Chapter 19
NINETEEN
Thane
The darkness of the fissure swallowed us, but to me, stone has never been dark. It has a heavy, thrumming hum, a vibration of patience and memory that I have listened to since the first days of my creation.
I held Aria’s hand. It was small, swallowed entirely by my own, her skin fever-hot and vibrating with a nervous energy that felt like a trapped bird beating its wings against a cage. Her pulse fluttered against my palm, erratic and fast.
"Stay close," I rumbled, my voice bouncing off the narrow walls. "The mountain remembers the trauma of the collapse. We must be gentle with her."
"I thought you said you could shape it," Aria whispered, her voice tight.
The claustrophobia was still there, a cold knot in her chest that I could feel through the bond.
It was a thin connection, gossamer-fragile compared to the roaring inferno she shared with Kaelen or the electric live-wire that tethered her to Flynn.
"I can," I said. "But you do not shape stone by forcing it. You ask it to move."
We reached a dead end, a wall of collapsed granite that blocked the upward path. Aria flinched, her breath hitching. To her, it was a tomb door. To me, it was clay.
I released her hand, though the loss of contact made a hollow ache open up behind my ribs.
Placing both palms against the rough surface of the blockage, I didn't push, instead I simply let my essence, the weight of the Bear, sink into the grain of the rock.
I sought the fault lines, the microscopic gaps between crystals, the places where the stone wanted to yield.
Part, I thought, a suggestion of movement rather than a command.
The rock groaned. The granite didn't crack; it flowed. It went soft, like wax continuously warmed by a hand, and slid aside, opening a path just wide enough for two.
Behind me, Aria let out a small, sharp gasp.
I felt it then, a spike of pure, unadulterated wonder traveling down the golden thread that linked us. It was a clean, bright sensation, washing over the dark oil of her fear. She wasn't looking at the exit; she was looking at me. At my back. At the power I wielded.
It made me want to straighten my spine, to expand my shoulders, to be the mountain she needed. But it also terrified me.
Our bond was so faint, unlike the one she had with Kaelen or Flynn, and now even unlike the one she had with Elias.
It was akin to a single strand of spider silk holding a boulder.
If I leaned on it, if I let myself need her the way the others did, I would snap it.
I was too heavy. My grief was too heavy.
My history was a sediment layer of failures, and she was already carrying the weight of the sky.
"Come," I said, stepping through the opening I had made. "The air is fresher above."
She followed, her boots scraping on the loose scree. "That was beautiful, Thane. It looked like the rock was breathing."
"It breathes," I said, taking her hand again to guide her over an uneven patch of floor. "Just very slowly. Slower than us. Slower than trees. But it breathes."
We climbed in silence for a time. I carved stairs where the slope became too steep, molding the stone into flat, reliable steps.
Every time I used the magic, I felt that flicker of awe from her, followed immediately by a wave of exhaustion.
She was running on empty, her reserves drained by the fights she had endured and the flight through the dark.
It wasn't something a little healing magic from the phoenix and a few mouthfuls of fish could fix, yet, she kept climbing.
Her resilience was a terrifying thing.
We moved upward, winding through the veins of the mountain. Just as we neared a junction where an old mining shaft intersected a natural cavern, I stopped.
The smell hit me first. Not a physical scent, though the staleness of the air changed, but a magical stench. It smelled of sulphur, rot, and the sharp, acidic tang of fanaticism.
"Thane?" Aria whispered, sensing my tension.
I squeezed her hand, pulling her back into the shadows of a limestone overhang. "Quiet," I breathed.
I closed my eyes, extending my senses into the rock. I felt the vibration of footsteps. Many of them. Clumsy, hurried strides that had no respect for the stone. They were above us and to the left, moving through a parallel tunnel.
The Order, I realized. Or perhaps the traitor Keepers. It mattered little; they both tasted of poison.
"They are close," I murmured, opening my eyes. In the dark, the gold flecks in her amethyst eyes seemed to search for mine. "To the left. We must go right. It will be steeper, harder, but they will not find us."
"Can you sense them?" She asked, pressing closer to my side. Her body heat seeped through the rough wool of my tunic, a beacon in the cold.
"I can feel their disturbance," I explained, keeping my voice to the lowest rumble. "They walk on the earth like conquerors. They break whatever they touch. It echoes."
