12. Thryos
A human named General Martinez showed up right after the females left. It was a distraction for a little while, especially when watching Xandros and him argue over why Ashley wasn't there.
With him came a few hundred human soldiers, all in perfect uniforms. They arrived in Pandraxian shuttles and took charge of our prisoners.
Martinez mentioned something about giving the rebels some history lessons, but I tuned most of it out. My entire focus was on my Aelyth, a few hundred feet below me. I could still feel her. I also felt her apprehension and recognized it as fear of tight spaces, something she would never admit to.
I was entertaining myself with thoughts on how I could make her pay for her insubordination when a low, muted roar rolled up from the ground like distant thunder.
A cloud of dust followed, a thick, choking cloud exploding out of the narrow manhole they’d blasted into the plateau.
For one frozen heartbeat, none of us moved. Then chaos erupted.
“ELLA!” Zapharos roared, his golden aura exploded outward in a blinding flash, turning first crimson then black. He lunged toward the hole like he could tear the earth apart with his bare hands.
I didn’t move. I felt it too. A sharp, vicious spike of pain slammed into my chest, right where the golden thread connected me to Naeris.
My flaw—that dark, restless thing born in the Abyss—surged violently, clawing at my ribs like it wanted to rip free.
For a terrifying second, I couldn’t breathe.
The bond screamed. She was hurt. Scared. Trapped.
“By the Dark Abyss,” I snarled, staggering forward.
“Drones!” Xandros bellowed. “Get more drones down there. Now!”
Pandraxian techs scrambled. New silver orbs shot into the hole. The main holovid flared to life above us, showing dust-choked footage. It was almost impossible to see anything through the swirling brown cloud.
Zapharos was still roaring Ella’s name. Dravok’s shadows had gone pitch black, lashing wildly around him. One of the drones slammed into a solid wall of fresh debris and stopped dead.
“Drek!” Xandros cursed viciously.
“We need to get that debris out of there!” Dravok yelled, already moving toward the hole.
“No,” Xandros snapped, voice sharp with command. “We can’t risk another collapse. Switching to spectral grid.”
The holovid flickered, shifting to radar overlay. Ghostly blue silhouettes appeared through layers of rock and earth.
“I see them,” Xandros announced, easing the tension slightly in us. “Seven life forms. They’re below the cave-in. Alive.”
I didn’t care about the human males. My eyes locked on the one signature I recognized through the bond, Naeris. She was moving. Angry. Then I watched her silhouette deck someone so hard he crumpled to the ground.
Rylan.
A dark, murderous growl tore out of my throat. “I’m going to kill him. Slowly.”
Xandros kept studying the readouts. “Analysis.”
One of the Pandraxian techs answered quickly. “Supreme Commander, if we want to extract them without triggering another collapse, we’ll have to clear the rocks one by one. It’ll take days. Even then, the risk of more debris shifting or cracking the ceiling of the chamber below is extremely high.”
Xandros cursed again, low and filthy.
Then, one by one, the drone feeds began to die. The images flickered, warped, and went black.
“What in the name of the First Collapse was that?” I thundered, stepping closer to the holovid.
The same tech swallowed hard. “Something down there is interfering with their energy source, my lord. Some kind of ancient shielding or residual Arkhevari resonance. They’re cut off. No visual. No comms.”
The pain in my chest settled into a constant, burning ache. The golden thread was still there—faint but alive—but I couldn’t feel her clearly anymore. Couldn’t reach her. Making me wonder if the same interference that had decimated the drones was interfering with the bond as well.
My little rebel was down there in the dark with collapsing tunnels, hostile rebels, and whatever ancient power had just killed our drones.
All the while I was stuck up here, useless, while the flaw inside me whispered that this was exactly what I deserved for daring to want something as bright as her.
I clenched my fists until my nails bit into my palms.
“We are not waiting days,” ice flooded my veins. “Find another way. Now.”
Because if anything happened to Naeris… I would bring the entire plateau down myself.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Zapharos paced like a caged predator. Dravok’s shadows swallowed half the command area.
Xandros stared at the dead holovid like he could will it back to life through sheer force of will.
But I couldn’t stand still. Naeris was alive. Angry. Trapped. And every second we wasted up here was another second something down there could hurt her. Saving her and the others was up to me.
I shoved past the techs and pulled up the full topographic overlay on the main holovid, expanding it with a savage gesture. Ancient Earth readings. Current surface. Subsurface scans. Everything we had.
“The ocean. Right here, it meets a cliff,” I observed.
Xandros turned sharply. “What are you thinking?”
“A backdoor.” I zoomed the map out, my eyes racing across the contours. “These rebels built their tunnels like vermin. They always leave escape routes near water. And if this plateau was once Ashera’s cradle… water would have been sacred. Defensive. Hidden.”
One of the Pandraxian techs quickly overlaid fresh data. “There, that looks like an underwater tunnel system.”
I enlarged the area. He was right. My eyes zeroed in on faint anomalies. Too symmetrical to be natural. A hidden cave mouth partially submerged, leading deep under the plateau.
My lips pulled back in a dark smile. “That’s our way in.”
Zapharos stopped pacing. “You want us to swim into unknown caves while our females are trapped down there?”
“I want to reach them before whatever killed those drones decides they’re a threat.” The pain in my chest flared again, feeding the flaw. It whispered that I should already be down there. That I’d failed her the moment I let her go. I crushed the voice. “We move. Now.”
Xandros studied the map for half a second, then nodded. “I’ll take a squad. We gear up for underwater insertion, rebreathers, tactical lights, grav-harnesses.”
Dravok’s shadows calmed slightly. “I’m coming.”
Zapharos was already striding toward the armory shuttle. “If there’s even a chance…”
I didn’t wait for permission. I grabbed a rebreather rig and slung it over my shoulder, my mind locked on one thing only: Naeris.
The bond tugged harder, feeding me flashes, darkness, dust, determination. She was moving. Fighting. Surviving. I would find her. Even if I had to drag the entire plateau into the Abyss to do it.
We moved out at a run, across the sand, straight for the large body of water.
The flaw inside me roared, dark and hungry, but for once I welcomed it.
Let it come. Because whatever waited down there, ancient power, collapsing tunnels, or the Harrowed One himself, would have to go through me first. And I was done holding back.
We reached the water at a dead run, boots skidding on loose gravel and sand where angry sea was washing against the shore. I didn’t hesitate.
Rebreather sealed over my face, grav-harness cinched tight, I dove first. The water hit like a slap from the Abyss itself, ice-cold, mineral-sharp, closing over my head with brutal suddenness.
It filled my ears with a heavy, muffled silence broken only by the rush of my own blood and the bubbles streaming from the rebreather.
The cold sank straight into my bones, tightening every muscle, but I welcomed the shock. It kept me sharp.
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 reach her.