"Save the scanning for later," I said, my voice low as I watched the mirrors around us begin to warp and stretch. "Right now, every bit of focus needs to go into getting out of this cage. If we try to reach out to Zarathorak or Frostfang while we're still inside this interference, it'll be like screaming into a storm—we'll just draw lightning to our position."
Aurion nodded, his eyes glowing a steady, rhythmic blue. "Smart. The Expanse is like a giant ear; any frequency we broadcast now will be intercepted by the Shroud. Follow me, and don't look at the reflections of your own eyes."
The escape was a grueling, hallucinatory journey. Aurion led us through "veins"—narrow paths between dimensions where the air tasted like cold metal and the ground felt like walking on thin ice. Several times, the shadows of the Goliaths we had defeated flickered in the distant mirrors, but Aurion would touch a shard, shifting the light just enough to make us invisible to the past.
