POV: Lyra

I had become the cage, but cages rust.

I felt it first as fatigue, the kind that did not belong to muscle or bone. It settled into thought itself, making each moment heavier than the last. The prison still breathed around me, pearl-white walls pulsing steadily, but the rhythm was no longer effortless. Each beat lagged, like a heart forcing itself to continue long after it should have rested.

I pressed my palm against the living light.

It trembled.

“So,” I murmured, “this is how ...