Zane dulac's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The stairs ended at a vault door set into thick stone walls. Crystals grew from the cracks between blocks, pink and yellow and pulsing with that same heartbeat rhythm. Zane stopped three steps from the bottom. The door was reinforced metal, heavy bolts around the frame, built to keep something in or someone out. He'd seen doors like this before — back when his father moved goods through locked warehouses in the old district. This wasn't a prison. It was storage. His chest tightened. If his siblings were behind that door, they weren't being held like captives. They were being kept like inventory. He descended the last steps and pressed his ear to the metal. No voices. No movement. Just a faint hum, electrical, like the buzz of a federal power grid. Zane pulled back and studied the door. No handle on this side either, but there was a seam where two panels met. He wedged his fingers into the gap and pulled. The metal groaned. His shoulders burned. The door shifted an inch, then stuck. He braced his boot against the wall and pulled harder. Something snapped inside the frame — a lock breaking or a hinge giving way. The door swung open and Zane stumbled back, catching himself on the stairs. The room beyond was empty. No cells. No children. Just a circular chamber lit by blue light from glowing seams in the floor. And in the center, coiled on the stone, was a rusted chain. Zane crossed the threshold and crouched beside it. The links were broken in three places, mineral deposits crusted over the metal like dried blood. He picked up one end. It was warm. Fresh. Someone had been chained here recently — recently enough that the metal still held their heat. He turned the chain over and saw scratches along one link. Letters. Initials. His middle sister's. Zane stood, the chain dangling from his fist. They'd been here. They'd left him proof. And now they were gone again, moved deeper into the mountain while he'd wasted time breaking through doors. But the chain meant something else too. It meant they'd gotten free, at least for a moment. Long enough to break the links. Long enough to leave a mark. He looked at the glowing seams in the floor, tracing the pattern they made — arrows, all pointing toward the far wall. His siblings weren't just leaving traces. They were leaving him a path. Zane dropped the chain and followed the light.