They sprinted, dodging grasping fingers as the floor cracked open behind them like a stone graveyard waking up.

Serena skidded onto a narrow section of solid ground. The whole thing lit up beneath her feet. A gleaming sigil.

She gasped in complete terror, heart pounding. She knew exactly what this was because she’d read about it before.

She had already cleared the threshold before Hyran shouted. “That’s a blood trigger! Serena, move out of there!”

She dove off it into a connecting hall just as the plate exploded.

She was already on her feet running at full speed just as metal spikes hammered down behind her in a row so fast they sounded like a zipper closing on a body bag.

The floor screamed, a metallic shriek, and ancient mechanisms fired to life all down the corridor.

Blades, arrows, spears, chains, an entire execution system designed for white wolf blood, shot from the walls in a synchronized sequence of death.

Dexmon was there a second later grabbing Serena, Gavriel behind him.

Serena’s heart was pounding. Dexmon felt her panic. This one was different. The temple had been terrifying. The lake had been worse. But she had a better sense of where the landmines were in both. This was a hallway that wanted her dead and the wanting was random and the random was the thing that was breaking her composure, because Serena Frostborne could solve anything with a pattern and a hallway without a pattern was a hallway without a solution and a solution was the only thing keeping her hands steady.

“You’re okay. This is just the hallway trying to murder us.” He kissed the side of her head.

“I much prefer death puzzles,” Aeron muttered. His voice was conversational. Dry. The specific register of a Master Mage whose ranking of near-death experiences had a hierarchy and whose hierarchy placed “solvable death” above “random death” with the casual certainty of a man whose preferences in mortal danger were curated.

That did it.

Serena laughed, a breathy, startled sound, and felt her pulse finally slow.

“For the record,” Maelor announced, ducking a blade that swung from the left wall with the lazy arc of a mechanism that had been waiting three thousand years for this exact moment, “I was promised an artifact retrieval. An artifact retrieval is a controlled scholarly exercise conducted in a documented environment with adequate preparation and climate-appropriate attire.” A spear shot past his ear. He didn’t flinch. “This is a HAUNTED OBSTACLE COURSE designed by a SADIST who was PERSONALLY offended by the concept of safe passage.”

“Focus, Maelor,” Hyran snapped, batting an arrow out of the air with a gold shield that he threw up and dissolved in the same breath. “Save the critique for the debrief.”

“The debrief will be EXTENSIVE, Hyran. I am composing it in real time. Chapter one is titled ’A Continent That Hates Me Personally.’ Chapter two is titled ’Holes, Chutes, and Other Things Serena Frostborne Slides Into Without Permission.’”

“Chapter three will be titled ’Maelor Gets Hit By A Spear Because He Was Narrating Instead Of Ducking,’” Aeron said, shoving Maelor sideways as a chain whipped through the space his skull had just occupied.

“I was NOT going to get hit.”

“You were absolutely going to get hit.”

“My spatial awareness is IMPECCABLE.”

“Your spatial awareness just got saved by my hand, and my hand would like acknowledgment.”

“Your hand will receive a formal thank-you note. In writing. After we survive.”

They moved on until they reached an intersection where multiple corridors branched away into shadow.

“Do you know which way, Serena?” Hyran asked.

She nodded, lifting her hand. Dexmon’s body glowed in answer at the same time. He glanced down, then at her. It was a weird sensation.

Aegon: Mate is cute. She doesn’t know she is pulling from our magic.

A gold shield wrapped around them, humming low and steady. Dexmon felt it.

She blinked at Dexmon, who was still glowing, then she looked up at the shield.

“I am magical now. Been like this for a few weeks. By the way,” Dex said casually with a shrug as if this was nothing.

Aeron’s head snapped toward him so fast his neck cracked. Maelor’s eyebrows climbed high enough to qualify as a separate expedition. Hyran rolled his eyes. This was old news to him. He shot Dexmon an irritated look of betrayal because Dexmon wouldn’t let him run more tests. Dexmon also only trained with him for twenty minutes before deciding it was dumb. And now, Dexmon was delivering the news that he was magical with the emotional weight of a weather update.

Gavriel’s brows furrowed, but he said nothing.

“Did you just wake up with it?” Aeron asked, unable to help himself.

Dex flashed a grin. “Something like that.”

“’Something like that’ is doing the heavy lifting of a sentence that should be four paragraphs and a diagnostic,” Hyran said. “We are having a conversation about this. A long conversation. With charts.”

“After,” Dex said.

“After is becoming a very crowded schedule, Dexmon.”

Serena froze. A memory clawed its way up from somewhere deep and buried.

In that instant, a spear tore through the shield she had fabricated using Dexmon’s magic, shattering it like glass.

Dex reacted instantly, hooking an arm around her waist and yanking her back as all three mages threw up another barrier.

Arrows screamed past, ricocheting wildly.

Another spear dropped from above.

Serena felt it before she saw it. She shoved Dexmon hard out of the line of fire, away from her, and dove.

The spear missed her by an inch as the floor gave out beneath her. Without a thought, without a calculation, without a single goddamn second of hesitation, Gavriel, who was closest, dove headfirst after her as the corridor collapsed, stone ripping at his arms. He hit the bottom hard, knocking the breath from his lungs.

Above them, the floor snapped shut.

Dexmon skidded to the edge and lunged, but the stone sealed seamlessly, rejecting him like a closed gate. No crack. No give. As if the passage had never existed.

“SERENA!” His fist hit the sealed stone. The stone absorbed the impact and offered nothing back. “GAVRIEL! Can you hear me?”