Chapter Thirty-Eight
Connor
Connor had lived in this valley his entire life. He knew every path, every deer trail, every forgotten shepherd’s route, but he’d never seen the opening yawning beneath the ancient ridgeline. There were no animal tracks or scent markers.
He’d no memory of this cavern ever existing. The Labyrinth Underspan had opened for one reason only. To take Adrian.
Connor stood before the entrance, breath fogging in the cold air, fists clenched so tight his knuckles cracked. Fraser, Max, and Xiathen formed a tense semicircle behind him.
Connor growled. “If he’s hurt, if anything down there touched him, I’ll kill the entire bloody Council myself.”
Xiathen placed a hand on the stone. The rock twitched under his palm like muscle.
“The passage is unstable. The Underspan shifts shape.” He hesitated. “Perhaps I should come with you after all.”
“No. We agreed.” Connor’s voice cracked. “Adrian is my bonded. My vow. My responsibility.”
Fraser inhaled sharply.
Max muttered, “Bloody hell.”
Connor didn’t care. He turned his face toward the cave. The valley hummed, a low, mournful vibration rippling through the ground.
Adrian’s resonance.
Xiathen swallowed hard. “Be warned, the Underspan preys on fear. On memory. On loss.”
“It’ll be fucking terrified of me,” Connor growled, stepping forward.
Fraser grabbed his arm. “Connor, promise me you’ll call for help if you need it.”
Connor pulled free. “I promised Adrian,” he said softly, “that I’d bring him home.” With that, he stepped into the dark.
The tunnel swallowed him. The air was damp and thick, vibrating slightly, as if the entire cavern were breathing.
Connor’s wolf prowled beneath his skin, nervous, focused, furious. His claws ached to emerge. His vision sharpened.
Adrian’s scent drifted faintly in the air, sharp, warm, and yet defiant. Connor followed it like a starving beast.
The ground sloped down sharply. The walls pulsed faintly with thin veins of bluish-green light, the same colour as the fault lines.
“The Wood’s gift,” Connor whispered. “Adrian, what have they done to you?”
The tunnel twisted left, then right, before splitting into three corridors. Connor closed his eyes.
“Adrian,” he whispered, his voice low. “I need you. Give me something. Anything.”
Silence. Then a faint ripple in the air. A tug. Connor opened his eyes and turned right. He ran. The tunnel widened.
He entered a chamber filled with pale pillars, each twisted into strange, skeletal shapes. They gleamed faintly, as if carved from polished bone.
Connor crouched, sniffing. No animal scent. No magic. Just cold, dead bone. He stood and moved between the pillars.
As he passed, each pillar vibrated. Connor froze. The vibrations grew louder. Then the pillars began to change.
People emerged. Faces Connor knew, faces he feared or had lost.
His father, stern and dying. His mother, soft and fading. Clan members he’d failed to protect.
And Adrian. Not smiling. Not alive. Dead. Eyes empty. Lips blue. Shadow wrapped around his throat.
“No.” Connor slammed a hand into the pillar. Stone shattered. Another pillar reshaped. Adrian again, this time reaching for Connor as shadow dragged him under.
“Stop,” Connor growled. “This is a lie.”
The cavern hummed. The pillars whispered. Connor’s heart jolted.
He is dying. You are too late. You will fail him. As you failed others.
Connor roared and smashed another pillar, then another, and another. Bone dust filled the air like ash. The cavern shook with each blow, but the illusions didn’t stop.
Adrian appeared again. Kneeling, trembling, blood dripping from his nose.
“Connor,” the illusion gasped. “Help me. Why didn’t you—”
Connor’s rage snapped. He lunged forward, shattering the pillar into dust. “You are not him.”
The cavern fell silent. Slowly, the remaining pillars melted into the floor like ice in sunlight. A path opened.
Connor wiped stone dust from his face and whispered, his voice shaking, “I’m coming, Adrian. Hold on.”
He ran deeper into the Underspan. The corridor twisted into a long, narrow throat of stone. The walls vibrated with an eerie hum. A familiar voice whispered from the darkness.
“Connor.”
He froze. The voice came again, broken, hoarse, weak.
“Connor. I’m here.”
Connor sprinted. He turned a corner and found Adrian curled on the ground. Wounded, bleeding, his eyes glassy with pain.
“Adrian.” Connor dropped to his knees. “Gods, Adrian.”
He reached for him, and Adrian flinched away. Connor froze. It wasn’t his posture, his fear, or his eyes.
Connor leaned close, his voice soft. “You’re not him.”
Adrian’s illusion blinked.
Connor stood. “Adrian may be hurting. But he would never flinch from me.”
The illusion melted into shadow.
Connor growled, his voice low and lethal. “Try harder.”
The shadow laughed softly. Then it retreated.
Connor pressed on.
He ran for what felt like an hour.
The tunnels bent impossibly, defying direction and logic. Some narrowed so tightly he had to turn sideways. Others widened into vast caverns with ceilings too high to see.
