Chapter 23 In the Name of Love
My name.
Not shouted desperately for help. No, it was spoken tenderly, intimately and shaped with a familiarity that cut straight through sleep and lodged deep in my chest.
“Alexandra.”
My eyes snapped open as my breath hitched sharply in my throat, heart slamming so violently it felt like it might crack my ribs from the inside. For a moment, I lay utterly still, staring up at the low canvas ceiling of the tent as it slowly came into focus.
I told myself that I was dreaming.
I had to be.
The day had been too long, too heavy with judgment and vows and fire, my body wrung out, and my mind frayed thin, at its emotional limit.
Hearing his voice was exactly the kind of cruel trick exhaustion would play, surely?
Dragging the one sound I wanted most out of my memories and dressing it up as hope.
But my pulse refused to slow.
I lay there, barely breathing, listening so hard my ears rang with the effort.
The camp was quiet, wrapped in the deep stillness that came from soldiers sleeping without fear.
Guards no doubt on patrol, stationed around us, keeping us safe.
So why were there no shouted warnings indicating someone new had approached? No sign that anything was wrong.
Then again, this was Atlas. Which meant that if he wanted to make it inside or close enough to me to lure me out, then he could. He was powerful enough in his own right.
Then, impossibly, gently, it came again.
“Alexandra.”
The sound slid through me like a deep caress.
It was him. I knew that with a certainty that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with instinct.
The cadence was wrong for anyone else. The subtle roughness threaded through the softness was unmistakably him.
My fingers curled into the blanket beneath me as my chest tightened painfully.
This isn’t real. It can’t be.
Atlas was days away, separated from me by land and armies, by the darkness that tore worlds apart. Hearing him now was impossible.
And yet.
‘What if,’ a traitorous part of my mind whispered, ‘what if you’re wrong and he needs you’, but more than that, I also asked myself…
What if the Gorgon King wasn’t who he claimed to be?
What if there was no bargain and he was, in fact, taking us along for a ride under the pretense of giving us the torch?
What if all of this has been orchestrated, and this was just a setup so that he could hand us over to Demetrios himself?
Another bargain made, only for our lives.
To prevent us from having any chance at stopping him.
After all, he still had possession of my dagger.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bedroll and sat up, cold air biting at my skin as my bare feet pressed into the packed earth beneath the tent. My whole body felt too alert, nerves buzzing, heart racing, as if it recognized something before my mind would allow it.
I held my breath.
Silence pressed in around me, thick and watchful, and for a heartbeat I almost questioned my own sanity. Was I really going to do this with no proof? I could wake up Aster, but I had no idea which tent he was in, since I had been shown my own first.
“Alexandra.”
This time it was closer.
“I need you.”
The words were barely louder than a whisper, but they hit me like a blow, panic flaring white hot in my chest. The sound carried urgency now, strain, as if he were hurt. As if he were weakened, calling for me because I was the only one who could hear him.
If he was in trouble, if somehow, against all reason, he was here and I didn’t go, didn’t answer, didn’t try, I would never forgive myself.
I pushed to my feet.
The vow burned suddenly, a deep, aching heat beneath my sternum, the echo of judgment stones and living fire too close to ignore. Everything in me felt raw and overexposed, my emotions stripped of their armor.
I should wake Aster.
I reached for the tent flap, fingers curling into the fabric as doubt surged hard enough to make my hands shake.
I hoped that Aster was here. That I would find him awake, because he would have known what to do.
That towering frame and raised brow of his was no doubt going to be furious when he heard what I did.
“Alex, please.”
The plea slid under my skin, the shortening of my name, it wrapped around my spine and tugged me forward.
If I don’t go now, if I hesitate and it’s real, I’ll be too late.
That fear drowned out every other thought.
I slipped from the tent.
The camp lay hushed beneath the night sky, embers glowing faintly in the fire pits, smoke curling lazily upward before vanishing into darkness. Rows of tents sat in quiet order, their occupants lost to sleep. I moved carefully, my breath held as I crept between the tents and beyond.
Theron’s stood apart from the rest, larger, darker, commanding space even in stillness.
