Chapter 6 Kai #2
Ever since the Aurora Court had fallen into its enchanted slumber and the Day Court had been destroyed, the solumbra eagles had all but vanished from the skies. Some believed they had followed the fading Aurora magic into hiding. Others whispered they had abandoned the world entirely.
Yet one now circled above us.
“By the void,” Gavriel breathed as his caribou danced nervously beneath him. “Is that…”
“Yes.” The word came out harsher than I intended.
Whether this was a blessing or a curse remained to be seen, but the presence of a solumbra eagle meant something had stirred the deeper powers of this land. And that meant the Blood Basin was about to become one of the most dangerous places in all the realms.
The eagle circled once above the ridge.
Then again.
Its enormous wings carved through the snow-filled air with impossible grace for something so large. Each movement carried a quiet authority, as if the storm itself bent around its passage.
Then it banked sharply and disappeared beyond the mountain peak that concealed the Blood Basin.
A heartbeat later, the eagle shrieked.
The night shattered, the sound piercing and slicing through the wind and echoing across the mountains like a blade striking stone. The rush of air from the eagle’s dive thundered back toward us moments later.
Then the screams began.
Panicked cries rose from the far side of the ridge, faint but unmistakable as they carried across the frozen air. Shouts followed. Steel clashed. Something heavy crashed against stone.
Another shriek ripped across the valley, this one filled with pure fury. It echoed against the mountains as if Fate herself had descended upon the basin to pass judgment.
Had they already sacrificed Hannah?
My stomach dropped, and as dread twisted through my chest, I forced myself to ignore it.
Damn that woman and her ability to unravel every ounce of calm I’d built over the years.
She couldn’t be dead. The mate bond hadn’t fully sealed yet, but surely I would have felt something if she had passed.
Hannah would’ve fought. She would’ve clawed, bitten, and cursed until she was free.
And the sacrifices Bram favored were never done at random.
Rituals required precision, alignment, and timing.
Most likely the hour before dawn, when the veil between magic and Fate thinned and Aurora Fae magic neared its strongest point.
The screaming intensified, rising into a chaotic chorus that echoed off the mountain walls.
Another shriek from the solumbra eagle split the night, followed by a thunderous crash that sent a tremor rolling through the ground beneath us.
Snow shook loose from the branches above, and the caribou stamped and snorted, their breath billowing in thick white clouds in the frigid air.
“Do we keep going?” Gavriel shouted as his mount danced sideways beneath him. He fought to steady the beast. “Over the top as planned?”
Murmurs of unease rippled through the riders behind us.
“That snow cap has practically turned into a cornice,” one of the warriors called. “Looks like it’s about to go.”
Another asked, “Is it loosening already?”
I forced the panic and fury churning in my gut into a cold, hard knot of focus. Hannah was somewhere within that chaos. Alive. She had to be alive. I refused to even think about the alternative.
The one small mercy was that, among the screams echoing across the mountains, I didn’t hear a woman’s voice.
They wouldn’t have gagged Hannah for the ritual.
Not if Bram intended to drain her magic properly.
And there was no world in which that woman would walk toward sacrifice without screaming insults and threats at every last one of them.
So if she hadn’t been killed before the ritual began, she was still alive. And even though the mate bond hadn’t fully locked into place between us, I had to hope it would alert me. I had to.
I tightened my grip on the reins as I considered our options.
The main path was suicide. It ran narrow and exposed along the mountainside, and Bram would have archers positioned along the cliffs above it.
They would pick us off one by one before we even reached the basin.
Hannah would see the same danger. She might be reckless, but she was not foolish enough to run straight into a line of waiting arrows.
Assuming she managed to break free, that left only one route she would choose.
The caves.
And if I had to bet on anything this cursed night, I would wager on her finding them.
"The crystal passages," I called, wheeling my caribou around. "We go through the mountain. Not over it."
"Sire, the tremors," one of the warriors started.
"I'm aware." I drove my heels into the caribou's flanks and urged her across the slope. Snow sprayed behind us as she lunged through the drifts. "Stay close, and move fast. Anyone who falls behind gets left behind."