I led her away from the junction, carving a fresh path through a vein of softer sandstone. This route was narrow, a chimney meant for smoke and bats, not people. I had to widen it as we went, my magic constantly smoothing the edges so they wouldn't snag her skin or clothes.
"You're careful," she said softly after I had dissolved a particularly sharp stalactite that would have scraped her shoulder.
"You are fragile," I said, then immediately regretted the word. It sounded like an insult. "Not in spirit," I corrected quickly. "Your spirit is iron. But your body, well, it has been through much. I do not wish to add to the bruises."
"Kaelen calls me fireheart," she mused, her breath coming a little harder as the incline increased. "Flynn calls me Little Pup. Elias calls me the Key, or the Door, or whatever metaphor fits the apocalypse of the hour."
She paused, looking up at me. "You just call me Little One."
"You are small," I stated, confused. "To me."
"It's not just size," she said, managing a weak smile. "With you I feel like I don't have to be big. I don't have to be the child of prophecy or wear a crown I never asked for. I can just be here."
My heart gave a slow, heavy thud against my ribs.
It was the pressure. That was what she was running from. The crushing weight of Kaelen’s intensity, Flynn’s manic energy, Elias’s cosmic dread. They all needed her to be something. Kaelen needed a mate to match his fire. Flynn needed a pack alpha. Elias needed a savior.
And me?
I just wanted her to be safe.
"You do not have to be anything with me," I told her, shaping a handhold into the wall so she could pull herself up a ledge. "You can just be Aria. The girl who presses flowers."
She froze, her hand in the groove I had made. "You really know about that."
"We tasted your life for years," I reminded her gently. "The bitterness of the rituals. The fear of the High Keeper. But also the sweet moments. The quiet ones, like the satisfaction of finding a purple aster in the frost, or the comfort of old paper in the archives."
I pulled her up onto the ledge, lifting her until she stood beside me. The tunnel here was a vertical shaft, a vent leading to the surface. Above us, far above, I could see a pinprick of velvet darkness that wasn't stone. The night sky.
"Pandora..." I started, the name tasting of dust on my tongue. "She was magnificent. She burned so brightly that looking at her hurt. She was Kaelen’s sun. He revolved around her, and she basked in it."
I looked at Aria. She was leaning against the wall, listening, her eyes fixed on my face.
"But when the sun shines that bright," I continued, "it casts long shadows. Kaelen was first. He was always first. We loved her, and she loved us, truly, but we were moons. We were the entourage."
"That sounds lonely," Aria whispered.
"It was accepted," I said. "It was the nature of things. But you..."
I reached out, my large hand hovered near her face, but I didn't touch her, didn't want to overwhelm her.
"You are not like her," I said. "Through the bond I feel you trying. I know you stretch yourself thin, Aria. You try to encompass Kaelen’s rage, Flynn’s hunger, Elias’s vision. You try to give us all rooms in your heart."
Her eyes filled with sudden tears. "It’s hard," she admitted, her voice cracking. "It’s so loud. Just being near you all it’s like standing in the eye of a storm."
"I know," I said. "And I worry. Your body... it is mortal. It’s not designed to house storms."
"Thane," she said, reaching out to take the hand I had left hovering. She pulled my palm against her cheek. Her skin was soft, cool now, the fever of the magic receding slightly. "I want to do it. I want to bind with you. With all of you. But I’m terrified I’ll disappear."
"You won't," I vowed, the earth magic in my blood responding to the promise, making the stone beneath our feet vibrate.
"I will be the anchor. When the Dragon tries to burn you, I will be the hearth.
When the Wolf tries to run you down, I will be the den.
When the Phoenix tries to scatter you to the winds, I will be the gravity. "
She closed her eyes, leaning her full weight into my hand. "Thank you."
"Come," I said, my voice thick. "We are close."
The last climb was steep. I ended up carrying her again, one arm wrapped around her waist, my other hand driving into the rock to create holds, climbing the chimney like a ladder. We rose through the layers of the earth, leaving the stagnant air of the tomb behind.
And then the rock ended.
We pulled ourselves up onto a narrow ledge, hidden behind a cluster of boulders and scrub brush.
The wind hit us first, cold, clean, smelling of pine and distant snow. It scrubbed the taste of the Skal and the damp cave from my lungs.
Above us, the sky was a vast, bruised purple, scattered with stars that looked nothing like the ceiling of a cavern. The moon was a sliver of bone, hanging low.
Aria gasped, stumbling away from me, moving toward the edge of the overlook.