Chapter 13 | Part 3

His magic came back on the fourth day.

Not all of it—not even most of it—but enough. A trickle where there had been nothing, a whisper of power that made the hollow space in his chest feel slightly less empty.

Drusniel tested it carefully, keeping his hands hidden, feeling the air respond to his will. He could create a breeze. Could push, gently. And if he narrowed that thread enough, he could send it into the lock’s keyway and feel where the tumblers caught. Couldn’t do much more than that—but the lock on his cage was old, corroded by Wyrmreach’s strange atmosphere. A focused push in the right place…

He could escape. Alone.

The realization settled into him like cold water. He had a path out. Slip the lock during the deepest part of the night watch, when only two guards were awake and both were focused on the perimeter. Move fast, move quiet, disappear into the twisted landscape before anyone noticed he was gone.

Seven guards. Four wagons. One drow with just enough magic to open a lock.

The math made sense. Alone, he was fast, quiet, unburdened. He knew how to survive. He’d crossed the nightmare sea alone, and whatever waited in Wyrmreach couldn’t be worse than that.

But across the gap between cages, Elion was watching.

“I’ve been waiting since they threw me in here. Waiting for… I don’t know. A chance. A sign. Someone who doesn’t smell like fear.”

The creature had spoken to him three more times since that first night. Brief conversations in stolen moments, each one revealing more of the strange being in the far cage. Elion didn’t know what he was—not fully. He knew he could do things others couldn’t, knew he had abilities that terrified his captors, but the specifics were blurry, like memories seen through dirty glass.

He also knew things. Random things. Useful things. He’d told Drusniel which guard had a bad knee (the one on evening rotation, left side). Which wagon carried the keys (the third one, hidden under the driver’s seat). Which prisoner was an informant (the human woman with the scar, who’d been here too long to be anything else).

“Things come to me,” Elion had said again. “I don’t ask why anymore.”

Drusniel had his escape route. He had his moment. He had every reason to take it and leave the creature behind.

But.

Elion had treated him like a person. Not like a commodity, not like a threat, not like the valuable merchandise Merrik had seen. Just a person. Someone worth talking to. Someone worth waiting for.

In all of Wyrmreach, Elion was the only one who had looked at Drusniel and seen something other than profit.

Every instinct said no, his analytical mind insisted. Two escapees are slower than one. More likely to be caught. More likely to fail.

But his instincts had been wrong before. On the beach, they had told him to stay in Astalor, to never cross the nightmare sea. In Umbra’kor, they had told him to accept his place, to stop reaching for power that wasn’t his. They always said to be smaller, safer, alone.

Drusniel was tired of being alone.

He spent the day watching the guards, refining his plan. The lock on his cage would take approximately four seconds to force with air magic. Elion’s cage was older, rustier—maybe six seconds, maybe less if Elion could help from inside. The distraction would need to be significant: something that drew all seven guards away from the cages, something that gave them time to run.

Fire. The fourth wagon. It carried lamp oil for the journey—he’d smelled it on the third day. If he could reach it before the guards reached him…

Two prisoners escaping. Two prisoners running into hostile territory with no supplies or weapons, no plan.

Two prisoners with a chance.

That night, during the deepest watch, Drusniel pressed his hand against the lock of his cage and held perfectly still, feeling the pin stack through the air.

Then he pushed—one narrow burst, exactly where the mechanism resisted.

The mechanism clicked. The door swung open.

And instead of running toward freedom, he ran toward Elion’s cage.

End of Chapter 13.3 —> 13.4: The One Who Walks Free: The Escape