a sound, that grated on the walls and rattled memory.
Kael drew his sword and stepped forward.
It attacked.
Steel met darkness. Sparks screamed from his sword like it was biting bone, but there was none. Just resistance. Heaviness. Will.
The force of the strike slammed Kael into the far wall, stone crunching under his spine. He coughed, flecking blood onto his lips, but was back on his feet.
"Lira!"
Her fingers were on the pendant. Her breathing came in tatters. "It's reacting. I think it's trying....."
The creature rotated.
She stepped.
Not knowing how, Lira raised her hand and the pendant burst.
Not light. Not fire. Something similar to memory shaped like a blade.
A silver streak blazed in the air and hit the creature's chest.
It shrieked. Stumbled backward.
Kael stared.
She stood her ground.
"Didn't know you had that in you," he gasped.
"I didn't."
Another bellow.
Kael was beside her in an instant. "We move. It's not dead."
They sprinted through the estate, the walls now warping with the creature's screech—like the very space shrinked from its presence. The front gate was gone. So were the windows. They weren't in a ruin anymore.
They were in its domain.
A voice echoed in Kael's mind.
"Vessel. You were never meant to contain it. Give it back."
He gritted his teeth. "Not going to happen."
The hallway in front of them rippled. Another figure appeared, Ferin?
No. Not Ferin.
A memory. Projected by the house. A man in old Viremont robes stood tall, speaking to someone out of view.
"If they ever come for the heir, the lock will stop them. Even if it must consume itself."
The vision faded.
Kael clenched a fist. "They turned the whole house into a failsafe."
Lira stumbled. "But why does it want you?"
He looked at her, his jaw tight.
Because the relic in me is Viremont-made. Like yours. And I don't think mine was supposed to survive the purge."
She gazed. "So it thinks you stole it."
"No," he said darkly. "It thinks I am it."
The walls exploded. Tendrils of darkness tore through stone. The creature was coming again.
Kael turned to her. "I'll draw it off. You find a way out."
"No."
"Li..."
She grabbed his hand. "We go out together.
For a moment, the pendant and the shard at Kael's hip vibrated. A pulse. Shared rhythm.
And the house shuddered.
Then....light.
Not from them.
From outside.
A circle of runes flared open beneath their feet, teleport glyphs etched in brass.
A voice shouted from above.
"Grab on!"
Kael looked up to see a figure leaning over a metal platform....the broker, again.
"What the hell are you" Kael began.
"No time! Move!"
The glyphs flared. The house screamed.
They jumped.
And vanished.
Elsewhere…
Marshal Ferin silently shook his head before a chair with a high back.
The room was as black as coal, save for the thin vertical slash of red light on the far wall.
"You failed," a voice spoke from the darkness.
Ferin dipped his head. "They were more connected than expected. The girl's relic has awakened. The boy's shard responded."
"They should not have synced."
"No," Ferin said. "But they have."
A pause. Then the voice spoke to him again.
"Very well. Escalate."
"Escalate how?"
The red slit became a full, watching eye.
"Send the Exhumers.".