They moved with the Wardens.

Nyxara kept them just far enough behind the patrol to watch without being seen, slipping through the bends of Stillreach's curved streets as if the city itself were guiding them forward.

Torin matched her pace easily, his steps falling into hers with quiet precision. He always adjusted faster than most—like he could feel the rhythm of movement before it fully formed.

Around them, voices overlapped, tight with unease. Footsteps broke into hurried, uneven patterns. Someone shoved past, nearly losing their footing as the edge of the channel cracked beneath their heel, a thin fracture splitting through the white cob.

The shard pulsed against her ribs, uneven and strained, the faltering rhythm tightening something in her chest as if it were trying to warn her.

Ahead, the Wardens turned sharply into a narrower corridor, one of the service paths that cut between districts. Fewer people. Fewer exits.

Nyxara slowed half a step.

Torin's voice came immediately. "What?"

She didn't answer at first, her attention drawn to something just beyond perception, something that wasn't sound or sight but instinct, old and unyielding, the same force that had kept her alive long before Stillreach.

She shifted her weight, just enough to let her gaze flick—not forward this time.

Back.

The street behind them had lost all order. Along the walls, hairline cracks had begun to spider through the white cob, subtle but spreading. People shoved past each other without looking, voices cutting over one another in rising panic. A vendor's table had been overturned, its contents trampled underfoot.

Nyxara turned forward again, but the feeling didn't leave.

"We're being followed," she said quietly.

Torin didn't look back. "You sure?"

"Yes."

Ahead, the Wardens slowed.

One of them pressed a hand against the wall. The faintest shimmer passed through it—like heat over glass—before fading.

Another hidden threshold.

Nyxara felt her pulse spike as the Wardens continued on, and she stepped forward to follow, only for the air around her to shift in a way that had nothing to do with sound or movement, but with weight. It settled across her shoulders with a subtle, deliberate pressure that made her breath catch as recognition followed close behind. It wasn't unfamiliar. She didn't turn this time.

"Torin," she said, barely shaping the word.

"I feel it," he replied, quieter still.

Behind them, footsteps approached with measured, unhurried certainty. Though the crowd did not react at first, the pressure soon found them, threading through the street until people began to move aside in quiet, instinctive compliance.

Nyxara's hand hovered near her side as the shard pulsed hard against her ribs, and every instinct she had honed over years of survival urged her to move, to break from the path, to vanish into the nearest alley and never look back.

Nyxara closed her eyes for the briefest second before shifting just enough for her shoulder to brush Torin's. In the same motion, she tore a strip of cloth free and bound it around the shard, muting its glow before pressing it into his hand.

His fingers closed around it, and he drew in a sharp breath as the heat bit through the fabric.

"Go," she breathed.

He didn't move. "Nyx—"

"Run," she said, the word quiet but final, leaving no room for hesitation.

His lips brushed her forehead in a fleeting, deliberate touch, the contact brief enough to be missed and yet grounding enough to catch somewhere beneath her control before he stepped back, already turning with the movement of the crowd and slipping into it as though the city itself carried him away.

Heavy footsteps stopped behind her.

"Interesting," a familiar voice said.

Nyxara turned and stepped forward, deliberate in the movement, drawing Kavra's attention fully onto herself. "Looking for me?" she asked.

Warden Kavra stood only a few paces away. Wardens closed in at her sides.

"Yes," Kavra said. Her gaze moved over her with deliberate precision—face, stance, the set of her shoulders.

Gravity slammed into her—from everywhere at once, a crushing force that drove through bone and muscle alike. The pressure found her ribs instantly, driving into the cracked bone with punishing force, stealing the air from her lungs. Stone met her knee. The street blurred at the edges.

"I don't know how, but you wear a form of the Axiom Imprint," Kavra said, the words quieter now, heavier. "There." She nodded toward Nyxara's shoulder.

The world seemed to tilt.

Nyxara kept her gaze steady, forcing her focus through the crushing weight.

Up close, there was no mistaking it now—the recognition in Kavra's slate eyes, the certainty behind it. Not suspicion. Not guesswork.

Knowing.

The same knowing Nyxara had felt in the chamber with the Axiom Heart, as if it had been waiting. As if it understood something she did not.

The Warden's hands moved to weapons. Stances adjusted. The circle tightened, no longer pretending otherwise.

"You will come with us," Kavra said.

"I don't think I have much of a choice." She measured the distance, the numbers, the weight still pressing into her ribs. Then she let the thought of escape go.

Around her, the city continued its unraveling—the water's rhythm broken, voices rising in confusion, fear threading through the air like a gathering storm.

Her jaw tightened against the pressure, against the questions pressing just as hard beneath it.

"You're pulling from somewhere else," Nyxara said, voice low but cutting. "Feeding it to keep the shield standing. It's not holding."

Kavra's expression did not change, but something flickered behind it—measured, contained, and far too deliberate to be ignorance.

"We will stabilize it," Kavra said.

Nyxara held her gaze, searching for something more—for confirmation, for denial, for anything that might explain why the Axiom Imprint burned into her skin felt older than anything the Wardens claimed to protect.

"Without the shard... you're only delaying it."

"You'll give it to me. Now."

Her smile sharpened, just slightly, relief hidden in the edge of it. "I don't have it."

Hands seized her arms, locking them behind her back with practiced precision. Cold metal closed around her wrists. Nyxara did not resist as they hauled her to her feet. The pressure eased just enough to let her stand.

Her gaze flicked once toward the crowd, just long enough to confirm that Torin was gone. Some part of her eased, and she exhaled slowly. The Wardens began to move, pulling her toward the heart of Stillreach.

The city trembled around them, fine cracks tracing through the pale walls and along the channels at their feet, water shuddering as if it could no longer decide where to flow. This time it did not feel like a warning, but like something already set into motion—a countdown she could no longer stop.