Tessa stared at the system message in the corner of her vision.

  [You have entered the Dungeon: ███████ ]

  She couldn’t breathe. The air felt thinner, colder, like the dungeon had sucked all the warmth out of the world in a single pulse. The crystals surrounding them had dimmed ever so slightly, their glow muted, their edges sharper. Beside her, Rellen hadn’t moved.

  Then she felt it—his hand on her shoulder, tightening suddenly. Painfully. She didn’t flinch. Instead, she lifted her hand and placed it on his arm, grounding him with that single touch. The pressure eased. Their eyes met for a moment, understanding passed without a word.

  Then movement pulled their focus. Kolt stood near the fissure in the cavern wall—the same one Rynna had lingered near earlier. In his hand, the cube. Without ceremony, he threw it toward the opening of the fissure.

  Tessa’s heart seized. He was discarding it. No—hiding it. The cube wasn’t meant to be retrieved. Not by anyone. She opened her mouth—too late. But Rellen was already moving.

  He stepped out from cover, one hand cutting through the air. A thin plane of light split into existence above the fissure’s edge—like a pane of glass forged from moonlight. The cube struck it mid-fall, bounced once with a sharp metallic clink, and skittered safely to the ground near the edge.

  Kolt spun instantly. His eyes locked on Rellen. There was no surprise—only cold recognition. In a heartbeat, he moved. The blade he drew was short and blackened, glinting dull in the filtered bloomlight. He lunged forward.

  A ripple of magic shimmered across Rellen's fingers. His dagger—short and curved like a talon—appeared in one hand, summoned with a whisper of light. It caught the bloomlight just enough to gleam, the edge honed like a whisper of broken glass.

  Kolt struck first. Rellen moved faster. His free hand cut the air, tracing in front of him. A pane of transparent force, reflective and sharp, flared into existence and deflected Kolt’s blade off-angle. Sparks flickered in the mist.

  The rogue pivoted, aiming low, but Rellen was already moving, redirecting with another flicker of magic. A mirror-glint traced the curve of his dagger as he lashed out—not to disarm, but to kill. Kolt twisted at the last second, and the clawed blade sliced across his side instead of his ribs.

  “Move,” Rellen barked without turning, his voice sharp and certain.

  Tessa didn’t waste time. She ran toward the edge, rounding a low bloom cluster. The cube was there, teetering near the fissure’s lip.

  Rellen sidestepped, sweeping his hand across the ground. A line of refracted energy surged upward, catching Kolt across the chest in a dazzling arc of razor-light. Kolt staggered but didn’t fall. He hissed between his teeth, more annoyed than pained.

  Tessa dropped to one knee and grabbed the cube. She could still feel the way its panels had shifted when Kolt turned them—too fast to follow. Her mind scrambled to hold onto the pattern, but it was already slipping.

  She shoved it into her satchel and turned. Kolt’s eyes found her instantly. He lunged, breaking past Rellen. Rellen responded without words. A flick of his wrist bent the light in front of Kolt, a rippling distortion that slammed into the rogue mid-step. Kolt staggered, off-balance.

  Tessa backed off, breath ragged behind her mask. She knew she was no help in a fight like this.

  “Get behind something,” Rellen called out, even as he pressed the attack. “If I miss, you don’t want to be in the line.”

  His voice was level. Focused. Kolt parried without committing, always angling slightly off-center, always looking past Rellen to where Tessa crouched behind a boulder. It took Tessa a moment to realize what he was doing. He wasn’t trying to win the fight head-on. He was trying to reach her.

  Rellen saw it too. As Kolt lunged low and shifted left, Rellen stepped hard into the path and swept his hand sideways. A wall of shimmering light rippled into being between Kolt and Tessa—clear, angular, and thin as a knife’s edge.

  Kolt crashed into it with full momentum, and the impact sent a dull, resonant crack through the cavern. He bounced back with a low grunt. He was testing the limits.

  “You’re spending fast,” Kolt said, straightening. Rellen didn’t answer.

  Instead, he threw another cast—this time a wide arc of reflected energy that forced Kolt to duck. The spell hissed through the air and scattered across the stone floor in a wave of light, burning shallow streaks in its path.

  Kolt kept moving, circling to keep Rellen between them, but never retreating far. Each time he shifted toward her, Rellen cast something—barriers, flashes, angled shards of light that cut through the air like polished steel. It held Kolt at bay, but the price was clear.

  The spells weren’t as solid now. The glas walls flickered. The magic flew slower. Even Rellen’s breathing had changed.