The riders shifted formation and followed.
Torches whipped in the wind while the caribou fought for every stride, plunging chest deep into snow that tried to swallow their legs whole.
Another eagle shriek ripped across the night, followed by the distant yells of Bram's warriors somewhere beyond the ridge.
Steel clashed, and a man cried out before the sound ended abruptly.
The eagle was tearing through them.
Buying us time, whether it meant to or not.
I scanned the mountainside for the cave entrance. It had been years since I had come this way. Ashren and I had hidden in these mountains during the first years of our exile, and the crystal caves had sheltered us then. They would shelter Hannah now.
If the mountain hadn’t collapsed since.
The caves were older than any court. Older than the war between Day and Night.
Water and magic had carved them long before fae kingdoms claimed these peaks, leaving passages that twisted through the mountain like veins through flesh.
They were beautiful in their own way, and dangerous enough that most travelers refused to enter them at all.
Hannah wouldn’t know that.
The thought tightened something in my chest. If she was already inside alone, she would be navigating a maze that had swallowed warriors far more experienced than she was.
"There," Gavriel called.
I spotted it a moment later. A dark break in the rock face where the mountain wall split beneath a jagged overhang half-buried under drifting snow.
The cave mouth.
I angled my caribou toward it and pushed her harder. Her hooves churned through the snow as she fought her way toward the shelter of stone. Behind me, the riders followed, their torches streaking through the storm like burning comets.
The wind died the moment we crossed the threshold.
I hauled the reins and brought the caribou to a halt just inside the rocky entrance. The sudden silence rang in my ears after the roar of the storm. Snow had drifted against the lower edge of the opening, but the passage beyond it remained wide enough for the mounts to pass through single file.
"Dismount." I swung down from the saddle, my boots striking cold stone.
Without the warmth of the caribou's body beside me, the mountain chill seemed to sink straight through my armor.
"Varn. Seleth. Stay here with the caribou, and keep them calm and ready.
If we are not back by dawn, return to the castle, and report to Ashren. "
The two warriors exchanged a glance but nodded.
"Everyone else," I continued as I pulled a spare torch free and lit it, "check your packs. Bone whistles out. Remove the blue chalk from your field kits."
The warriors obeyed, adjusting gear and checking supplies.
Gavriel stepped beside me as the others prepared, his torch casting long shadows across the cave walls. "You know these passages, then?"
"Well enough." I lifted my torch and turned into the cavern. "Mark the path as you would in a forest. Do not trust your memory. This place is deceptive."
The cave opened before us like the throat of some enormous beast. The ceiling arched high overhead before the walls narrowed again farther ahead, and our footsteps echoed against the stone in strange ways that made it sound as though unseen travelers moved somewhere deeper in the darkness.
As we advanced, crystals gleamed from the walls.
They jutted from the rock in jagged clusters like frozen flames, and the moment our torchlight struck them, the cavern exploded with color.
Deep indigo and rich violet light scattered across the stone, the unmistakable hues of the Dusk Court.
Some crystals were no larger than my fist, while others towered above us, their faceted surfaces reflecting fractured shards of light across the cave.
The path soon narrowed into a ledge that hugged the wall of the cavern.
Beyond the edge, the mountain simply vanished.
I stepped up and held my torch over the drop. The light disappeared into darkness, without ever touching the bottom. Crystals continued down the cavern walls far below us, glittering like scattered stars across an endless sky. The illusion of depth twisted my vision.
Several ledges cut through the rock on the far side of the chasm. Some were hundreds of feet away, with dark openings that hinted at other tunnels winding through the mountain.
Too many passages.
Too many places someone could become lost forever.
"This place is cursed," one of the warriors muttered behind me.
"Not cursed." My gaze fixed on the narrow ledge ahead. "Just old."
And dangerous enough to kill the weak and careless.
“Void take me,” one of the warriors breathed behind me. “It’s a labyrinth.”
