Zarash watched him with bright, unblinking eyes, every muscle in his scaled frame strung tight with a predator's anticipation.

"I can give you something," he rasped again. "Something that will make every ward in this cursed place a formality. Something that will let you walk into any chamber, any sanctum, and kill even the most experienced Purifier without them ever realizing you were there."

Thorne tilted his head just slightly. "Do I look like someone who has trouble opening doors?"

That earned another laugh, harsher this time. "Pride. That's what gets our kind killed." He bared his teeth in something that might have been a grin. "But even you have limits. And I could give you tools to surpass them."

When Thorne didn't react, the prisoner's gaze sharpened. "I can teach you my bloodline's art. An aetheric ability the Purifiers never learned to counter. They won't sense it until your blade's already in their hearts."

Thorne studied him in silence, his face blank. "An ability that lets you pass through doors... Tempting offer..."

A slow grin spread over Zarash's sharp mouth. His tail curled across the stone in a lazy, sinuous arc. "Not ordinary doors," he purred. "But this? This is more than locks and wards. This is certainty. You could walk past the Seers themselves, and they'd swear you were never there."

For a moment, Thorne said nothing. He studied the scaled face, the bright hunger in those slitted eyes.

"Interesting," he said finally. "If you can do that, why are you behind bars?"

A flicker, too quick to hide, passed across Zarash's features. His jaw tightened.

"My ability isn't…instant," he admitted. "It requires time. Focus. Once the mark is set, it grows, spreads, until the target's own aether can't tell what's real. When it's complete, you can step past any protection and end them with a breath."

"But?"

"But it's not made for a battlefield," Zarash growled. "It's meant for single prey. For assassinations. A quick fight with multiple opponents, like the one that brought me here, and it's worthless."

Thorne folded his arms across his chest, studying him with flat, unblinking calm.

"Teach me."

Zarash lifted his brows. "Just like that?"

"If it's real," Thorne said softly, "I want to learn it."

Zarash's gaze flicked to the floor, then up again, sly and bright. He lifted both hands and tapped the black iron collar at his throat.

"I can't," he said, almost innocently. His claws tapped the runes that glimmered faintly against his scales. "Not like this."

Thorne's jaw flexed once. "You expect me to believe that."

"You've seen how it works." Zarash's voice lowered to a coaxing whisper. "This thing cuts me off from my core. It's like trying to teach you to run while your legs are broken. You're clever enough to know the difference."

"Clever," Thorne echoed.

"You wouldn't have come all this way," Zarash continued smoothly, "killed the ead godds know how many of your precious mages, risked everything you've built, if you weren't willing to see this through."

He leaned closer to the bars, his grin widening to bare every serrated tooth. "I know why you're here. This is your last bargaining chip. And you'd rather die than leave empty-handed."

Thorne felt the laugh building low in his chest, cold and ragged and almost amused by the sheer nerve. He didn't let it out.

Instead, he only lifted his chin, letting the shadows slide across his face.

"Or," he said evenly, "I could turn and leave you here to rot."

Zarash's smile never wavered. "But you won't."

Silence stretched between them, measured in the slow drip of condensation from the vaulted ceiling.

Thorne's pulse slowed, the clarity returning in a quiet, perfect hush.

He could kill this creature. He should. Every instinct, every lesson he'd ever learned, said no witness could survive. No secret could be allowed to slip free.

And yet…

He was tired of being a knife in someone else's hand.

Even if it was reckless. Even if it was foolish. He was here for answers. For power. For the simple, burning need to know if he was truly alone.

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug that felt almost casual.

"All right," he murmured. "Let's do it."

Zarash's eyes gleamed. The runes on the collar seemed to shiver as if sensing what was coming.

And for the first time, Thorne thought he saw something behind all the cunning, something raw and hungry that was not so different from the emptiness he carried in himself.

Thorne drew a slow breath and lifted his dagger, feeling its balance shift in his hand. The air around him seemed to thicken, the motes stirring to life as though recognizing his intent.

Zarash's eyes tracked every movement, pupils slitted and bright.

"What are you doing?" he rasped.

Thorne didn't answer. He closed his eyes and let his will sink into the blade, Aether Binding, the ability still felt new and foreign and yet intimately familiar. He felt the current in his veins flicker hotter as the ambient aether responded, flowing down the length of steel in shimmering threads.

The runes along the bars pulsed, sensing the shift.

Zarash inhaled sharply, his claws curling around the bars. "What… what kind of ability is this?"

Thorne still didn't speak. The dagger began to glow, faint cracks of white fire chasing themselves up the fuller. The motes hissed in the stillness as he poured more of himself into the binding, feeling the dagger grow almost weightless in his hand.

With the enchantment set, he opened his eyes.

One by one, he traced the blade along the etched runes at the base of each iron bar. They didn't shatter dramatically, they simply went dark, their light snuffed out as though a breath had passed over a candle.

Zarash watched, his mouth parting in something like awe.

