Chapter 20
TWENTY
Aria
The wind on the mountain ledge bit at my exposed skin, sharp and unforgiving, but the heat radiating from Thane was a physical wall against the cold. I didn't wait for him to process the shock of my confession, that I didn't just need him for the math of the bond, but that I wanted him.
I leaned in and closed the small distance between us.
When my lips touched his, it wasn't the searing, consuming inferno of Kaelen’s dragon fire, nor the electrifying, frantic spark of Elias’s phoenix energy. It didn’t have the predatory, teeth-grazing hunger of Flynn’s wolf.
It tasted like coming home.
It was the feeling of a heavy door latching shut against a storm.
It was the scent of deep, damp earth and pine needles crushed underfoot, the smell of a forest after the rain had stopped and the world was holding its breath.
His mouth was warm, firm, and hesitantly gentle, as if he were terrified that applying even a fraction of his immense strength would shatter me into dust.
A sound rumbled in his chest, a low, tectonic vibration that traveled through his ribs and settled deep in my own bones. It was a groan of surrender.
His large hands came up to frame my face, his calloused thumbs tracing the line of my jaw with a reverence that made my breath hitch.
He kissed me back, and the hesitancy vanished, replaced by a deep, unwavering pressure.
It was slow, thorough, and devastatingly solid.
It felt like sinking into a warm bath after days of freezing, like the tension of the last years, the fear, the duty, the constant, grinding pressure of the Gate, was finally bleeding out of my muscles.
The knot of anxiety that had lived in my solar plexus since I was twenty years old uncoiled. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel like I was falling. I felt caught.
I moved instinctively, needing to be closer, needing to bridge the gap between our bodies until not even the air could fit between us. I shifted, climbing into his lap. My legs straddled his massive thighs, the rough wool of the cloak bunching around my waist.
He made a sharp intake of breath against my mouth, his hands sliding down from my face to grip my hips. His fingers were heavy, anchoring me to him, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh above the bone.
"Aria," he breathed, breaking the kiss to rest his forehead against mine. His eyes were closed, his lashes dark against his cheekbones. "You are stunning."
"I thought I was fragile," I whispered, my hands tangling in the thick hair at the nape of his neck. It was softer than I expected, cool from the mountain air.
"You are," he rumbled, opening his eyes. Those warm, sorrowful brown depths swallowed me whole. "But you are also heavy. Not in weight, but in presence. You occupy all the space in my mind."
He shifted one hand, running it up my spine, pressing me closer until my chest was flush against his. The contact was grounding, a realignment of my world's axis.
"Little One," he sighed, the nickname vibrating through me.
I shivered, but not from the cold. I loved it when he called me that.
Coming from anyone else, it might have felt condescending, a reminder of my mortality compared to their ageless power.
But from Thane, it sounded like a vow. It was an acknowledgment of his duty to shield me, to stand between me and the storm.
It let me put down the burden of being the Keeper, the Unbound Queen, the apocalyptic key, and just be Aria. Just be small, and safe, and held.
Then, the bond flared.
It wasn't a subtle tug; it was a three-pronged strike of awareness slamming into the back of my mind. The golden threads connecting me to the other princes pulled taut, humming with sudden, intense clarity.
Kaelen’s presence hit first, a spike of hot, smokey jealousy that tasted like sulfur.
He was down in the cavern, miles below, but I could feel his dragon pacing, his golden eyes narrowing as he sensed exactly whose lap I was sitting in.
But beneath the jealousy, there was a grudging acceptance, a settling of his own volatile nature. He knew I was safe.
Flynn was a burst of amber sparks, amusement, sharp and wild. I could feel his wolf grinning, a sense of “about time” radiating through the link. He liked this. He liked that the pack was knitting itself together.
Elias felt like a cool breeze, a knowing shimmer of turquoise light. There was no judgment, only a quiet satisfaction, as if a piece of a puzzle he’d been staring at for centuries had finally clicked into place.
They knew. They all knew what I was doing, what I was feeling.
And I didn't care.
Let them watch. Let them feel the echo of Thane’s lips on mine. Let them feel the way my heart steadied when his arms wrapped around me. I wasn't hiding anymore. I was done with secrets, done with shame.
I pulled back slightly, just enough to look him in the eye. The starlight reflected in his irises, making them look like deep pools of water.
"You aren't just a shim to level the table, Thane," I whispered, tracing the scar that ran down his jawline with my thumb. "You're the mountain the table stands on."
He went still, his breath catching. "Aria..."
"My mountain," I said, grinning, the words feeling right, feeling true. "Solid. Unmovable. Mine."