Sometimes his footprints vanished behind him. Sometimes they walked ahead of him.
Sometimes he heard two sets of footsteps: his own, and one that mirrored his a moment later.
It was Adrian’s shadow echo. He followed it. The ground began to glow beneath him: gold, violet, and white.
Connor stopped. The resonance felt like Adrian, but twisted, strained, and thinned. His mark was screaming. He pressed a hand to it.
Adrian’s voice whispered from deep below. Connor, I’m here.
He broke into a sprint, following the voice into a low, spiralling passage. The tunnel constricted. The air thinned. The hum grew louder, painful, frantic.
Adrian’s voice rose. “Connor.” Then only silence.
Connor stumbled to a halt. “Adrian, answer me.”
A deep crack opened beneath his feet, a fault line pulsing with Adrian’s resonance. Connor’s heart lurched.
He whispered, “Adrian, hold on. Please.” He jumped into the crack.
And the world swallowed him whole.
***
Adrian
Adrian lay curled in the dark.
He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious. Minutes, hours, days. Time didn’t exist here. Only pain and the pulsing, suffocating pressure of the anchors beneath the valley, massive nodes of energy that spread through the earth like the roots of a diseased tree.
His shadow twitched violently against the cavern floor. Adrian clutched his head, trying not to scream as the resonance vibrated through his bones.
“Connor,” he whispered. “Connor. Where are you?”
Silence pressed back. Adrian closed his eyes. The Council’s whispers circled him like smoke.
Come to us, Marked one. Return. Return.
Adrian’s breath hitched. “No, I fucking won’t. Why do you want me?”
Then he heard another sound, faint at first, then growing. It was a roar, wild and feral.
Adrian’s eyes flew open. “Connor?”
The cavern shook violently. Stones fell. The ground cracked. A burst of golden fire tore through the tunnel ahead.
And Connor barrelled out of the dark like a storm given flesh.
Adrian’s heart lurched. “Connor.”
***
Connor
Connor saw Adrian, and something in him broke. His heart clenched with a torrent of devastation, fury, and relief. He ran to Adrian and dropped to his knees, grabbing Adrian’s shoulders.
“Adrian, are you hurt?”
Adrian pressed hands to Connor’s face. “You came.”
Connor’s voice cracked. “Of course I came.”
Adrian’s breath hitched. “I thought—”
“Don’t,” Connor whispered, his forehead pressed to Adrian’s. “Don’t ever think I wouldn’t come for you.”
Adrian grabbed his arm and Connor drew him up.
“You’re safe now,” Connor murmured. “I’ve got you. I’m never letting go.”
The cavern rumbled beneath them. A crack of sickly green light split the far wall.
Adrian frowned. “Connor, that’s the anchor. One of them.”
Connor’s grip tightened. “What do we do?”
“With your help, I can shatter it.”
Connor lifted Adrian’s chin gently. “Tell me how to help you.”
“You need to anchor me.”
Connor nodded once. “Done.”
“And no matter what happens,” Adrian warned, “don’t let go.”
Connor’s voice broke. “I’d rather die.”
Adrian’s shadow twitched violently. The anchor pulsed. Adrian gasped, clutching his chest. “It’s starting.”
Connor wrapped both arms around him like iron. “I’ve got you,” he whispered fiercely. “Come on, lad. Let’s break this bastard.”
Adrian extended his hand. His shadow extended with him, long, dark, trembling. It reached the anchor, which pulsed violently.
He let out a cry of pain. Connor tightened his grip, pulling Adrian back against his chest. “I’m here, breathe.”
Adrian’s shadow dug into the anchor as if it had claws. Light exploded. Green. Violet. Gold.
The cavern shook violently. Adrian arched in Connor’s arms.
Connor pressed his forehead to Adrian’s temple. “Stay with me.” He could feel the drain on his power, the constant hum of the mark on his chest.
Adrian’s shadow twisted violently while the anchor roared, a piercing, inhuman sound. The anchor exploded in a burst of blinding white, and then it was quiet. The anchor collapsed, dissolving into nothing.
Adrian went limp. “Did we do it?”
Connor’s throat tightened with relief and pride. “Aye. We did.”
Adrian managed a faint smile before collapsing into Connor’s arms, unconscious. Connor gathered Adrian gently into his arms, lifting him effortlessly. Then he stood in the ruined cavern, eyes glowing with newfound fury.
“One down,” he murmured.
He turned toward the dark tunnels ahead.
“And if you try it again, I’ll come for the rest.”
***
Adrian
Adrian drifted in darkness. Not the cruel, swallowing dark of the Underspan.
Not the suffocating circle of light that had wrapped around his chest and dragged him screaming into the earth.
This darkness was warm. Soft. Still. It breathed. Slow and steady.
He wasn’t sure how long he floated there, seconds or hours, but eventually, through the quiet, a voice broke through.