"You're calling the ambient aether," he whispered, voice rough. "Effortlessly. Like it was born to your hand."

Thorne didn't look at him. He moved to the next bar. Another rune guttered out. Another lock unmade.

"Can you teach me?" Zarash asked, his tone edged with hunger. "That skill, whatever it is, I've never seen anything like it."

Thorne said nothing.

Half the bars were dark now. The dagger trembled faintly in his grip, the glow guttering lower with every stroke. He flexed his hand once, feeling the aether bound into the steel growing thin, threadbare.

He would have to be careful. If he overextended, the blade would crack.

When the last rune on the right side died, he stepped back and studied the bars.

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They were free of their protections but not broken. Still solid enough to resist a simple pull.

Thorne lifted his palm. "Stand back," he ordered quietly.

Zarash hesitated, then moved to the far corner of the cell, scales scraping the stone. His yellow eyes gleamed as he watched.

Thorne exhaled, feeling the motes swirling around his skin. He focused them inward, refining them into a single point. Then he thrust his hand forward and pushed, Aether Burst.

The air itself buckled as the condensed force slammed into the bars. They groaned, bending inward, but held.

He gritted his teeth, sweat prickling his spine. Not enough.

Slowly, he called more motes to him, shaping them with a surgeon's precision. He didn't want raw power this time, he needed something narrow, focused, honed to a killing edge.

When he struck again, the blast was smaller, almost a spear of white light.

The bar directly before him screamed against its brackets, bent almost double and snapped free.

It flew backward into the cell with a clatter, striking the far wall so hard a web of cracks spread across the stone.

Zarash cursed, ducking to the side.

Thorne lowered his arm, breathing hard. A few of the remaining bars were warped nearly to breaking, leaning in at uncertain angles.

He didn't have to say anything.

Zarash took one long, assessing look at the gap, then shifted his weight. He lunged forward in a blur of motion, slamming his shoulder into the bars.

Metal shrieked.

The whole front of the cage shuddered and collapsed inward in a chorus of groans and snaps.

A moment later, the scaled figure stepped free, the collar still bright at his throat, his claws flexing experimentally in the open air.

He looked around with a dazed, almost disbelieving expression.

"I'm free," he murmured, voice so low Thorne barely caught it.

Something in that tone, ragged and raw, stirred an echo in Thorne's memory. The way he'd once whispered those same words to the dark, in the night he slipped his uncle's chains.

Not just yet, he thought.

"Not quite," he said aloud.

Zarash turned to face him, yellow eyes wary.

Thorne lifted the dagger, its glow now guttering faintly, only a dim flicker of power left.

"Come here."

Zarash's gaze shifted from the blade to Thorne's face, searching. Measuring.

"You're sure this isn't the part where you slit my throat?" he asked softly.

"If I wanted you dead," Thorne said, voice calm, "I'd have left you in your cage."

For a long moment, Zarash didn't move. Then he stepped forward, his claws clicking softly on the stone.

"Fine," he rasped. "Do it."

Thorne drew a breath, feeling the tremor in the dagger as he turned it over in his hand. Even the faint glow it had left was guttering to nothing.

"Hold still," he ordered quietly.

Zarash tilted his head back, jaw tense, throat exposed. The collar's runes gleamed in delicate, interlocking scripts, more intricate than any ward Thorne had ever deactivated.

He pressed the blade to the first set of symbols and exhaled. A flicker of will, Aether Binding, and the motes shivered to life along the edge, crawling like pale fire.

One by one, he traced the runes. The iron hissed, each mark extinguishing in a dim sputter. Zarash closed his eyes, breath slowing as the pressure on his core began to ease.

"You're almost gentle," he muttered, voice rough.

"Try not to move," Thorne murmured back.

He worked methodically, inch by inch. The dagger's glow was fading with every rune he cut free, the power leaching out in dull waves. When he reached the halfway point, the last rune on the left side guttered and died.

And the blade went dead in his hand, so abruptly it felt like a heartbeat stopping.

He frowned, tapped the steel lightly against the iron ring. Nothing. No response.

Zarash cracked one golden eye open. "Why did you stop?"

"The binding is spent."

"Then bind it again."

Thorne didn't answer. He braced the dagger in his palm and closed his eyes, reaching for the ambient aether. The motes gathered readily, eager. He pressed them into the steel...

... and the instant the power touched the blade, the dagger exploded in a bright, brittle flare.

Fragments shot past his cheek in a scatter of silver sparks. He turned his head aside on instinct, but a line of heat seared across the back of his hand.

Zarash hissed, throwing up one scaled forearm. The shards struck his hide and bounced harmlessly away.

Thorne bit off a curse, flexing his stinging hand. Two small splinters of steel were buried in the flesh between his thumb and palm. He picked them out with steady fingers, blood welling dark and slow.

"Subtle," Zarash drawled.

Thorne didn't dignify that with an answer. He wiped his hand on his coat, reached into his boot sheath, and drew the last of his concealed blades.

"I'm going to have to go shopping again," he muttered.

