Zapharos and Dravok hit the water behind me like twin meteors. Xandros and four of his best followed, their lights cutting pale cones through the murk. I kicked hard, following the faint blue glow of the lead drone that had already slipped into the submerged cave mouth.
The tunnel narrowed fast. Rough stone walls scraped my shoulders, and the current tugged at my harness like invisible hands trying to drag me back. In my mind's eye, I saw Naeris. Beautiful, proud, a vision to behold.Damn it,I thought, kicking harder,how could someone I’d just met already be this important to me?
I’d spent lifetimes in the Dark. I’d walked out of the Abyss itself. I’d faced down the Harrowed One’s whispers and came out scarred and still breathing. Yet one sharp-tongued rebel with fire in her eyes and defiance in every line of her body had crawled under my skin in a single day. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. The way she moved in a fight. The way she’d pointed a blaster at my chest and still trusted me to duck. The way her scent had clung to me even through the dust and blood of the plateau.
The flaw inside me stirred, dark and hungry, feeding on the fear that I might already be too late.Why can’t I stop thinking about her?
The tunnel twisted downward. My lights caught ghostly formations, ancient stalactites coated in pale mineral sheen, and faint bioluminescent streaks that pulsed like veins beneath the stone. The water tasted metallic and old on my tongue. My lungs worked steadily against the rebreather, but my chest still ached with every pull of the bond.
Ahead, the drone’s light flared brighter as the passage opened into a wider cavern. I powered forward, my shoulders burning, the cold now a constant knife against my skin.Zapharos’ golden aura cut through the water beside me like a second sun, his face a mask of raw fury for Ella. Dravok’s shadows trailed behind him in dark ribbons, somehow alive and furious, even underwater. We had to reach them. I had to reachher.
Because if anything happened to Naeris down here—if that cave-in had crushed her, or if whatever killed the drones decided she was a threat—the flaw inside me wouldn’t just whisper anymore.
It would consume me. And I’d let it.
The tunnel spat us out into a vast underwater cavern like the maw of some ancient beast. My lights swept across the first ruins, and my chest tightened so hard the rebreather almost failed. They weren’t just stones. They werehers.
Massive, broken columns of pale, glowing crystal rose from the silt-covered floor, etched with the same flowing glyphs I’d seen on Naeris’ skin in my dreams. Faint golden light still pulsed inside them, weak and ancient, like a heartbeat that refused to die after two and a half million years. Shattered arches framed what must once have been a grand hall. Fragments of star-metal and something that looked like petrified wood drifted in the current, covered in a thin layer of glowing algae that made the whole place shimmer with eerie, otherworldly beauty.
This was no random cave.
This was Ashera’s cradle.
The bond in my chest flared so bright it hurt. Naeris was close. I could feel her now, her anger, her determination, that stubborn spark that made me want to both shake her and pull her against me until the universe forgot we existed separately. But the cavern wasn’t empty.
A shadow moved in the periphery of my lights, fast, sleek, lethal. A massive fish, easily twice my length, ghosted out of the deeper gloom, drawn by the disturbance of our passage. Its eyescaught the glow of the ruins and reflected back cold, hungry, and black.
Bad luck for the big fish.
I didn’t slow down. Ineededthis.
The creature turned, its dark triangular fin slicing through the water like a knife through flesh. Its mouth opened to reveal rows of serrated teeth, and it arrowed straight for me like I was the easiest meal in the water. Perfect. The flaw inside me roared in approval. I twisted mid-swim, brought my blade up, and drove it straight into the side of its head with every ounce of pent-up rage I carried for the cave-in, for Rylan, for the way Naeris had made me feel things I had no right to feel.
Blood bloomed in a dark cloud. The fish disappointed. It didn't put up much of a fight. It thrashed once, violently, then went limp. I shoved the carcass away and kept swimming; the kill barely registered as satisfaction. It was just a distraction. The real fight was still ahead.
Zapharos and Dravok flanked me, their auras cutting through the murk like twin beacons. Xandros and his soldiers followed close, weapons ready.
We pushed deeper.
The cavern narrowed again into a tunnel so tight it looked like it had been bored by unknown people desperate to stay hidden. The walls closed in with merciless finality. First my shoulders scraped, then theywedged. Cold, rough stone pressed against my armor from both sides like the jaws of a closing vise. The ceiling dropped so low I had to turn my head sideways, and my cheek brushed slimy rock with every kick. Each breath through the rebreather sounded obscenely loud in the confined space, wet, mechanical, desperate. The sound of my own survival trapped inside a stone throat.
My grav-harness snagged on a jagged outcrop. I twisted, snarled, and wrenched free with a violent jerk that sent a showerof silt exploding around my faceplate. For one heart-stopping second, the harness tangled worse, pinning me in place while the current tried to shove me backward. A dark, murderous rage surged through me. The flaw inside my chest roared to life, feeding on the suffocating pressure, whispering that this was exactly how the Abyss had once tried to claim me, by crushing, by confining, by denying escape.
No space. No light. Only stone, trying to swallow me whole.
Every inch forward was a battle. Stone scraped my backplate. My elbows scraped raw even through armor. The water felt thicker now, heavier, pressing in from all directions as if the planet itself resented my intrusion and wanted to grind me into dust between its ancient teeth.
I snarled right back inside the mask andpushed. My shoulders burned, my lungs strained, and the flaw inside me roared in helpless fury. Because somewhere beyond this suffocating stone coffin, Naeris was waiting.
From my peripheral, I saw something move. A long, sinuous shape slithered out of a crack in the wall inches from my face, an eel, thick as my arm, mottled brown and green, teeth like needles. Its jaws opened wide in warning, and cold, dead eyes locked onto mine. The thing was ancient, blind from living in darkness for who knew how long, and it came straight at me, jaws snapping.
The creep of it—the way it undulated through the narrow space like it owned the dark—sent a visceral shudder down my spine. I grabbed the eel behind the head and slammed it against the wall hard enough to stun it, then shoved it behind me for the others to deal with. No time. No mercy.
The bond pulled harder now, almost frantic. Naeris wasthere,just beyond this suffocating stretch of rock. I could feel her breathing, feel the dust still in her lungs, feel her stubborn determination.
I forced my shoulders through a final, brutal pinch where the tunnel narrowed to barely wider than my chest. Stone scraped my armor. My rebreather scraped the ceiling. For one horrible second, I was stuck again, wedged tight, and my flaw screamed that this was exactly how I would fail her.
I roared inside the mask andpushed.
