Chains snapped and dissolved mid-air, glyphs evaporating from their skin like smoke.
The timer blinked out, its ticking silenced.
With a sound like an exhale from the gods, the far wall groaned open, revealing a stairway cut from stone, spiraling upward into gold-lit shadow, a promise of escape and new trials.
They lay there, shaking, dripping, silent.
Miki whispered, her voice raw, splintered, barely audible over her panting breaths.
"Did we… live?" Her sun-tanned skin glistened, her eyes glazed with bliss and disbelief.
Kota nodded, barely able to lift his head, his chest heaving. "We made it."
Reina didn't answer, curled forward, her arms wrapped around her legs, tears sliding silently down her cheeks.
They weren't fear or sorrow but the aftermath of something too much, too deep, too beautiful—her submissive nature overwhelmed by the intensity of their shared triumph.