Low. Rough. Hesitated in places Adrian had never heard before.
“Adrian, lad, please come back.”
Connor.
Adrian felt himself pulled toward warmth, toward breath, toward a heartbeat so loud and steady it anchored the entire world.
He forced his eyes open. Light stabbed them, and his head throbbed.
But Connor’s face, the raw, exhausted relief in those storm-grey eyes, pulled Adrian fully into the world again.
He didn’t know how he’d gotten to Connor’s bed with blankets piled on top of him, and Connor there, by his side.
“Connor,” Adrian whispered.
Connor’s inhale was ragged. He pressed Adrian’s forehead gently to his own, eyes squeezing shut. “Fuck, Adrian, I thought—”
Adrian lifted a hand, brushing Connor’s cheek. “Did we do it?”
Connor nodded, his voice shaking when he confirmed, “Aye. The anchor’s gone. You shattered it.”
Adrian managed a smile. “We shattered it.” He melted against him, cheek resting over Connor’s heart. The rhythmic beat soothed him, the only thing that didn’t hurt.
“Connor,” he grumbled. “Everything fucking aches.”
“I know.” Connor’s fingers threaded through Adrian’s hair. “You took the worst of it. You shouldn’t have, but you did.”
Adrian shifted, wincing. “Your arms are shaking.”
Connor’s grip froze.
Adrian opened his eyes. “Connor, are you crying?”
Connor stiffened. “No.”
Adrian grinned. “You’re terrible at lying.”
Connor exhaled sharply and dropped his forehead onto Adrian’s shoulder, his voice trembling. “You bloody disappeared in front of me. One moment you were there, warm, breathing, and then they took you. I thought I’d lost you.”
Adrian’s breath hitched at the raw pain in Connor’s voice. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No.” Connor pulled back enough to cup Adrian’s face. “Don’t you ever apologise for nearly dying, even if you insist on doing it constantly.”
Adrian blinked. “I didn’t insist.”
“I know,” Connor murmured. He pressed his lips to Adrian’s temple. “But I tore that anchor apart until it shattered around you.”
Adrian shifted slightly and immediately regretted it. Pain lanced down his spine, hot and sharp. His breath hitched.
Connor’s grip tightened. “Adrian? Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere,” Adrian groaned. “Inside my bones. Inside my head. Merdre. Just shoot me.”
Connor chuckled. “Not an option.”
Connor pulled him closer until their chests pressed together. Adrian steadied instantly, as if Connor’s warmth muted the pain.
Adrian frowned. “The resonance of the Veil changed.”
Connor frowned, brushing Adrian’s cheek with his thumb. “How?”
“It’s stronger,” Adrian said. “Like the anchor left something behind. A thread.”
Connor stiffened. “Thread?”
Adrian nodded. “It’s tied to me. And the valley. And you. It feels good, like an infusion of will. I think the Veil wants to help us.”
Connor grunted. “At this stage, we’ll take any positive thing we can.” He stroked Adrian’s hair until his breaths came slow and steady.
But Adrian didn’t sleep. His fingers traced patterns on Connor’s chest.
“Connor?”
“Aye.”
“What if the mark consumes me?”
Connor held his breath.
Adrian continued. “What if the Council was right? What if the mark isn’t a symbol but a claim? What if I’m becoming what they want me to be?”
Connor lifted Adrian’s face gently. “You listen to me,” he whispered. “You aren’t theirs. Understand?”
Adrian nodded. “I’m glad you found me,” he said. “I wasn’t impressed by the décor and lack of edible food down there. I don’t think I could have coped.”
Connor laughed softly, a broken, exhausted sound. “Lad, I would’ve torn the entire Underspan apart stone by stone if I had to.”
“You almost did.”
Connor huffed. “Aye. And I’d do it again.”
Adrian’s lips parted, slightly. Connor’s hand slid behind Adrian’s head, strong fingers curling into his dark curls.
“Connor,” Adrian whispered.
Connor swallowed. The bond surged, warm, pulsing, pulling them closer. Their foreheads pressed together. Their breaths mingled.
Adrian’s hand crept up Connor’s chest. He leaned in—and then there was a loud knock on the door.
“Connor? Adrian? You must…oh dear, I’ve interrupted something important, haven’t I?” Xiathen stood there, his face apologetic. “I wanted to tell you the Triarc would like to see you and talk about your journey to the Underspan.”
Connor swore under his breath. “We’ll finish this later,” he murmured.
Then he stood and Adrian watched him, heart full, body aching, gift burning, shadow twitching, and one terrifying truth settling in his chest.
He was falling in love with this man. He closed his eyes and whispered into the pillow, “Thank you, Connor.”
And in the doorway, Connor whispered back, “Rest, Adrian. I’m not leaving.”
And Adrian knew it was true. Not now. Not ever.
Even if the Council demanded otherwise.
VALOUR RISING
SPRING 2027