Chapter 41
Syneca
When your ears burn, someone speaks of you. Left ear means lies; right ear means truth. Both ears mean a Nymph is deciding whether you’re worth remembering.
Two beasts, each blocking the only ways out.
The Stalker ran for Lucy, and she met it head-on with her blade, moving with the kind of grace that came from years of playing Nexus.
Silas launched himself at it with a screech that rattled my teeth, claws extended.
He connected, tearing flesh from its spine, sparks from the beast’s insides pouring out.
The fucking thing really was on fire inside of it.
“The Stalker’s talons are poisonous. Be careful.” Wickett warned.
Riot, with no other options, shifted, despite knowing better. Purple scales rippled down his arms, his form expanding until his horns scraped stone. The cave screamed beneath the strain, dust raining down as the ceiling cracked.
The Night Eater lunged at Wickett.
I yanked the vial in my pocket free. “Acqua Empalio!” I screamed, shaping spears mid-flight, driving them toward the Night Eater’s eyes and throat because he was the closest to me.
They hit, but the creature barely slowed.
Just kept coming, kept advancing, massive jaws opening wide enough to fit a sprite as he backed us closer toward the other monster.
Wickett was suddenly in front of me, body positioned to take whatever came next. “Stay behind me.”
“Like hell—”
“Syn, please—” He was desperate, pleading.
Calder, with Pip buried in his pocket, guarded the Oracle, holding them pressed against the wall, because there was almost no room with Riot’s massive body creating a barrier between the two monsters.
Between the screaming and the chaos, I couldn’t tell who was attacking and who was being attacked.
I could only see purple scales, only hear the impact of things that were far too big hitting walls that were far too fragile.
The beast closest to us, the Night Eater, swung a massive claw. Riot intercepted it with his tail, but the force of the blow sent cracks spider-webbing up the cavern walls. More dust fell. Larger rocks.
This was it. The cave would come down on all of us. We’d be buried or torn apart, and there was no way out, no clever solution, no—
Lucy screamed.
Not pain. Not fear. Something else entirely.
She began to shift, but it was wrong, all wrong. Too fast, too violent, her bones breaking and reforming with sounds that weren’t drowned out in the cave. Shadows erupted from her skin like they’d been trapped inside, writhing and alive and hungry for release.
And then she wasn’t Lucy anymore.
Another dragon stood where she had been—pure black scales and twisting shadows that seemed to exist in multiple dimensions at once. Bigger than Riot. Darker. Something ancient and terrible and beautiful.
“Lucy?” My voice came out small, shocked.
“No,” Aureth said from behind Calder’s extended arm. “Not anymore.”
The dragon made of shadows roared.
The sound shook the entire cavern. The beasts hesitated, actually hesitated in the face of whatever Lucy had become. I felt it in my chest, the vibration, the awe. She was fucking magnificent.
Then she moved.
She struck the Stalker with claws wreathed in shadow. It went down hard, throat torn open, likely dying before it hit the ground.
Lucy spun, impossibly agile, scales scraping against Riot’s in the crowded space.
Riot moved with her, coordinated despite never having fought together before, like they’d been doing this for centuries.
They cut Wickett and me off from the Night Eater, leaving us smashed against the wall, steps away from the others.
It didn’t stand a chance. Between Lucy’s shadow claws and Riot’s fire, it died within seconds, burnt to a crisp.
Victory.
Except the cave couldn’t hold them both.
The ceiling gave way with a sound like the world ending.
Cracks spider-webbed across the stone above us, and then massive slabs broke free, bringing half the mountain down with them.
Dust choked the air as stalactites shattered like dropped glass, their fragments raining down alongside boulders that had been suspended overhead for centuries.
“Move!” Wickett grabbed me, pulling me sideways as a spike from above crashed down where I’d been standing.
I saw Calder diving to cover the Oracle, Pip screaming from his pocket. Saw Riot trying to shield them with his bulk, Lucy’s shadow-dragon form doing the same as she lunged for the entrance. Then a wall of stone fell between us.
Separating me and Wickett from everyone else.
Then silence. Unbearable silence that was heavy and absolute.
Dust wafted through the air so thick I could barely breathe. I coughed, trying to clear my lungs, trying to see through the darkness that had swallowed everything.
“Syn?” Wickett’s voice came from somewhere close, rough with dust and concern.
“Here. I’m here.”
