Chapter 51: See You!

"Hands up!"

The command tore through the chamber.

Eldrin’s eyes shot toward the entrance. Four soldiers had filled the doorway, blades drawn and lanterns raised, their light spilling across the floor and washing away most of the darkness he’d been relying on. There were more voices somewhere beyond them, boots shifting in the corridor.

They had been caught.

One of the soldiers raised his weapon toward the brothers.

"Hands where we can see them! Both of you, step away from the recovery chamber. Now. And tell us who you are."

Eldrin’s fingers tightened at his sides.

For one brief moment, his thoughts raced through every possible escape. Shadow Step was nearly useless. Veil was still active, but with this many eyes on them, it would only buy seconds. Silver Tongue no! there were too many people present for him to risk relying on it again.

Beside him, Shaul slowly raised his hands.

Eldrin stared at him.

What the fuck?

Of all the possibilities he’d imagined, surrender had been the last.

Shaul didn’t look at him. His attention remained fixed on the soldiers.

"Just follow my lead," he murmured, barely moving his lips.

Eldrin’s eyes narrowed.

He had no idea what Shaul was planning, but there was something in his brother’s voice that made one thing clear.

He had planned for the possibility of being cornered.

Eldrin raised his own hands. ℯℯ𝘭.

"That’s better," one of the soldiers said. "Now step away from the...."

"Give me a little more time."

The words came so quietly that Eldrin almost missed them.

Shaul lowered his gaze for the briefest instant.

Then he whispered to himself, almost amused,

"Now it’s my turn."

A deafening explosion ripped through the military district.

BOOM!

The chamber shook violently.

The soldiers instinctively turned toward the corridor as dust rained from the ceiling. Somewhere outside, another explosion answered the first, followed by shouting and the frantic clang of alarms.

"What’s happening?"

"Outer section!"

"Seal the gate!"

The confusion lasted only seconds.

It was enough.

The force came without warning.

Eldrin felt the floor vanish beneath his feet.

His stomach lurched as his body rose into the air.

"What..."

The coffin rose with him.

For one impossible moment, Eldrin found himself floating beside his father while Shaul remained below, one hand extended toward them. The air around his brother seemed to distort, not visibly, but enough for Eldrin to feel an enormous pressure holding them aloft.

Shaul’s expression remained calm.

"Hold on."

The next instant, they shot forward.

The chamber disappeared behind them.

They tore through the corridor and burst into the open night, moving so quickly that the wind struck Eldrin’s face hard enough to make his eyes water. The military district spread beneath them in a blur of rooftops, courtyards, walls, and moving soldiers.

Eldrin twisted around.

Shaul was carrying all three of them through the air.

Himself.

Eldrin.

And their father’s body.

Carrying them as though some invisible force had taken hold of their bodies and made gravity irrelevant.

Eldrin could barely process what he was seeing.

He had seen awakened people before, but never one capable of this.

A voice rose from somewhere below.

"Pathway user!"

Another soldier shouted immediately afterward.

"Call a high-ranking official! This is beyond our authority!"

Explosions continued to erupt across the estate.

One struck a warehouse near the eastern road, sending a column of fire and debris into the night. Another blast followed farther south, forcing soldiers to scatter and leaving sections of the district in darkness.

Eldrin looked toward Shaul.

"Did you...."

"Not me."

Shaul’s answer was almost drowned out by the wind.

He was still moving.

Fast.

Eldrin had only a few seconds to wonder who else could be behind the explosions before another figure rose through the smoke below them.

The man caught up effortlessly.

Dark clothes.

The same controlled movement.

The same face Eldrin had seen near the storage building.

The infiltrator.

The one who had knocked out the guards.

The one who had taken their appearance.

The one Eldrin had watched planting something beneath the military buildings.

The man glanced toward Shaul.

"It’s done."

Shaul gave a single nod.

"Well done."

Eldrin stared at him.

So they were working together.

The realization explained more than he wanted it to.

The explosions hadn’t been random.

The guards hadn’t been distracted by chance.

The entire operation had been prepared before Shaul ever entered the storage building.

Eldrin’s eyes moved toward the military district shrinking behind them.

"Wait." Figure said.

Shaul glanced back.

"Five minutes," he said.

"What?"

"That’s roughly how long we have before the estate puts enough people in the air to make this difficult."

His tone remained maddeningly calm.

"We need to be outside Korrandis before then."

Eldrin looked toward the sprawling estate below.

He should have been thinking about escape.

Instead, another thought surfaced.

"Put me down." Eldrin said.

Shaul’s expression hardened.

"No."

Shaul glanced at him.

"10 seconds," Eldrin said.

Shaul seemed about to argue, but another explosion shook the estate behind them.

He changed direction.

They descended sharply.

The infiltrator followed.

The three of them dropped toward the northern residential section, where the rows of slave quarters were beginning to spill into chaos. Guards were rushing toward the main military roads, while workers emerged from their rooms to see what had happened.

Shaul lowered Eldrin toward the roofs.

"Where?" Shaul asked.

Eldrin pointed.

"There."

His old room.

The moment his feet touched the ground, he sprinted.

He was no longer thinking about stealth.

There was no point.

The estate was already in chaos.

He shoved open the familiar door and crossed the small room in seconds.

His hands found the loose section beneath the bed.

The pouch was still there.

He pulled it free.

The weight of the coins settled into his palm.

For months, he’d imagined what freedom would feel like when that money finally became enough.

Now the same pouch felt different.

Not like freedom.

Like proof.

Proof of everything this place had taken from him.

Eldrin tied it securely beneath his coat and looked around the room one last time.

This cramped space had been his home for two years.

Two years of labor.

Two years of being owned.

And now he was leaving.

Not because House Korrandis had granted him freedom.

Because he had taken it.

Eldrin stepped outside.

Shaul was waiting above the courtyard while the other man kept watch from the roofline.

"Hurry."

Eldrin rose through the air once more.

As Korrandis receded beneath them, he looked back.

The estate that had once seemed impossibly large was already becoming smaller against the darkness.

He thought of the days he’d spent carrying supplies.

The nights he’d returned exhausted.

The coins he’d counted one by one.

The way they’d treated him as property while his family’s dead body sat behind their walls.

His expression hardened.

’I’ll make you pay.’

Shaul looked at him.

Eldrin kept his eyes on Korrandis.

’They took two years from me.’

His hand tightened around the pouch beneath his coat.

’They took my family.’

The estate disappeared farther into the distance.

"But I’ll make sure they remember what they did."

He looked away only when the walls finally vanished into the darkness.

For the first time since House Novaryn fell, Eldrin was leaving Korrandis.

And this time, he wasn’t leaving as a slave.