Three days passed with the healer locked away in the dungeon, and still she refused to speak. Gianna visited her twice a day, standing before the cold iron bars, demanding to know where the jar was hidden, but the healer only stared back at her with cold, defiant silence, her jaw set in stubborn refusal no matter how Gianna pleaded or threatened.By the third day, frustration had curdled into something sharper, more desperate. Four days remained, and every hour wasted meant less time to complete the ritual Iris had described, less time to bring Nolan back before whatever window of opportunity his selfless choice had earned him closed forever.“She won’t break,” Gianna said, pacing the length of the dungeon corridor after another failed attempt to extract information. “I don’t know what else to do, Elmund. We’ve threatened her, we’ve kept her locked away, and she still refuses to tell us anything.”Elmund’s expression was grim, thoughtful, as though he’d been turning something over in
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