Alina’s POV
The ceiling ruptured.
Not cracked, not collapsed—but split, as if something above had torn it open by force.
Air detonated through the chamber in a violent blast. Stone screamed. Dust exploded outward like shrapnel.
“Move!” Casius shouted.
He shoved Alina sideways as a slab the size of a door smashed down where she’d been standing a heartbeat earlier. The impact rattled her teeth. Stone fragments sliced across her arm. The guards scattered, dragging the wounded, diving behind overturned crates as the chamber became a storm of falling rock and sparks.
Alina hit the ground hard, breath tearing from her lungs. She rolled, came up coughing, ears ringing.
Then another sound pierced the chaos. Not a collapse, but a deliberate impact. A heavy thud, a grunt, and the hiss of rope
