The earth held me from below.
Not prison stone.
Not wards.
Not walls.
The ground.
Willow's power had surged upward in a brutal, decisive column — stone erupting from the depths like a rising grave, compacted earth wrapping around my torso and arms with crushing precision. The restraint was not panicked. Not reckless.
It was deliberate.
The night wind scraped past my face, cold and open, carrying the distant scent of dust, smoke, and retreat. The sky stretched overhead — vast, indifferent, free.
Lyra was gone.
The realization struck harder than the stone.
Not dead.
Not captured.
Gone.
A mistake.
A failure — not of power, but of weakness.
I flexed my fingers. The rock groaned in protest but did not yield. Willow had poured more of herself into this than I had expected — discipline turned into resolve, hesitation into conviction.
The Earth Princess had chosen her side.
And it had not been mine.
I exhaled slowly through my nose, forcing the spike of irritation back into control.
Annoying.
"Get out of my way," I muttered to the stone.
Lightning stirred beneath my skin — sharp, volatile, eager. The corrupted current pulsed through my veins like a living thing, coiled and waiting.
The earth resisted.
So I stopped resisting back.
I let the corruption rise.
Red-black energy threaded outward from my core, crawling beneath my skin and blooming into jagged arcs of power. Shadows twisted at the edges of my awareness, responding like trained hounds scenting blood. The stone around me began to fracture — not in wild rupture, but in calculated breakpoints.
Pressure gave way.
Cracks spiderwebbed.
Dust spilled in controlled cascades.
I tore free.
Fragments scattered across the ground as I stepped forward, boots crunching against fractured rock. The open terrain felt foreign after the claustrophobic depth of the prison — too wide, too exposed, too honest.
And then—
Mortimer returned.
Ah. There you are, Lightning Prince.
His voice slid into my mind like cold smoke — smooth, amused, venom-laced with fury. Where the prison's wards had muted him, the open air restored his presence in full.
You lost her.
I did not react outwardly.
"She escaped," I corrected flatly.
You let her escape.
You let the Earth Dragon escape.
You let your leverage vanish.
You let our control fracture.
Lightning snapped across my knuckles.
"Watch your tone," I said quietly.
Mortimer laughed.
Or what? Will you strike me too?
His presence pressed harder, testing boundaries, seeking purchase — probing for weakness the way a blade searches for armor gaps.
You grow sentimental, Raiden.
You grow careless.
You grow… compromised.
"She is an inconvenience," I replied coldly. "Nothing more."
Then why does your pulse say otherwise?
I stilled.
The accusation irritated me more than it should have.
"She made the game interesting," I said sharply. "That is all."
Interesting.
The word tasted wrong in his mouth.
She humiliated us.
She stole from us.
She defied us.
She took the Earth Dragon from beneath your grasp.
His presence tightened, cold and coiling.
And still… you hesitate.
For a dangerous instant, my temper surged — a sharp, volatile spike that nearly snapped outward.
Instead, I forced it down.
Control.
"Do not mistake strategy for weakness," I said.
Do not mistake warmth for loyalty, Mortimer replied.
The word struck wrong.
Warmth.
For a fraction of a second, memory surged forward — unwelcome, intrusive, uninvited.
Her hands gripping my armor.
The heat of her body pressed close.
Her breath at my mouth.
Her lips against mine — reckless, furious, alive.
The sensation flared hot in my chest.
Not corruption.
Something familiar.
Something human.
I crushed it instantly.
Adrenaline, I told myself.
Stupidity.
A lapse in judgment.
"She will not tempt me again," I said coldly.
Mortimer hummed, unconvinced.
And yet… your corruption resists me more than it used to.
That irritated me more than his accusation — because he was right.
Where once his influence had flowed unchecked, now there was friction. Resistance. A subtle pushback that had not existed before. It was not conscious. Not controlled.
But it was there.
Annoying.
"Perhaps the wards weakened your grip," I said.
No, he replied quietly.
This resistance feels… personal.
The word lingered.
Personal.
I did not answer.
Instead, I turned inward — not toward him, but toward the other presence that had persisted since the prison.
The thread.
Thin. Fractured.
Not a bond.
Not loyalty.
A scar.
A remnant of something that should not exist.
I brushed it with my awareness.
Carefully.
Gently.
And her voice echoed back through it, faint but unmistakable:
I will save you. I promise.
My jaw tightened.
Save me?
From what?
Mortimer recoiled slightly — not fear, but sharp irritation flaring through his presence.
You should sever that connection, he snapped. It serves no purpose.
"Why can't you sever it?" I asked.
It is ancient, powerful magic that no god can sever. Only the one who possesses it can. But it is pointless to you. We do not need it.
"Then why does it exist?" I muttered.
Silence followed.
Questions layered over questions.
Why did she say that?
Why did it linger in my mind?
Why did my chest tighten when I watched her fly away?
The sensation burned — not like lightning.
Like loss.
The realization struck harder than I wanted to admit.
I rejected it instantly.
Sentiment is weakness.
Attachment is liability.
Regret is inefficiency.
I repeated it in my head like a mantra until it stuck.
I straightened, shadows curling along my shoulders as I stepped deeper into the cavern's open mouth.
"She belongs to me," I said aloud.
One way or another.
Not because I need her.
Not because I care.
Because she defied me.
Because she escaped me.
Because she has done it not once — but twice.
Mortimer smiled inside my skull.
Then go reclaim what is yours.
Lightning surged.
Wings tore free from my back in a rush of power — larger, sharper than before, corrupted edges crackling with red-black energy. The sensation of shifting grounded me, reminding me of what I was.
Weapon.
Prince.
Storm.
Dragon.
My body surged outward, scales igniting with crackling power, lightning rippling along my spine as I launched upward through fractured stone.
The mountain gave way.
The sky opened.
Wind roared past me as I climbed, clouds tearing at my wings as the Earth Kingdom sprawled beneath — fractured, fortified, unsettled, still trembling from what had been done within its bones.
Loose ends remained.
The Earth King.
The broken alliance.
The debt he now owed me.
The consequences he would soon understand.
And then—
Lyra.
The pull lingered.
Subtle. Persistent.
Not broken.
I flexed my claws midair, lightning flashing between them.
I will find the answers, I thought.
To the connection.
To her promise.
To why Mortimer fears whatever exists between us.
And when I do—
She will belong to me.
Not because I need her.
But because now I know something she does not.
She can never truly escape me again.
Not now that I know we are connected.