The chains struck like vipers. Lyra twisted, but cold iron clamped her wrists, dragging her toward the altar. Kael lunged, shard slashing. The blade sparked against the chains—useless.
"It's keyed to her blood!" Lyra screamed as the stone table's carvings lit up. Clockwork symbols seared her skin, mirroring the scars beneath her shirt. "He's reactivating the binding!"
Kael's withered hand closed over hers. "Then we break it together."
Her laugh was raw. "You can't break what's born broken."
The chains yanked her onto the altar. Her back arched, veins blazing cobalt as the carvings drank her light. Gideon's spectre materialized above them, smoke and static. "Still fighting, little clone? Lira begged too… before I peeled her soul apart to make you."
Kael drove the shard into the altar. Black blood oozed. The forest shrieked.
Lyra's eyes met his. "Do it."
He hesitated. The shard could sever her connection to Gideon—or kill her.
"Now!"
He plunged the blade into her chest.
No blood. Only light.
The chains shattered. Lyra gasped, her hand flying to her unmarked sternum. The altar cracked, spewing shadows that coalesced into a locket at her throat—a twin to the one Gideon's voice would later use.
"You… idiot," she breathed, clutching the locket. "You could've died."
Kael stared at the shard, now rusted. "Still might."
Gideon's spectre dissipated, but his whisper lingered: "She's still mine, Kael. Down to her marrow."
The hunters erupted from the trees.