Thane closed his eyes again, a shudder running through his massive frame. He leaned his head forward, burying his face in the crook of my neck and inhaled deeply, his nose brushing the sensitive skin below my ear.
"Yours," he rumbled against my skin, the word indistinguishable, lost in the gravel of his voice, but I felt the intent of it. "For as long as the stone holds the earth."
I sighed, tilting my head back to give him access to my neck, my eyes drifting open to look at the night sky.
The stars were bright, unclouded by the smoke of the village far below.
It felt peaceful. For one perfect, stolen moment, the war, the Council, the Goddess hunting us… it all felt miles away.
Then I saw it.
Reflected in the glossy darkness of Thane’s eyes as he pulled back to look at me, a light bloomed.
It wasn't the warm yellow of a torch or the orange of a campfire. It was a cold, sickly teal. A harsh, chemically bright flare that cut through the darkness of the valley below like a corrupted star.
I stiffened in his lap. Thane felt my tension instantly. His hands tightened on my hips, his body locking into combat readiness before he had even turned his head.
"What is it?" he demanded, his voice dropping an octave.
I looked over my shoulder toward the distant silhouette of the Citadel.
A beam of light was rising from the highest tower, not the Sanctorum, but the darker, thinner spike of the Astronomy Tower.
It shot straight up into the night sky, a pillar of viridian and teal fire that twisted and writhed like a living thing.
It didn't look natural or even like any kind of magic I'd seen before.
It looked like an infection.
The peace of the last few minutes shattered like glass. "That light..." he rumbled. Thane turned, shifting his weight without letting go of me, shielding me with his body even as he looked. He hissed through his teeth. "That is not a signal fire," he growled. "That is sorcery. Old sorcery."
"It has to be Marissa," I said, the name tasting like bile. "Unless Natalia somehow has her magic back." Thane shook his head at that. "The colors,Elias said Hera uses peacock feathers and woven stars, but this looks like deep magic. Abyssal."
The beam of sickly teal light pulsed, expanding outward in a shockwave that rippled through the clouds, turning the underbellies of the clouds above a bruised, greenish-black. It was a beacon. A calling card.
Thane stood up abruptly, lifting me with him. He set me on my feet but kept a hand on my back, pressing me toward the rock wall, into the shadows.
"We’re too exposed," he said, his eyes scanning the horizon, scanning the sky. "If that is a beacon, she is looking for something. Or someone."
"Us," I said. "She's looking for us."
"We must go back down," Thane said, his voice heavy with regret. He looked at me, his brown eyes filled with an apology that broke my heart. "I am sorry, Little One. I wanted to give you the sky. I wanted you to have a moment of peace."
"You did," I said, reaching for his hand. "You gave me everything I needed. But you're right. We can't stay."
"I have to keep you safe," he rumbled, his expression hardening into stone. "Above all else. If she sees us here, exposed on the mountainside..."
"She won't," I said, though my heart was hammering again. "We're going back to the cradle. Back to the pack."
I moved to start the climb down, but Thane stopped me.
"No," he said. "You are exhausted. And we need speed."
Before I could argue, he scooped me up into his arms. One arm hooked under my knees, the other around my back, pulling me high against his chest. I instinctively wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in the rough wool of his cloak to shield my eyes from the biting wind.
"Hold tight," he ordered.
He didn't climb down the way we had come up. He stepped off the ledge.
I gasped, my stomach dropping, but we didn't fall.
Thane slammed his boots into the vertical rock face, earth magic flaring brown and gold around his feet.
The stone softened, catching him, molding around his steps.
He ran down the side of the mountain, moving with a terrifying, impossible grace for a man of his size.
He was an avalanche, a controlled slide of power and mass.
We plunged back into the darkness of the fissure, the teal light of the Citadel vanishing behind the curtain of rock. The air grew stale and damp again; the scent of dust and ancient minerals replaced the smell of pine.
I pressed my ear against Thane's chest, listening to the steady, powerful thud of his heart. It was a war drum beating a retreat, but it was also a promise.
Safe, the rhythm seemed to say. Safe. Safe. Safe.
But as we descended deeper into the dark, leaving the sky behind, the image of that teal beacon burned behind my eyelids. Hera wasn't just waiting for us to come to Olympus. She was turning the mortal realm into a hunting ground.
And we were heading back into a trap with no exit.
"Thane," I whispered into his neck as the shadows swallowed us.
"I am here," he rumbled, his arms tightening around me. "I have you."
"I know," I said, letting the warmth of his body chase away the chill of the goddess's light. "That's the only reason I'm not screaming."
He didn't laugh. He just moved faster, taking us down, down, down into the belly of the world where the monsters, my monsters, were waiting.