He turned the dagger over once, feeling its balance, weighing its edge. Then he closed his eyes and called the aether to him.

It came as it always did, quick, eager, bright, and sank into the steel with a sighing rush. The blade warmed in his grip, the edge whispering with power.

Zarash was watching him with that same hungry awe.

"Not many of our kind can do that," he rasped.

Thorne ignored him. He set the blade to the collar and began again. One by one, the runes died, their glow snuffed out like candles under glass.

The iron ring loosened against Zarash's throat. The scaled man closed his eyes and drew a long, ragged breath.

At last, Thorne lowered the dagger. The final rune flickered and went dark.

The collar fell, striking the stones with a dull clang.

For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Then Zarash opened his eyes, and Thorne felt the weight of his unshackled presence like a pressure in the air.

It was the feeling of something vast and old and only half-tamed, breathing free for the first time in a while.

For an instant, Zarash looked like he might bolt, his golden eyes flicking toward the darkened hall beyond the ruined cage. His tail coiled in a reflex of readiness, every scale poised to vanish into the dark.

But then he sighed, shoulders slumping.

"A deal is a deal," he rasped.

He straightened, rolling his shoulders as though rediscovering their full range of motion. The air around him seemed to grow subtly warmer, his presence no longer throttled by iron.

"My gift," he said slowly, "isn't a weapon you throw in a clash. It's a patient thing. A disease you set loose and let it feed."

Thorne stood motionless, watching him with expressionless eyes.

"It's not poison," Zarash continued, pacing in thought. "Not exactly. When I breathe on the ambient aether, it begins to… degrade. It loses cohesion. Loses its memory of what it's supposed to be."

He gestured with one clawed hand, as if shaping something invisible.

"Once it's corrupted, any structure it touches will crumble. A ward, a spell matrix, a containment circle, it all breaks down. And if it finds a living core…" His teeth bared in a humorless grin. "It unravels it from the inside out."

Thorne's gaze narrowed a fraction. "Deadly."

"Deadly," Zarash agreed. "And almost impossible to stop once it takes hold."

"Can others sense it?"

Zarash's pupils thinned, thoughtful. "Only someone with true aether vision might see the change. Even then, it's subtle. A little discoloration. You'd mistake it for nature-aspected motes, or old contamination in the chamber. By the time you realize the mistake…" He spread his hands, clawed fingers splaying. "Too late."

Thorne considered that in silence.

"It spreads?"

"Like rot," Zarash murmured. "One mote at a time. A single breath becomes an entire poisoned lattice. Given hours..." He snapped his claws softly. "Even the most elaborate bastion falls."

"Huh," Thorne muttered. He stepped closer, shadows pooling around his boots. "Show me."

Zarash lifted his head, a smirk curving his sharp mouth. "Watch closely, then."

His eyes grew distant. He inhaled and exhaled in a slow, deliberate stream.

Thorne's vision shifted. The familiar overlay of aether flared into focus, the motes bright and quick as fireflies.

Then, in the heart of the cloud Zarash had exhaled, he saw it.

A flicker. A change.

The motes began to flake apart at their edges, soft flakes of dull green drifting free. The color was muddy, indistinct, so close to nature-aspected aether he almost missed it.

Almost.

The corrupted motes drifted wider, brushing against the clean ones. Wherever they touched, the flaking spread. One by one, the entire cloud began to turn.

A slow, quiet contagion.

It was clever. Subtle. The sort of corruption that could slip unnoticed into any warded chamber.

Thorne's eyes narrowed as he realized what the other man meant to do.

And then he moved.

He didn't lift a hand, didn't speak a word. He simply reached out with his will and took the aether.

Every mote in the room, corrupted or pure, stilled. Then they surged together in a sudden, violent rush, swirling in a cyclone that flattened Zarash's smirk into a startled grimace.

The cloud condensed to a solid wall of force, slamming into the scaled figure and pinning him bodily against the ruined cage.

Zarash gave a sharp, unguarded yelp as iron bars dug into his spine.

The motes hung in the air like a living tide, pressing against him with the weight of an avalanche.

Thorne stepped forward, each footfall slow, deliberate.

He watched Zarash's eyes flick back and forth, searching the cloud. He could feel the other man's will grappling with the motes, trying to coax them back under his control.

Thorne didn't let him.

He pressed harder, commanding the entire mass with a thought. The aether obeyed without hesitation, his element, his dominion.

Zarash groaned, scales rasping against stone as he sagged under the crushing weight. His claws twitched, scrabbling for purchase.

"Still think," Thorne said softly, his voice cold as the deep places of the world, "that I came here for your little parlor tricks?"

Zarash lifted his head with visible effort, his pupils contracted to knife-points.

"I think…" he rasped, voice strained, "you might be even more dangerous than I guessed."

Thorne didn't blink. The motes pressed harder, the air vibrating with the depth of his command.

Zarash's breath hitched in something between pain and startled awe.

And still Thorne didn't release him.

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