The crypt ceiling was collapsing faster now. Every heartbeat came with another crack, another thunderous shift in the stone overhead. Dust poured from the vaults like sand through an hourglass, filling the air until it was hard to breathe. The floor trembled beneath their boots as if the tomb itself resented their presence, determined to bury them where they stood.

  “We have to get out of here, now!” Alkibiades ordered.

  “How? We're in pretty deep.” Horren let out.

  Lillyth looked to Aeyona with fear in her eyes.

  “You got me out of Varidia, can you do it again?” she asked.

  “I.. I've never taken this many through before. I don't know if it will work.” She stammered in reply.

  “I believe in you. Please, try.” Lillyth pleaded, trying to comfort her.

  Aeyona felt her pulse hammer in her skull. Each falling rock seemed to echo the same grim thought.

  You will die here.

  She forced it down, choking back fear as she steadied her breathing. She had no room for panic. Not now. Every shred of strength had to be poured into one thing.

  Escape.

  “The closer to Viexel, the better,” Alkibiades shouted over the crumbling roar. His voice was steady, but she caught the tremor beneath it.

  “I’m trying. We will be lucky if we get out at all,” Aeyona replied through clenched teeth. Her eyes stayed shut, brow furrowed, every line in her face drawn with strain.

  She pictured the tavern. The flicker of lanternlight on the walls. The chatter of tired travelers. The smell of ale and woodsmoke mingling with the faint sweetness of bread.

  The softness of the bed she and Lillyth had shared, the warmth that lingered even when the fire burned low. She built the image piece by piece, holding it in her mind like a fragile flame in a storm.

  The magic responded to her will, humming under her skin. Her veins burned with it. The air shimmered faintly around her outstretched hands as she gathered what little strength she had left. The stones kept falling, some close enough to rattle her focus, but she stood her ground.

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  A low vibration spread through the room. The air thickened until it almost felt alive. Slowly, a spiral of energy began to twist in front of her, faint at first, then brighter, pulsing with pale blue light.

  It spun faster and faster until the vortex widened into a circular disk, the air at its center rippling like water. The sound was low and deep, almost a heartbeat.

  “Hold on. If you let go, you may be lost,” Aeyona warned, her voice breaking through the chaos.

  The others did not hesitate. They grabbed one another’s arms, forming a single chain. Aeyona took Lillyth’s hand, warm and trembling, then stepped forward.

  The instant her foot touched the disk, the world tore apart.

  The pull was violent, as if the portal itself were a living thing determined to consume them whole. The air vanished. Sound fractured. For everyone else, the transition was an instant. A flash of color, a blur of motion, a brief surrender to chaos.

  But not for Aeyona.

  She staggered forward into silence. The roar of the collapsing crypt was gone. So was the world.

  Only blackness stretched in every direction, vast and endless, swallowing everything it touched. The air was cold but not truly air, just the suggestion of it.

  Whispers drifted faintly through the void, layered voices murmuring nonsense words that somehow felt familiar, as if echoing from dreams she had long forgotten. The sound pressed against her skull like distant thunder.

  Beneath her feet, light gathered into form. A bridge of pure energy unfolded. Transparent as glass, and fragile as it as well. Glowing softly with a pale inner fire.

  Its surface pulsed faintly with each step, alive in some quiet way. It was the only thing keeping her from falling into the endless dark below.

  Far ahead, her destination burned faintly. A second portal, distant but visible, waiting at the far end of the bridge. That was her way out.

  She turned back. The others hung motionless in the air behind her, frozen mid-step, arms linked in the same pose they had entered with. Their bodies looked weightless, like marionettes caught in a pause between breaths.

  Aeyona gritted her teeth and reached for them. The moment she touched Lillyth’s arm, the connection pulsed through her like static. The group shifted slightly, time struggling to remember how to move. She began to drag them forward, every inch of progress a battle against invisible resistance.

  It felt like wading through an ocean that wanted her to drown. Each step was slower than the last, her legs trembling under the strain. Her head throbbed with pressure. Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. The bridge hummed beneath her, as if aware of her exhaustion and quietly judging it.

  Halfway across, faint glimmers began to appear in the darkness. Small pinpricks of light, scattered and uneven. As her eyes adjusted, she realized they were not random.

  They were other paths, other bridges, suspended in the same abyss. Some bent upward into unseen places. Others curved away and vanished into nothing. At the ends of each, a circular glow pulsed like a waiting heartbeat.

  She stopped to breathe, her chest aching.

  Then she saw movement above her.

  Another bridge. So close she could almost feel the vibration of its light. Shapes crossed it, dim at first, but distinct enough to make her heart stumble.

  A blonde elf. A grey cat tucked under one arm. A pale woman with dark hair, her body limp.

  Her breath caught.

  It was her.

  She was watching herself drag Lillyth and Marvel from the ruins of Varidia, from that burning nightmare of their past. Every detail was exact. The blood on her arm, the wild, terrified look in her eyes, the silent tremor of exhaustion.

  She had never seen another bridge this close before. Never realized how thin the distance might be between moments, between worlds.

  The thought chilled her deeper than the void around her. How many bridges existed here? How many versions of herself had walked this same road, trying to reach the light before it faded?

  Her mind flickered with the temptation to stop, to look longer, to understand. But the whispering grew louder, closer, pulling at her attention like unseen hands. The void did not want her lingering.

  “Don’t fall,” she whispered to herself. “Don’t let go.”

  She gripped Lillyth’s arm tighter and pressed forward.

  Each step became agony. The air thickened, pressing down like a weight. The lights from the other bridges flared, then dimmed again, as if blinking in warning. Her vision blurred at the edges. But she did not stop.

  When she finally reached the end, the exit portal opened wide, its pull soft but insistent. The moment her foot touched its surface, the current took hold of her and the team, swallowing them all in a single breath.

  She closed her eyes and prayed it led somewhere safe.