The locket flares white-silver, and a hard line of light lances from Kynes’s hand into Nezznar’s chest. The pedestal groans beneath them, drinking itself dry.

Nezznar sags in the stasis field, suddenly pale and exposed, while the chamber’s ember sigil dims to a dying pulse. Bren tightens her grip, blade still leveled.

A silver seam opens along the pedestal’s face, revealing deeper script beneath the blood-lock. The chamber waits, as if the whole ruin is forcing Kynes to choose, bind Nezznar to the hidden power, or shatter him and sever it forever.

Kynes turns the locket’s glare down through the pedestal. Silver light threads into the open seam, and the hidden script wakes in a cold pulse.

The chamber answers with a low groan. The ember sigil gutters, and blackened cracks creep from the pedestal into the floor around Nezznar.

Kynes keeps the flow steady. The silver writing locks into place, then snaps outward like a chain finding its ring.

Nezznar jerks against the stasis field as the ruin takes their shape into itself. The spell does not just hold them, it names them, fixes them, claims them.

The locket dims to a contained ember. On the pedestal, a second line of script appears, newly revealed, pointing deeper into the hidden workings of the house.

Nezznar hangs bound and powerless, the chamber’s fading light trapped around them like a closed door.