Chapter 8
SECOND RULE OF FALLING ROCKS: HUG THE SPACE HEATER WITH KNIVES
MIKAELA
The rock under us keeps… thinking about it.
That’s the only way my brain can make sense of it. Every few minutes, there’s this faint, unsettling tremor, like the ledge is having a midlife crisis. Maybe it doesn’t want to be a ledge anymore. Maybe it’d rather be a tasteful pile of rubble at the bottom of the abyss.
The drop is so close I could spit into it without leaning. My spine is pressed against what is essentially a living furnace in the shape of a seven-foot alien, and above us, the cracked ceiling hangs like a threat that has already followed through once today.
Another delicate vibration shivers up through the stone, through my hipbones, into my teeth.
“Okay,” I whisper. “I’m not liking this ledge. Like, at all.”
Sarven probably doesn’t understand the words, but he feels what’s happening in my body. His arms tighten around my ribs, snug and sure, and even though I try not to lean too hard into him, they feel good. Steady. Like nothing can pry me out of them.
He says something low and rough against my neck. My earbud does its best and feeds back a single, soft word:
“Mih-kay-lah.”
His glow is dim now, barely a simmer under his skin.
But his skin is warm. Even without the light, the furnace of his body is running high.
Honest, actual, radiant heat is bleeding out of him, cutting through the deep cave chill.
My fingers have stopped screaming, the ache in my knuckles easing from “about to fall off” to “complaining quietly.”
So, if the mountain buries us alive down here, at least I won’t freeze to death.
Silver linings.
Across the new gap, through drifting dust, Haroth and Zan are vague golden shapes.
They’re braced against the boulder that trapped Kelvan, working it inch by inch.
On our side, Sarven has gone utterly still behind me.
His breathing has gone shallow, his muscles have locked.
It feels like he’s tuned all his attention outward, listening to the stone with his whole body.
My brain, in contrast, is stuck in a loop.
The way his arms snapped around my waist.
The moment my feet left the ground as he yanked me sideways and into him.
The slam of his chest as he curled around me, taking the brunt of the impact from the falling rock.
The roar. The dust. That I didn’t even get dust in my eyes because his hand was somehow already there, shielding my face.
He was a wall. A moving wall that smelled like desert sand and firebloom.
I should be spiraling about almost dying. About the water source going weird. About very real, planet-level disaster things.
Instead, every nerve in my body is reporting one stupid thing:
Trapped on a ledge with this golden alien is the safest I’ve felt in months.
And I don’t know what to think about that.
The ledge shifts again, just a whisper of movement, but it’s enough to send a fresh dart of adrenaline through my chest.
“Okay,” I say under my breath. “We need to move from the edge of doom.”
Sarven’s chin dips against my braids. He’s following my gaze down into the black.
He murmurs something, and my translator does its charming best: “Stone… angry.”
Yeah, okay, cool. When you’re inside a mountain that is, to recap, one hundred percent made of stone, “stone” and “angry” are not the keywords a girl wants to hear.
“We should move,” I tell him, pointing in the direction we came from, then freezing as I actually look at the gap.
Right.
The ledge is gone. There is no going back unless I’ve secretly developed the ability to jump a body-length-wide void, land on a crumbling path in the dark, and stick the landing. I mean, I was athletic, but I needed my eyes to land kicks.
“We need to get off the ledge,” I say instead, throat tight.
He seems to understand the gist, because he gives a sharp little nod, then turns his head, looking into the darkness further ahead, away from the collapsed section.
Deeper into the cave.
Away from the other people.
Excellent. Classic horror movie decision. First rule of survival: never split the party. Second rule of survival: never go deeper into the creepy cave.
But my gaze darts back to the broken chunk of ceiling, to the cracked gap in the path.
Away from this specific spot where things already failed suddenly sounds like a very reasonable plan.
“Yeah, okay.” I nod, swallowing hard. “That way sounds… really good.”
His arms flex around my middle. He hesitates for a split second, probably feeling the way I’m vibrating against him like a tuning fork.
But scared and buried alive is not on today’s to-do list.
I pat his forearm, the muscles there like granite under my fingertips. “We move,” I say clearly, pointing along the narrow curve of rock. “There.”
“Hm.” His answering grunt vibrates through his chest into my back.
He shifts as if he’s about to stand, then pauses, frowning down at the non-space around us.
