Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Flynn
We ran.
Or rather, we scrambled through the gloom, a chaotic stampede of demigods and one exhausted mortal woman, fleeing down the gorge-like throat of the world like we were being chased by the very concept of mortality.
The tunnel was ancient, smelling of wet limestone and the deep, abiding rot of the earth, but right now, all I could smell was panic.
Kaelen was in the lead, barely visible in the dim bioluminescence of the moss clinging to the ceiling.
He was cradling Aria’s small form against his chest, holding her tight, like she was the last glowing ember of a dying fire he refused to let extinguish.
His boots hammered against the uneven stone floor, setting a blistering pace that was less about tactical evasion and more about raw, unadulterated terror.
I was right on his heels, my lungs burning, but it was the scent rolling off him that choked me.
Amidst the damp rock, Kaelen reeked of acrid ozone and sulfur, the scent of a storm about to break, burying the softer, terrifyingly distinct scent of Aria’s fear under a thick, suffocating blanket of dragon smoke.
"Slow down!" I barked, my voice echoing sharply off the damp walls. "You're going to trip and break her neck before Hera even gets a chance to look at us."
"We’re exposed!" Kaelen roared back, not breaking his frantic stride. His voice was a jagged tear in the darkness. "She found us, Flynn! The teal light was a marker. A target. She knows!"
"I know what it was," I snapped, leaping over a fissure in the rock that Kaelen had blindly stumbled through. "But running blind into the dark isn't a strategy, Kaelen. It's prey behavior."
He ignored me. He just kept charging, his broad shoulders hunched, his entire body radiating a heat so intense I could feel it shimmering in the air from five paces back.
It was suffocating. The tunnel felt smaller with every step, the air getting thinner, sucked into Kaelen's personal vacuum of anxiety.
He was consuming the oxygen, replacing it with the volatile fumes of his own desperation.
I surged forward, my wolf's instincts flaring, putting on a burst of speed to catch up to him. I grabbed his shoulder, my fingers digging hard into the tensed muscle beneath his tunic.
"Stop."
He spun on me, the movement so fast it was a blur. His golden eyes were wild, completely blown, the pupils dilated into abyssal black pits that swallowed the meager light. "Let go."
"You’re letting fear drive the chariot," I growled, getting right in his face, ignoring the heat radiating off him.
"You aren't thinking. You're reacting. I get it, you're terrified that you almost lost her, that she sought comfort from Thane instead of you, and now you’re trying to regain control by force. You’re letting Her, the Queen, dictate our next move. "
"She has marked us!" Kaelen’s voice cracked, a sound like a tectonic plate shifting deep underground. "We do not have time for your critiques, Wolf! All of us need to bind together. We need to be strong enough to fight back!"
"And you think forcing a ritual out of terror is the way to do that?" I challenged, my own temper rising to meet his heat. "You think screwing her on a cold rock because you're scared of the dark is going to make us gods? That isn't power, Kaelen. That's desperation."
Something in Kaelen snapped.
It wasn't a mental break; it was a magical rupture. The container he had built around his jealousy, his fear for her life, and his millennia-old rage simply shattered.
"I AM TRYING TO SAVE HER!" he bellowed.
The roar wasn't human. It was a blast of sound that vibrated my molars and shook dust from the ceiling. And then, the Dragon manifested. Not completely, the tunnel was far too small for his true form, but his control slipped just enough for his inner nature to violently reject his human skin.
With a sickening sound like tearing canvas and cracking bone, massive, leathery wings exploded from his back.
They were magnificent, I had to give him that. Midnight scales blending into iridescent gold, given enough space, I knew they could span wide enough to blot out the sun.
They were also entirely too big for a six-foot-wide limestone tunnel.
The wings snapped open with tremendous force, instantly hitting the stone walls on either side.
They rebounded with a dull, wet thud. The force of the impact buckled Kaelen’s knees.
He tried to compensate, tried to fold the massive limbs, but they were stiff with disuse and uncontrolled magic.
One wing, tipped with a razor-sharp talon, snagged on a jagged stalactite, jerking him violently backward.
His center of gravity shifted. He stumbled, his boots scrabbling uselessly for purchase on the slick, algae-covered floor, but the massive appendages acted like a sail in a gale, dragging him down.
He went over backward with a colossal crash.