Its presence was a reminder of everything I had bound myself to only hours before.
Of power and consequence, and a king who had looked into my truth and claimed it.
A king I really hoped hadn’t betrayed us as I feared.
I skirted around it, giving it a wide berth. My heart was hammering, acutely aware that waking him would not end with reassurance or comfort. He would stop me. Or worse, follow me to Atlas.
“Alexandra.”
The voice came again, no longer from the camp, but from beyond it, threading through the trees.
I didn’t hesitate again.
The forest swallowed me quickly, firelight fading behind me as trunks closed in, the moonlight struggling to light my way. The air was heavy with damp and thick with the scent of earth and decay. The deeper I went, the quieter it became, until even the night insects seemed to fall silent.
My footsteps sounded too loud.
How far had I ventured?
The thought slipped in uninvited, tightening my chest as I slowed, turning to look back the way I thought I’d come.
The path was already unclear, the trees blending.
Shadows stretched and moved, roots and fallen branches rearranging themselves in the dark.
Unease crept up my spine…The forest was moving.
But then, as if Atlas could sense my unease, I heard him again.
“Alexandra.”
Relief surged painfully, chasing the fear away as I turned toward the sound.
“I’m coming!” I called, my voice breaking through the darkness. “I’m coming. Just hold on!”
And I ran. I ran without thinking, breath tearing in and out of my lungs as branches whipped at my arms and face, leaves slick with damp brushing my skin like grasping fingers.
What little I could see, thanks to the moonlight filling the gaps and breaks in the trees, was enough to know I wasn’t about to run headfirst into a trunk.
The forest felt like it was slowly trying to consume me, swallowing sound, swallowing distance, swallowing the certainty that I knew where I was going or how to get back. The voice guided me forward, always just ahead, always close enough to keep hope alive and fear at bay.
“Alexandra.”
It came from the left this time.
I veered toward it instinctively, boots slipping slightly on the uneven ground as I caught myself against the rough bark of a tree.
Its surface was warm beneath my palm, unsettling in a way that made my stomach churn.
I pulled my hand back quickly, wiping it against my clothes as though that might erase the sensation.
This place was wrong.
The thought came fully formed, no longer a whisper but a warning, and yet my feet kept moving.
Kept carrying me deeper despite every instinct screaming that I should turn back.
The Badlands revealed themselves fully now, stripped of the deceptive beauty daylight had lent them.
What had once seemed merely strange or unsettling became grotesque under the cover of night.
Bones threaded through the soil like pale roots, rib cages arched upward to cradle flowering vines that pulsed faintly with bioluminescence.
Skulls lay half-buried beneath moss and creeping growth, their empty sockets glowing faintly with insects that scattered when I passed.
Death was not hidden here, not buried or honored.
It was used, repurposed, woven into the land itself.
I stumbled again, catching myself just before I went down hard, my heart pounding as panic began to bleed into clarity.
I should have woken Aster. Should have tried to find his tent.
The thought hit harder when I realized how far I had gone. The camp felt impossibly distant, like a memory rather than a place I could return to. I turned in a slow circle, scanning the darkness for anything familiar, any marker I could recognize.
Everything looked the same.
Trees crowded close, their trunks twisted and gnarled, branches reaching overhead to knit together a canopy so dense it now blocked out the stars.
“Oh, Alexandra.”
The voice was closer now. Slower, almost mocking, yet in my foolish mind, I still clung on to the hope it was him. Relief surged, chasing away the creeping dread with brutal efficiency.
“Where are you?” I called, my voice shaking despite my efforts to steady it. “I’m here. Just tell me where you are.”
Something moved ahead of me. A shadow darker than my surroundings.
A shape that slipped between the trees, tall and narrow, just beyond the reach of the dim light filtering through the canopy. My heart leapt painfully into my throat as I broke into a run again, every rational thought drowning beneath the desperate need to reach him.
“Atlas,” I gasped, stumbling forward. “I’m here. I’m coming.” The figure moved faster, gliding ahead of me, always just out of reach. Panic flared, sharp and bright, fear of being too late clawing at my chest.
“Wait,” I cried, voice cracking. “Please, just wait.”