He wasn’t wrong. Even from the narrow ledge, I could make out faint outlines of passages spidering through the mountain, some dropping steeply into darkness, others splitting and splitting again into a living maze.
“Stay in pairs.” My voice carried through the cavern’s hush.
“No one ventures alone. Mark your route, and trust the marks, not your memory. If you lose your way, follow the chalk back and start again. Use the bone whistles. Three short blasts mean danger. One short, two long mean you are lost. One long blast means you found Hannah.”
I paused, forcing the words through the knot in my throat. “If you find her, signal and get her out. Do not try to be a hero.”
Murmurs of acknowledgment rolled through the group, disciplined and quick. They paired off with practiced efficiency, checking straps and retying gloves, hands steady even as their eyes flicked toward the abyss below.
Gavriel moved to my side, claiming his place as my partner.
I lifted a hand. “Go with Corvan.”
His jaw tightened. “And who watches your back?”
“I will.” The lie tasted like iron. I didn’t have the luxury of worrying about anything except her. “That’s an order, Gavriel.”
For a heartbeat, I thought he might argue. Then his gaze dropped to my hand on the torch, to the way my knuckles had tightened painfully around the wood. Something shifted in his expression, understanding hardening into obedience. He turned and fell in beside Corvan without another word.
Good.
I moved along the ledge, torch held high as I searched for the route I remembered.
Somewhere along this chasm was a stone bridge, narrow as a blade, arching to the eastern passages carved into the far wall.
It was the fastest way to the upper tunnels that led toward the basin’s back entrance.
It was also the sort of path Hannah would choose the moment she realized the main tunnels would funnel her straight into Bram’s hands.
My chest tightened at the thought of her in here, alone, with no magic to light her way and no understanding of how the mountain twisted sound.
These caves were treacherous even for those who knew them.
One wrong turn could lead to a dead end that would force you to double back while your pursuers closed in.
Another wrong turn could lead to a sheer drop disguised by glittering crystal.
Some passages narrowed until they stole your breath, squeezing a grown warrior to his knees.
Others opened into hidden chambers where predators nested, drawn to warmth and fear.
And she had neither fae sight nor the patience for caution.
She would still fight, think, and refuse to die quietly, because that was Hannah. Reckless, stubborn, infuriating. Brilliant in the way she could turn desperation into a weapon.
My mate.
The word struck too deep, too true, and I shoved it down before it could crack me open. I had kept myself controlled for so long that the idea of losing that control terrified me almost as much as the idea of losing her. The thoughts that had been plaguing me this entire time returned.
I should‘ve taken her with us, should’ve ignored the hunger that rose every time she looked at me, and kept her close anyway. Instead, I had left her behind and pretended restraint made me noble.
It made me a fool.
The stone bridge emerged ahead, a pale arch spanning the chasm like the spine of some ancient creature.
I stepped onto it without slowing, my boots finding purchase on the slick surface, torchlight shivering across crystals embedded in the stone.
The abyss yawned beneath the bridge, swallowing the light the moment it fell over the edge.
Where are you? If only she could give me a sign.
She would if she could. She would scratch her name into a wall with her nails, break a crystal to scatter light, and leave a trail of curses in her wake just to spite Fate itself. My clever, furious mate would find a way to be heard.
A scream tore through the cavern.
My heart seized.
A woman’s voice, sharp with terror, ricocheted off stone and crystal until it came from everywhere at once. For a heartbeat, I couldn’t breathe, and every part of me went cold.
Then instinct slammed into place.
I spun toward the sound, sweeping my torch across the chasm. Light fractured across a broken section of the far wall, and through it I caught a flash of torch fire and hair like spun gold.
Hannah.
The ground above her crumbled.
Her silhouette jerked, arms flailing, and then she dropped out of sight, plunging into darkness so fast, the torchlight vanished with her.
“Fuck!”
The word tore out of me as I lunged forward, boots skidding on the slick bridge. My free hand shot out as if I could catch her across three hundred feet of empty air. As if wanting it badly enough could pull her back.
But the cavern swallowed the last echo of her scream, and the gold of her hair vanished.