The trembling doesn't stop. It deepens.
The shelves sway, and from above us comes a low, structural groan, stone under pressure it wasn't built to handle.
Corivel looks around nervously. "We need to leave. The wards are reacting to the instability. If the locking sequence breaks—"
The ceiling cracks creating a full split that races across the stone, dropping chunks of rock. One of the sealed jars on the shelf behind Eltrien shatters.
"Move," I say. "Now."
Eltrien grabs three texts and shoves them into his pack. I don't argue with his priorities.
We run.
The Athervault is reacting to the tremors by contracting, causing wards to flare in panicked bursts, sealing corridors we need to pass through. Corivel shouts sequences at the walls, his fingers flying across stone surfaces, but the wards are fighting him. They're trying to close.
"This way!" He redirects us down a side passage I don't remember from the way in. The floor tilts, ten degrees, maybe more, the stone shifting beneath our feet.
On level seven, a section of shelving has collapsed across the corridor. Beneath the wreckage, a voice. Weak, muffled.
I don't hesitate. My thorns extend, and I cut through the fallen wood and stone, Nimor beside me with hands that phase through the rubble and solidify around the pieces that need moving. We pull out a young fae, a researcher by the look of her, clutching a scroll to her chest.
"Can you walk?" I ask.
She nods, shaking. We keep moving.
Level six gives us two more, an archivist and his apprentice, both trapped behind a ward that activated and locked them in when the tremors started. Corivel disables it, cursing under his breath, and we add them to our group.
By level four, the ceiling is dropping. The mountain is compressing around us. We're running bent over, the fae we've collected stumbling behind us, and Vashael's breathing has gone ragged.
"Corivel—"
"I know!" He's running his fingers along the wall, searching for the ward sequence for level three. His hands are shaking. "The sequence is twelve points; I need—"
A chunk of ceiling the size of a table drops five feet behind us. The young researcher screams.
"Seven seconds," Corivel says, fingers finding stones and pressing.
The ceiling drops another six inches. I brace my arms against it, thorns digging into stone, buying what I can. My back screams. Two thorns snap; the pain shoots from my forearms to my spine and whites out my vision for a half-second.
"Now!" Corivel shouts.
The ward releases. The door appears. Nimor shoves everyone through, and I throw myself after them as the ceiling meets the floor behind us.
We don't stop. The Athervault is sealing itself level by level, and we're racing upward, against the closure, through corridors that narrow, wards that flash, doors that appear only long enough for us to dive through.
When we burst out of the entrance into the open air, gasping and bleeding and covered in dust, the mountain makes a sound like stone exhaling. The entrance seals, closing the Athervault. Whatever we didn't take with us is locked inside.
I count heads. Vashael, Nimor, Eltrien. Corivel. The three fae we pulled from the wreckage. Everyone is breathing.
My broken thorns ache. I can feel new ones already pushing through to replace them. It'll take days. In the meantime, my left arm is useless for anything requiring precision.
"The texts?" I ask Eltrien.
He pats his pack. Still there.
"Then we move. Whatever's happening back at camp isn't waiting for us."
We make the return journey in a day and a half, pushing through exhaustion. By the time we crest the ridge overlooking camp, I know something has changed. The ground carries a low, constant vibration that wasn't there when we left.
