The sedative worked faster than Gabriel expected.

His vision blurred, the safe house ceiling swimming in and out of focus. He tried to keep his eyes open, but his eyelids felt weighted with lead.

"Stop fighting it," Mera said from far away. "You'll only make it worse."

Gabriel's jaw clenched. His muscles were already going slack, his body betraying him one limb at a time.

The darkness crept in.

His fingers twitched, attempting to curl into fists that failed halfway through. The room tilted, steadied, then tilted again.

Faces appeared above him. Tess. Gilbert. Adan.

"He's almost under," someone said.

His eyes closed. He forced them open again.

Stay conscious. Stay—

The thought dissolved.

His last awareness was of hands on his shoulders, lifting him. Then nothing.

…

When sensation returned, it came in fragments.

Cold cloth against his skin. The smell of linen and something medicinal. Pressure around his torso, arms, legs.

Gabriel tried to move. His body didn't respond.

Panic flickered in the back of his drugged mind. He was being wrapped, bound. The cloth pulled tight across his chest.

"Careful with his arms," Tess said. "Needs to look natural."

More wrapping. Layer after layer. His face was covered, rough fabric pressed against his closed eyelids.

He couldn't open his eyes. Couldn't speak. Couldn't move.

Trapped in his own body.

The panic grew stronger. His heart rate tried to increase and failed. The drug held him locked in place.

"Heart rate's stable," Mera said. "He's deep enough."

Hands gripped him. Lifting. Carrying. The motion made his stomach turn, nausea rising and subsiding as his body refused even that response.

Air moved against the cloth. They were outside.

Then he was being lowered. Wood beneath him, hard and unforgiving. The grain cart.

Something scraped. Boards being moved. The false bottom.

Gabriel was placed inside the hidden compartment, barely wider than his shoulders. Wood pressed against both sides and above him, inches from his face.

The darkness became absolute.

Boards slid back into place overhead. Footsteps. The creak of wheels.

Then the weight of grain sacks settling above, pressing down.

Buried alive in a moving coffin.

The panic screamed through his paralyzed body. He couldn't thrash. Couldn't call out. Couldn't do anything but lie still and breathe through cloth that grew warm and damp.

Breathe. Just breathe.

The cart began to move.

Time lost meaning in the dark.

The cart jolted over uneven cobblestones. Each impact jarred his spine. He couldn't shift position or adjust.

Voices above, muffled through grain and wood and cloth. Gilbert saying something. A laugh.

The cart stopped.

Footsteps. Many of them. Heavy boots on cobblestone.

"Halt. Inspection."

Church guards.

Gabriel's heart tried to race. The sedative wouldn't let it.

"Just grain," Gilbert said, casual. "Heading south to Kelmar."

"We'll need to check. Remove the covering."

Canvas being pulled back. The rustle of grain sacks being moved, shifted, checked.

Gabriel lay perfectly still. A corpse wouldn't move. A corpse wouldn't panic as boots walked directly above the false bottom.

"What's this?" The guard's voice was right above him.

Gabriel's mind screamed. His body remained slack.

"Reinforcement," Adan said, steady. "Floor was weak. Added boards before loading."

A pause. An eternity compressed into seconds.

"Seems sturdy enough." The weight shifted away. "Check the next one."

The inspection continued. More sacks moved. More questions asked and answered.

Finally, the canvas was replaced. The cart creaked as someone climbed back onto the driver's bench.

"Move along."

The wheels began to turn again.

Gabriel exhaled slowly through the cloth. His breathing had remained steady throughout. The sedative had done its job.

His mind, though. His mind had been screaming.

The nightmare came gradually.

Stone walls materialised around him. Not the cart. Not a hidden compartment.

A cell.

He was standing, his body responding again. He looked down at his hands. No cloth bindings. Just skin and old scars.

The Order's dungeon. The same place they'd kept him for six months.

No. This isn't real.

But the stone felt real. The cold air felt real. The chains hanging from the walls looked exactly as he remembered.

Footsteps echoed beyond his cell.

A figure stood in the doorway.

Himself.

The other Gabriel stared at him with eyes that burned red. No whites. No irises. Just crimson light casting shadows on the walls.

"You know what you are," the other Gabriel said. The voice was his own, but colder. "Stop pretending otherwise."

Gabriel's throat had closed.

The other Gabriel stepped into the cell. "They broke you because you were already broken. The Order just found the cracks and widened them." He moved closer. "Dracamere. Do you even know what that means?"

"No."

"Liar. You know. Deep down, in the parts you refuse to look at. You know exactly what you are."

The cell began to change. The stone walls bleeding red. Blood. Seeping from between the blocks, running down in thick rivulets.

Gabriel's feet were wet with it.

"The book knows," the other Gabriel continued. "The voice knows. You're not broken." He leaned closer. "You were never whole to begin with."

The blood rose higher. Ankle deep now.

Gabriel tried to move toward the door. His legs wouldn't obey. Rooted in place, sinking into the crimson pool.

"Complete the trial," the other Gabriel whispered. "Complete the trial and understand what you've always been."

The blood reached Gabriel's knees, then his waist.

He opened his mouth to speak.

The blood poured in.

Gabriel's eyes snapped open.

Darkness. Cloth pressed against his face. Wood inches above. The cart still moving.

Not the cell. Not the blood. Just the hidden compartment.

His throat felt raw, but the sedative still held him mostly paralysed. His breathing was faster now, shallow and rapid.

Not real. Just the drug.

But the other Gabriel's words echoed.

Complete the trial and understand what you've always been.

The cart hit a rut. Gabriel's head bounced against wood. The pain was sharp and grounding.

Real. This was real.

He focused on breathing. On the sensation of fabric against his skin. On the smell of grain and dust.

Not blood. Not the cell.

Just a cart moving south through the night.

The whisper returned, soft and distant.

Dracamere. Take the book. Complete the trial.

Gabriel retreated into the darkness of his own mind, away from the voice, away from everything.

The cart rolled on.

Time had no meaning. Gabriel drifted between states of awareness, never fully conscious, never fully asleep.

When the cart finally stopped, truly stopped, Gabriel didn't know it immediately.

It wasn't until hands began removing grain sacks, until the false bottom was pried open, until light stabbed through the cloth that he understood.

They'd made it through.

Fingers worked at the bindings around his head, unwrapping layer after layer until the cloth fell away and Gabriel could finally open his eyes.

Tess's face appeared above him, backlit by late afternoon sun. "We're clear of the city. Welcome back."

Gabriel tried to speak. His throat wouldn't cooperate.

Hands lifted him from the compartment. Mera checked his pulse, his breathing, his pupils.

"Give it time," she said. "The drug needs to wear off naturally."

Gabriel's eyes moved past her. Trees. A small clearing. The road stretching away behind them.

No walls. No city. No Church guards.

They'd escaped Adaranthe.

His body began to respond again. His fingers curled. His toes moved.

Gilbert crouched beside him, offering a waterskin. "Drink slow."

Gabriel managed a small nod. Mera helped lift his head while Gilbert tipped water past his lips. He swallowed carefully.

"The book," Gabriel rasped. "Where..."

"Still in my pack," Mera said. "Where it's staying until you explain what the hell is going on."

Gabriel's eyes closed. Not from the sedative. Just exhaustion.

They were out of Adaranthe. But the voice followed him anyway.

Dracamere. Take the book. Complete the trial.

Whatever trial it spoke of, Gabriel knew one thing with certainty.

He wasn't free of it yet.

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