  Kolt noticed. He stepped into a cast instead of dodging, letting it glance off the shoulder of his coat. When Rellen raised a hand to intercept him again, Kolt broke toward the side—feinting toward Tessa once more. Another shield surged to life. This one cracked along the base from the force of impact.

  “Trying to protect someone while your mana’s bleeding out,” Kolt said. “Always a mistake.”

  He advanced again. But Rellen didn’t cast this time. He stepped in, closed the gap, and moved to end it with steel. Kolt met the blade head-on.

  The clash rang sharp across the cavern, metal grinding as the two locked, bodies shifting with force and resistance. Rellen leaned into the motion, but his strength faltered for just a moment—his mana-drained muscles not keeping pace with his intent. Kolt noticed.

  He pivoted his weight, brought his free elbow around, and slammed it into Rellen’s side. The hit connected hard—bone and armor cracking together—and Rellen stumbled back a step. Kolt pressed the advantage.

  His blade came up fast, slicing across Rellen’s forearm. Blood hit the stone, dark and sudden. Tessa’s breath caught. She could see it now—Kolt’s expression sharpening, posture tightening. He’d seen the weakness, and he was going to carve through it. Another strike came fast, a thrust meant for the ribs. Rellen twisted just enough to avoid the worst of it, but the edge still tore into his coat and skin beneath.

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  He dropped low, knees bending under him, arm raised. Kolt advanced. Then Rellen smiled. It wasn’t wide. It wasn’t pleasant. Just the faintest twitch of the mouth—small, precise. Like he’d caught something Kolt had missed. His hand, slick with blood, traced a shape in the air.

  The mirrored surface beneath their feet—dull and scattered from earlier magic—shimmered again. Not fully. Not brightly. Just enough. Kolt didn’t see it until it was too late. A reflection—not of Rellen, but of Kolt himself—rose beneath his boots.

  It was distorted, glassy, warping upward like a figure climbing through thin ice. Kolt struck forward with another blow—And his own reflection met the attack. It didn’t parry. It didn’t block. It stabbed.

  The mirrored Kolt plunged its blade directly into the space beneath his arm—the blind spot he had exposed in his rush. The real Kolt reeled, eyes wide as the phantom blade sank in deep. Blood burst from the wound. He staggered. Rellen moved in behind the opening, real now, fast and quiet.

  He grabbed Kolt by the collar and slammed him face-first into the crystal wall. The sound was wet and solid. Then he pulled him back—just enough to drive his curved blade into Kolt’s throat from behind, the tip jutting clean through just under the jaw.

  Kolt’s body seized. Legs kicked. Then went still. Rellen didn’t let him drop right away. He pulled the blade free with a slow twist and let the body crumple where the mirrored surface fractured beneath them.

  Glass and blood mingled on the cavern floor. Tessa didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Rellen stood over the body for a moment, catching his breath. His coat hung torn at the side, blood soaking through the fabric in spreading patches. The shine of his magic had faded completely.

  Then he looked up and met her eyes across the chamber. The silence after the fight rang louder than the clash of blades.

  Tessa hadn’t moved from behind the boulder, her breath caught somewhere between her ribs and throat. The blood was still fresh on the cavern floor, dark and glossy under the mist-filtered light. Rellen stood over Kolt’s body like a shadow, not panting, not shaking—just watching.

  The body didn’t twitch. It wasn’t the kill that left Tessa frozen. It was how precise it had been. How calm. How efficient.

  She stayed where she was, unsure if her legs would work even if she tried. Rellen didn’t move toward her. He looked up, eyes catching hers from across the space. Whatever he saw in her expression made him stop there. He didn’t press. Didn’t speak right away.

  His voice came low, flat. “Do you have the cube?”

  Tessa swallowed. Her fingers trembled where they clutched the strap of her satchel. She gave a small nod. Rellen’s shoulders relaxed a fraction.

  “Good,” he said. Then he turned back to the corpse.

  Tessa blinked. “You’re… you’re searching him?”

  “Of course,” Rellen said. He crouched beside Kolt’s body, already working through the man’s coat, gloved hands quick but methodical. “We’re not likely to get answers from anyone else currently.”

  “But he’s—he’s—” She gestured vaguely, as if the blood and jagged breathless corpse weren’t clear enough.

  “Dead,” Rellen finished. “Yes. And he doesn’t need this anymore.”

  His voice wasn’t cold. It wasn’t even distant. Just focused. Like this was another part of the job. He pulled out a folded set of notes bound by cord, a pair of throwing knives strapped under the belt, and something wrapped in waxed cloth.

  Tessa stared at the body. Blood had pooled around Kolt’s head and soaked into the seams of the cavern floor. The reflective shard-illusion was gone now, no longer hiding the mess.