Aria tumbled from his arms as he fell, landing in a heap of startled yelps a few feet away, rolling to a stop against the tunnel wall. She scrambled up instantly, unharmed, eyes wide.
Kaelen, however, was not so graceful.
He landed flat on his back; the wind knocked out of him with a grunt.
His wings were pinned awkwardly beneath him and wedged against the tunnel walls, crunched at unnatural, painful-looking angles.
He thrashed, trying to sit up, but the sheer span of the wings wedged against the narrow stone kept him pinned tight.
His legs kicked at the air, his arms flailing as he tried to find leverage that simply didn't exist in the narrow trench.
The mighty Dragon Prince. The terror of the skies. The strategist of the First War.
Stuck.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the sound of Kaelen’s heavy, rasping breathing and the soft plink of a pebble falling from the ceiling to bounce off his chest.
I stared at him. His wings looked scrunched up against the rock like a broken umbrella shoved into a container that was too small. His furious, soot-stained face was red with exertion and indignation.
I saw all that, and I laughed.
It bubbled up from my gut, unbidden and unstoppable. It was the laughter of hysteria, of exhaustion, of the absolute, crushing absurdity of the universe. I doubled over, hands on my knees, wheezing as the tension in my chest uncoiled.
"You..." I gasped, pointing a shaking finger at him. "You look like a turtle."
Kaelen stopped thrashing. He went perfectly still. He glared at me, his eyes burning with enough heat to melt lead. "Help. Me. Up."
"A turtle!" I howled, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. "A grand, scaly turtle flipped onto its back in a ditch. Oh, gods, Kaelen. Is this your battle form? Is this how we conquer Olympus? We just wedge ourselves in doorways until they give up out of pity?"
"I will incinerate you," Kaelen hissed, his voice dropping to a dangerous, draconic register.
He strained, veins popping in his neck, finally retracting the appendages.
The wings dissolved into golden smoke that was sucked back into his skin, leaving the back of his grey tunic completely shredded. "I will turn you into a pelt, Wolf."
"You have to catch me first," I choked out, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. "And considering you just lost a fight with a stationary wall..."
A sound came from the floor. A small, bubbling snort.
I looked down. Aria was crouched, clutching her ribs, her hand covering her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking.
She giggled. It was a wet, ragged sound, bordering on tears, but it was definitely a giggle.
"He did," she managed, her amethyst eyes dancing with a manic, exhausted light she hadn't possessed thirty seconds ago. "He looked exactly like a turtle."
Kaelen froze. He looked at me, his jaw set, then down at Aria.
He opened his mouth to roar, to assert his dominance, to remind us who he was and the gravity of our situation.
But then he saw it. The terror in her eyes, the reflection of the teal light, had receded, washed away by the sheer stupidity of the moment.
The paralytic fear caused by the beacon had broken.
His shoulders slumped. A long, suffering sigh escaped his nose, accompanied by a small puff of grey smoke.
"Fine," he grumbled, rolling onto his side and pushing himself up with a groan. The pout on his face was legendary. It was the pout of an emperor who had tripped on his own coronation robe. "Mock the dragon. See if I share my hoard next time."
He stood up, dusting himself off with aggressive dignity, though I noticed the tips of his ears were tinged a deep pink. He reached down and hauled Aria to her feet, his hands gentle despite his annoyance, giving her a quick, clinically possessing scan for injuries.
"Are you broken?" he muttered, brushing a strand of dark hair from her face, his thumb lingering on her cheekbone.
"Just my dignity," she said, leaning into his touch, a fresh, genuine smile tugging at her lips. "And maybe a rib from laughing."
"Hmph." Kaelen straightened his shredded tunic, trying to regain his stature. "We’re moving. But walking. No more running."
"Good plan, Turtle," I said, clapping him solidly on the back.
He swatted my hand away with a snarl, but the ozone stench of his panic had faded, replaced by the smell of burnt dust, old stone, and embarrassment. It was a vast improvement.
We walked the rest of the way to the Cradle in silence, but the air was lighter. The suffocating weight of the immediate threat had been pushed back just enough to breathe.
When the tunnel finally opened back up into the vast cavern of the Cradle, the sense of gloomy safety washed over me.
It was a massive hollow in the earth, dominated by a subterranean lake of ink-black water that acted as a mirror for the few luminescent fungi clinging to the stalactites high above.