Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
CADEN
The woman who held my heart in the palm of her hand, turned back to the glowing screen in her hand, the pale blue light illuminating the hard line of her jaw.
“According to the intel James and Jackson got to us through Sean,” she said, scanning the map overlay, “we should be able to see the fort from here. If it’s surrounded by water like they suspected…”
She looked up, breath fogging in the cold air as she turned toward the tree line.
The forest around us was starting to thin, revealing glimpses of open sky between the dense branches. A rush of wind swept through, carrying the scent of river water and frostbitten leaves. Somewhere ahead, the sound of flowing current broke the stillness.
Emma stepped forward, boots crunching against frozen ground. She reached the edge of the ridge and pointed across the expanse.
“Might be that one,” she suggested, pointing ahead.
I followed her gesture. Across the river, barely visible through the rising mist, loomed the jagged silhouette of a half-collapsed fort. Crumbling stone walls jutted out from the trees like broken teeth. The water around it shimmered in the early light, too still. Too quiet.
It looked exactly like the kind of place where hostages would be hidden, and people like us were meant to die.
A thrill shot down my spine. Not fear. Something closer to anticipation.
The forest fell away behind us as we approached the river’s edge. The air was colder here, seeping through the fabric of my clothes and straight into my bones.
Emma slowed beside me, scanning the bank. Her eyes caught on something half-buried in reeds, a flash of dull metal and rotting wood.
“Wait,” she murmured, crouching down. She brushed aside the tall grass, revealing the shape of a small rowboat, old but intact, wedged into the mud and covered by a tattered canvas. Oars were strapped inside, slick with dew.
I arched a brow. “Is there a word for ‘too convenient’?”
She let out a dry, wary laugh. “Suspicious?”
“Sounds about right.” I nudged the boat free with my boot. “But it’s either this, or we turn back.”
Her focus lingered on the fort, the jagged walls, the dead quiet. Then she sighed, stepped forward, and grabbed one of the oars. “Guess we’re rowing ourselves into the trap, then.”
The boat rocked under our weight, the river whispering against its sides. Emma steadied herself, then nodded once. I shoved us off the bank, the current catching immediately, pulling us toward the shadow of the fort.
The closer we drifted, the more wrong everything felt.
Our destination loomed ahead like a carcass left out to rot. Ivy crawled up its sides like veins on a corpse. The windows gaped, black and hollow, and the mist that clung to the water’s surface spilled through the open archways like it had a mind of its own.
No guards.
No sentries.
No sign of life.
Only silence, thick, suffocating silence.
Even the forest behind us had gone quiet, like it knew better than to follow.
Emma slowed, as she studied every inch of the decaying structure. Her hand hovered near her belt, fingers twitching just above the hilt of her blade.
I felt it too, that subtle vibration in the air. Like magic had been here. Like it lingered.
“Definitely the right place,” I mumbled under my breath.
The boat scraped against the rocky bank, the sound rough and jarring in the quiet.
Emma was the first to move, slipping over the side and landing in the shallows with a soft splash.
I followed, the water biting cold against my calves as I dragged the boat a few feet higher onto the shore.
The oars clattered softly against the wood as I tucked them inside.
No sense leaving them floating downstream if we had to make a fast exit.
Mist hung thick around us, clinging to our clothes as we climbed the narrow strip of bank toward the fort.
We stepped through the main arch and pushed open the heavy doors. They groaned in protest, the sound dragging through the air like something waking after centuries of sleep. The darkness that met us was dense, swallowing everything except the faint cone of light spilling from Emma’s phone.
“Why are these places always dark?” she muttered, her tone dry enough to scrape stone. “As if a few lightbulbs would ruin the haunted aesthetic.”
I reached for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. Her sarcasm always flared when fear crept in, armor disguised as attitude.
Inside, the stone walls were damp, slick with algae and rot. Water dripped steadily from above, echoing like distant footsteps. The ground sloped downward, forcing us into the belly of the place, deeper and deeper with every careful step.
The hallway stretched on, cluttered with overturned chairs and warped desks, someone’s last stand that never happened. Metal groaned overhead, deep and hollow. A dying building remembering it used to live.
Every doorway I passed opened into another tomb of a room, stone tables shattered, chains dangling from iron rings, old torches collapsed in heaps of ash.
Then my light caught something ahead: a heavy iron door, its surface scarred and pitted with age. A thick film of dust clung to the stone around it, but the metal itself was clean, the handle rubbed bare and dull where hands had obviously touched it not long ago.
I went still, pulse tightening, and motioned for Emma to come closer.
“Why would there be less dust on the handle if they can simply open the door with magic?” she whispered.
I clenched my jaw. “Because they want us to know, whatever reason we’re here, it’s behind this door.”
We shared a look, one of those silent exchanges that carried a hundred conversations. She gave a short nod, and I pushed the door open.
The hinges shrieked, the sound echoing down a narrow corridor lined with stone cells.
Chains hung from the walls, their ends crusted with rust and old stains. Shallow grooves scored the floor where something heavy had been dragged, the marks disappearing into the shadows ahead.
A single lantern burned weakly at the far end, its flame guttering in the draft, barely illuminating the figures slumped in the corner.
Two men strapped to the wall, heads bowed forward: James and Jackson.