  “You killed him,” she said. The words came quiet. Not accusing. Not disbelieving. Just… registering. Rellen paused in his search.

  “He would have killed you,” he said. “And me, if he could. That wasn’t a bluff.”

  She didn’t argue. She just looked at the red-streaked blade still in his hand, then down at her own trembling fingers. She took a steadying breath.

  Her hands still felt unsteady, her chest tight—but her thoughts were finally starting to settle. The brutal image of Rellen’s finishing blow lingered behind her eyes, but the weight of it was different now. Not outrage. Not even fear. Just clarity.

  Kolt had meant to kill her. That much was certain. So had Rynna. This wasn’t some robbery gone wrong. It had been a plan—and Rellen had stopped it. He’d been right. The danger wasn’t over.

  She approached carefully. Her boots squelched slightly on the blood-slick stone, but Rellen didn’t look up. Still crouched beside Kolt’s body, he finishing the search. Pouches emptied, seams checked, the inner lining of the coat carefully peeled open. He worked fast, but not rushed—like a man who knew exactly how long he had.

  Tessa watched him for a moment, then asked, “Find anything?”

  “Not yet,” he said, voice quiet. “But there’s a secondary seal in the lining. Imperial-grade. Probably leads to documentation.”

  He retrieved a thin curved tool from inside his coat and began working at the inner thread. Tessa folded her arms, staring back toward the path they’d come from.

  “She’s going to come back,” she said.

  Rellen paused just slightly in his work. Only a flicker of hesitation, but it was there.

  He exhaled, then nodded. “I know.”

  Tessa glanced at him. “And you’re low on mana.”

  That, he didn’t deny. His fingers moved a little slower now, unweaving the seal binding inside the coat. “Too much more casting, and I won’t be able to keep any illusions stable. Which means no misdirection. No escape cover.”

  Tessa shifted her weight from foot to foot. The chill of the dungeon was sinking into her clothes now. Not just from the environment—but from the weight of what came next.

  “If we go back the way we came,” she said, “we’ll run right into her.”

  Rellen’s jaw tightened.

  “That’s a fight I’d rather not have,” he said. “Not like this. Not without prep. And definitely not with you caught in the middle.”

  She didn’t take offense to that. She was no fighter, and they all knew it.

  He added, “I might get a few more spell off. But that won’t be enough to take her down.”

  Tessa looked toward the passage behind them, then toward the fissure. The one Kolt had tried to throw the cube into.

  “You think she’ll follow if we go that way?”

  Rellen didn’t answer right away. He finished slicing open the inner lining of Kolt’s coat and drew out a leather-bound case, heavy with documents. He tucked it into his satchel and stood slowly, wiping the blood from his blade with a torn scrap of cloth.

  “I think,” he said, “if she finds this scene, she’ll follow wherever we go.”

  Tessa’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Then we should pick somewhere she doesn’t expect.”

  Rellen looked at her. For the first time since the fight ended, a small flicker of something like approval touched his face.

  “Agreed.”

  They didn’t go deeper into the tunnels, or toward the fissure. Instead, Rellen pointed upward—to a narrow shelf barely visible above the jagged edge of the bloom cavern. From the floor, it looked like nothing, just an irregular curve in the stone. Too small. Too exposed.

  He climbed first, finding footholds in the fractured seams between crystal and rock. Tessa followed, boots slipping once on the damp edge before he caught her wrist and pulled her up beside him. The ledge wasn’t meant for two people.

  Tessa ended up with her back against the wall, knees drawn in, one hip awkwardly braced on Rellen’s thigh. He didn’t flinch or shift, just steadied her with one hand as she settled into place.

  “This,” she said flatly, “is not what I meant when I suggested somewhere unexpected.”

  Rellen’s eyes didn’t leave the cavern below. “People don’t look up.”

  He raised a hand and traced a gesture in the air. The shimmer of magic unfolded outward, subtle and clean. The air in front of them warped, just slightly, like the distorted shimmer above a fire. From the outside, it would look like nothing more than humidity or light caught wrong in the mist.

  Tessa watched the distortion settle into place, then let her head rest lightly against the stone. The ledge was cold, and Rellen’s coat did little to soften the angle where their knees knocked together. She didn’t complain again.

  “Could’ve picked somewhere on the floor,” she muttered instead.

  His voice was quiet beside her. “You were the one who said somewhere unexpected.”

  She didn’t argue. Below them, the bloom cavern stretched silent. But it wouldn’t stay that way. They both knew Rynna would come back. And when she did, she wouldn’t waste time looking around. She’d be hunting.