Right. We’re folded together like awkward, upright cuddle origami. Zero clearance. There is no dignified way to untangle from this.
I try anyway. I plant my feet, but the basket in my hands makes climbing off his lap feel like one of those carnival games designed to make you look stupid.
“Can you hold this?” I ask, holding the basket up.
His arms unlock slowly. The absence of pressure around my ribs lets in an immediate rush of air that is colder than it has any right to be. I have to fight the sudden, ridiculous urge to grab those arms and put them right back where they were.
He takes the basket carefully, not jostling the precious little collection of filtration items inside. I watch as he inspects it, like it’s some kind of strange tool, then ties the handle to a leather strap on his hip.
“Okay, Mikaela, you can do this,” I whisper to myself. I spread my hands flat against the rock on either side, fingers stretching for more purchase than exists, and slowly shift my weight forward off his thighs.
The ledge makes a small, protesting sound. A creak. Stone does not creak. Wood creaks. Boats creak. Houses in bad weather creak.
The rock beneath my shoes… murmurs.
My heart tries to exit my body through my ribs. I almost miss my next foothold.
“S’okay,” I mutter, not sure if I’m talking to myself, the stone, or the alien behind me. “It’s fine. It’s stone. It’s… mostly fine.”
A large, warm hand closes gently around my waist. There’s the slightest tug, a correction of my center of gravity, pulling me nearer to the wall, away from the open air.
Between my shaking legs, the unreliable ledge, and my brain screaming we’re going to die, just getting upright feels like relearning how to walk. But Sarven moves with me, rising in one smooth, controlled push, one hand braced against the wall, the other a steadying weight at my lower back.
We get our feet under us. I flatten myself against the rock, glue my gaze forward, and absolutely do not look at the void to my right.
“Okay,” I say again, voice only barely shaking. This time it’s as much for him as for me. I tap the wall ahead. “We go. Slow.”
His red eyes are already scanning: above, below, across. He’s not just looking; he’s reading the stone like a second language. He says something clipped and firm, and my translator turns it into: “Stay. Close.”
As if I’m about to go waltzing off on my own right now.
He reaches past me, palm pressed flat to the rock, his glowing forearm throwing a pool of light over the ledge in front of my shoes.
And then we move.
It feels like sneaking along the lip of a nightmare.
The ledge pinches in, relaxes a little, then tightens again.
Once, the ceiling dips low enough that Sarven has to duck, crowding his heat even closer along my back.
Our world shrinks down to pale stone, warm gold light, and the soft scrape of my shoes.
Behind us, Haroth and Zan’s glows fade until they’re just small, distant hints of gold through dust.
The sound of water shifts as we go. It’s still there, but it’s muffled now. Off to the right. Further down below us. The air grows colder, the moisture in it heavier.
After what feels like hours but is probably only a few very long minutes, the wall ahead changes.
The stone bulges inward, creating a shallow indentation—an alcove cut back from the ledge.
It’s maybe three of my strides across, just deep enough that if you step into it, the drop stops trying to kiss your toes.
It’s not exactly cozy, but compared to the narrow balcony of death we just walked, it looks like an Airbnb with five-star reviews and free breakfast.
Sarven tests the stone with his foot, then his fist against the back wall, then finally with his fingers tracing fissures in the ceiling above it. He listens with his whole body, glow dimming as he concentrates.
I hold my breath without meaning to.
After a long moment, his chest loosens. He lets out a controlled exhalation, then nods once, as if it’s all been decided.
He steps into the alcove first, turning so his back is to the rear wall. It’s a tight fit. His shoulders almost brush both sides at once. He extends a hand toward me, palm up, glow painting his claws in gold.
“Come,” he rumbles.
I take his hand, his skin burning hot against my freezing palm, and shuffle in. I lean against the uneven side wall, staying as close to the entrance as I dare, knees wobbling.
For a moment, we say nothing. Well, I don’t. Stabby, on the other hand, is looking at me with his complete attention, and from the look on his face, he is absolutely saying things through his psychic group chat that I am far too human to pick up.
Soon, it becomes very clear that I am deliberately avoiding his gaze. It also becomes clear that he is aware of that.
I give in and look up.
Bad idea.
As soon as our eyes meet, he pats his chest. Like he’s inviting a stray animal to come sit in his lap.
Oh.
Oh, we are not doing that again.