Their skin was pale, wet, their clothes stuck to them like second skin. Metal clamps bit deep into their wrists and ankles. The air reeked of rust and something worse, stagnant water pooling at their feet.
My pulse kicked. “Jesus.”
Emma was already moving before I could. She dropped to her knee beside them, flashlight swinging, knife flashing in her hand. The blade scraped against the restraints with a sound that set my teeth on edge. The surface shimmered faintly, shifting colors under the light like oil on water.
“Come on,” she hissed, cutting again. The knife sparked off nothing. The material refused to give.
“They’re bolted into the wall by magic,” I muttered, crouching beside her. I pressed two fingers to Jackson’s neck first, then James’s. Both warm. Barely. Their pulses trembled under my touch, weak but present, their breathing shallow enough to make me count twice.
“I can’t cut these,” I said, the words scraping out through clenched teeth. “The bindings are done with translation.” I scanned the cell, for anything that might’ve helped, but there was nothing. Only the stink of wet metal and the slow rise of water inching across the floor.
“Caden, the water is rising! We need to get them out, now!” Emma sounded panicked.
“I know.” My mind was already running through every exit, every possibility, until movement caught the edge of my vision.
A flicker.
A pulse of light.
And then, a thin slit of cerulean tore open against the far wall. Its sound wasn’t just heard, it was felt, a pressure that built behind the eyes and forced its way down the spine.
From the slit spilled a ribbon of gold light, twisting once, twice, before condensing into a circular device that hovered inches above the water, pulsing like a living heart.
A Nexus.
A golden Nexus.
“Caden…”
I’d stepped in front of her without even realizing it, the movement pure instinct. “Whatever the reason of this,” I hissed, keeping my attention on the light, “it was all to get you here.”
She moved up beside me, blade catching the flicker of gold as it turned in her hand. “I know,” she said quietly, “but I can still take care of myself.”
“No doubt, Nightcrawler,” I muttered, sensing where this was headed, “but neither of us can even touch magic beneath a bubble without imploding. And that’s a blue portal—and a godsdamn flying Nexus—both humming like they want to prove the point.”
Her jaw set, that impossible calm sliding over her features like armor forged in real time. “I’m not dying today, Caden.”
The words had barely left her lips before a raspy sound hit, low, electric, and wrong. It jolted through the air, through us, like a current crawling straight into the bones.
“None have to die today.”
The voice didn’t belong anywhere. It seeped through the stone, the water, the air itself, as if a hundred mouths spoke in perfect discord. The kind of sound that made your skin crawl tight over your ribs, that sent your mind clawing for distance where there was none.
The golden light pulsed in answer, once, twice, rippling across the water until the whole room seemed to breathe with it.
“To save them,” the voice said, every syllable vibrating in the walls, “You, Emma Thompson must jump through the blue portal. The golden Nexus will guide you. You jump right now. Or the water claims them all.”
The water lapped higher, swirling around my boots like it understood. Like it was waiting for permission.
I grabbed her arm, my grip tightening before I could stop it. “Don’t even think about it. We’re under the bubble. You’d need translation to jump through, and that’ll—”
“No harm will come to her,” the voice interrupted with the kind of calm only monsters and gods could manage.
Emma took a step toward the portal, but I caught her shoulder and shoved her back. “You are not doing this.” It came out harsher than I meant. “I’d rather let them both drown—”
The door behind us slammed shut, metal screaming as the echo rolled through the chamber. Dust fell from the ceiling. The water surged, climbing fast, licking at our shins.
“Ms. Thompson must jump,” the voice declared, deeper now, resonant enough to rattle the walls, “or all will drown.”
She turned to me then, and what I saw in her expression was the kind of resolve that left no room for pleading or reason.
“If I don’t jump,” she said quietly, “we’ll all die.”
“No.” The word tore out of me. Every nerve lit up, fire under my skin. “Then I go with you.”
“Remember Hunza?” she snapped, the sharp edge in her tone barely covering the fear beneath it. “We almost froze to death in that icebox because you couldn’t stand staying behind. Not happening again.”
“Emma—”
“If I get stuck in there,” she cut in, louder now, fighting to sound steady, “you take James and Jackson across the border. Portal to Stephen. You find him, and you get me out.”
“Emma—”
“That’s an order, Colt.”
Her words hit like a blow.
I blinked, because the world narrowed to the hard click of that command and the stupid, stubborn ache beneath my ribs.
She’d given me a godsdamn order to stand down.
My jaw clenched until the muscles throbbed. I could have argued, begged, dragged her back by force; I could have tried to steamroller her with everything I had. None of it would change the truth that this was her choice, as much as it gutted me to admit it. It always was.
So I nodded, hollow and helpless, because the rest felt like flailing at the sky. “Five minutes,” I said. My throat felt full of gravel and glass. “If you don’t come back through—”
“I will.”
Her eyes held every promise I wanted to hear.
I reached for her, fingers curling against her shoulder, holding on like touch alone could rewrite what was about to happen. It was nothing—a breath, a heartbeat—but it felt like saying don’t go without the desperation of words.
Then she turned away, light bleeding gold across her hands.
“Now,” the voice commanded.
She looked back one last time—Emma against the glow, face drawn, determined, human—and I wanted to stop her more than I wanted to breathe.
But I didn’t move.
She stepped forward, and the world broke apart into blue.