A light bloomed. Wickett had pulled a luminescent stone from his pack. It cast everything in pale blue, showing us the dim reality of our situation. We were in a pocket maybe ten feet across. Solid rock on all sides. The way back, the way to the Venatori, was completely blocked by rubble.
Ten feet. The walls pressed closer with every breath. Stone above. Stone below. Stone everywhere, tons of it, waiting to crush down. The air was thick. Like there wasn’t enough of it, like we were using it up too fast. My chest tightened. The space shrunk.
Too small.
Too enclosed.
No windows. No doors. No way out. Just rock and darkness and the certainty that we were buried alive. Trapped, with the mountain pressing down, down, down.
My hands started shaking, then my legs. Each inhale took more effort than the last. I couldn’t breathe.
I slammed my palms against the fallen rocks, ignoring the way stone bit into my skin.
“Silas! Calder!” My voice cracked. “Lucy! Can anyone hear me?”
Nothing.
The silence pressed in like another wall.
My vision tunneled, the edges going dark despite Wickett’s light.
I hit the rocks again, harder, feeling skin split.
Again. Again. Blood made my palms slick, but I couldn’t stop, couldn’t think past the need to break through, to get out, to breathe properly because there wasn’t enough air.
There wasn’t enough air.
There wasn’t enough air.
The panic in my soul woke the fire in my veins, and it took every bit of restraint I had to keep it hidden, to overpower it with water, gathering what little I had left between my hands.
I shaped it into pressure, driving it into cracks.
Whispering spells that went unanswered because there wasn’t enough.
Because I wasn’t a fucking water witch. There were too many stones.
Too heavy. The water dispersed uselessly, running down stone faces in pathetic rivulets.
“Move,” I commanded it, pulling it from the useless trickles. “Move, damn you—”
The rocks didn’t budge.
“Silas!” I reached for our bond, pulling hard, desperate for any response. The connection was there but muted, distant, like trying to shout through water. “Silas, please—”
Still nothing. Just crushing silence and the weight of a mountain between me and almost everyone I cared about.
My breathing came faster, shallower.
“Syneca.” Wickett’s hands caught my wrists, stopping me mid-strike.
I tried to pull away, but he held firm. My knees buckled, and suddenly I was on the ground, gasping like I’d been running for miles. The stone floor was cold. Everything was cold. Or maybe I was shaking too hard to tell the difference.
“I can’t—” The words came out broken. “There’s not enough—I need—”
The walls were definitely closer now. Had to be. The ceiling lowered. The mountain settled, crushing down, and we were going to die here in the dark with all that weight above us and no one would ever find us and—
What if Calder were buried under rubble right now, suffocating, calling for me, and I couldn’t hear him?
And Pip? She was too small. Too small and too good to be gone.
“They could all be dead.” The words burst out of me, panic clawing up my throat with razor edges.
“The cave could have crushed them; they could be buried, suffocating, dying right now, and we’re stuck here, useless, we can’t help them, we can’t do anything, and the walls.
The walls are too close. Why are they so close? ”
I pushed myself back to my feet, and hit the rocks again, harder. Something cracked. I wasn’t sure if it was stone or my hand and didn’t care. “We have to get through, we have to move these, we have to—”
“Syn—”
I didn’t even look at him. “Why aren’t you helping me? Please. The walls—”
Hands grabbed me from behind.
Wickett yanked me backward, away from the rockfall, spinning me around. Before I could protest, before I could fight, he had my wrists pinned above my head against the cavern wall, his body caging mine with absolute authority.
“Stop.” His voice cut through my panic like a blade. Not gentle. Not soothing. Pure command.
“Let me go—”
“No.” He pressed closer, using his weight to hold me still when I tried to thrash free. “You’re going to listen to me. Do you understand?”
“Wickett—”
“Do. You. Understand?” Each word was deliberate, dangerous, the Ripper voice that made hardened criminals fold. “Answer, Syneca.”
“Yes.” It came out more gasp than word.
“Good.” One hand released a wrist, moving to my throat. Not squeezing. Just resting there, feeling my pulse hammer against his palm. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Slower.” His thumb pressed against the rapid flutter of my heartbeat. “In through your nose. Hold it. Out through your mouth. Do it.”
I tried to pull away. His grip tightened just enough to keep me still.
“Look at my eyes, nothing else.”
“This isn’t—”
“Do as you’re told, little witch.”
Something in his tone made me obey. I looked into those unfathomable gray eyes and breathed in, shaky and uneven, held it for a count of three, let it out.