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LIORA

T he whip never falls. That would be too merciful. No, the dark elves have their own ways of reminding me what I am—what I will always be. Property. Disposable. Nothing.

The overseer’s lip curls as he shoves a rusted bucket into my arms. “You enjoy making messes, girl?” His voice slithers over my skin like oil, thick with a pleasure that has everything to do with watching me squirm.

I don’t answer. I don’t have to. The welt on my cheek from this morning’s slap is still fresh, stinging with every breath. He grabs my chin, forces my face up. His claws dig in, not enough to draw blood—yet.

“You’ll clean that temple until your hands bleed,” he says, breath foul with rot and decay. “Every crack. Every stone. And if it isn’t spotless by sundown, I’ll carve a lesson into your skin you won’t forget.”

He lets go. His hand vanishes, but the bruises it leaves behind will linger.

A few of the other slaves whisper as I trudge past. Some in pity, most in warning. They think I deserve this, that I should’ve learned by now to lower my head, keep my mouth shut. And maybe they’re right.

But I am not sorry.

The punishment? It isn’t for stealing, or breaking a tool, or even speaking out of turn.

It’s for looking a dark elf in the eye.

For daring to meet his gaze instead of flinching away like a trained dog.

The temple looms ahead, half-buried in the mountain’s ribs, its bones of black stone and crumbling archways silhouetted against the bleeding sky. No one enters willingly. No one speaks of it. There are stories, of course—curses, ghosts, monsters that never sleep.

Inside the temple, the world is silent. Not dead. Not abandoned. Just waiting.

Cold fingers of dust and forgotten things curl around my ankles as I step inside. The light barely reaches past the entrance, swallowed whole by shadows that stretch, shift, watch.

I press my back to the nearest pillar, exhaling slow. This is fine. This is nothing.

I’ve survived worse.

The bucket clangs against the ground, and the sound echoes, unraveling through the corridors like something alive. The temple was built for creatures much larger than me. The ceilings stretch into forever, the walls etched with symbols no human tongue can pronounce.

I work fast. I scrub until my hands are raw, until my fingernails split and the filth under them is replaced by streaks of red. The stone drinks it in, hungry.

A breeze slithers past my ear, though there are no open doors. No windows. No life.

I go still.

Something is here.

A sound scrapes against the silence—low, rasping, deep. A breath.

My heart hammers. I swallow, pushing up from the floor. The brush clatters to the ground as I reach for the rusted dagger at my hip. A pathetic weapon. A useless defense.

But better than nothing.

The darkness thickens, pressing against my skin, sinking into my lungs.

A movement too large, too fluid, just at the periphery of my vision.

I run.

My bare feet slap against the stone, each step sending pain jolting up my spine, but I don’t stop. I don’t look back.

The temple halls twist, stretching into impossible directions, and my breath turns ragged as I sprint deeper into the ruins, my only thought: escape, escape, escape.

The thing behind me moves faster. Hunting.

I lunge forward, gripping a broken column, twisting myself through a narrow passage barely wide enough for my shoulders. My ribs scrape against the stone, but I shove through, ignoring the burn, ignoring the blood.

Silence.

I press my forehead against the damp wall, forcing myself to slow my breath, to listen.

Nothing.

Maybe it was never there. Maybe it was just?—

A gust of breath at my nape.

The temple roars around me as I tear myself forward, nearly tripping over my own feet. The passage opens into a chamber, vast and open, the ceiling swallowed by darkness. The air hums, thick with a power so ancient it makes my teeth ache.

Something waits in the center of the room.

Not a monster. Not a beast.

A throne.

Black stone, shattered at the edges, covered in chains. Carvings of talons, of wings, of something once great now crumbled into ruin.

At its base, half-buried in dust and time, a wing.

Not just any wing. A gargoyle’s.

It isn’t attached to a body. At least, not one I can see. It stretches across the floor, massive, carved from obsidian and cracked with age.

My pulse thrums against my throat.

The power in this room—it isn’t just in the walls. It isn’t just the temple itself.

It’s him.

The stones beneath my feet tremble.

The chains rattling over the throne tighten.

The world explodes.

The ground splinters, a light erupts from my hands, sharp and blinding, lancing through the temple like a bolt of raw magic. The air shudders, deep and guttural, the temple groaning as something ancient begins to stir.

I stumble back, my breath sharp, my vision flickering between this life and something else.

A memory of another me standing in this very spot, whispering words that burn my tongue.

I press my hands to my chest, my pulse slamming against my heart. The air crackles around me, thick with something I don’t understand, something awake.

The chains snap.

Stone shatters.

The stone moves.

I have nowhere left to run.