Chapter 10 #2
Thorne aimed at the next target high in the chamber. His hand shook, and the arrow missed its mark.
The walls pressed in on Gisela faster now.
A wicked laugh left Cillian’s lips. “See? You’re useless. Pathetic. You’re going to kill her.” Cillian’s voice was rough and distorted.
Selene’s cries reverberated around the room.
Thorne crouched on the floor, hands pressed against his ears in a desperate attempt to block it out. Tears welled in his eyes, his jaw trembling.
“You are no son of mine!” Cillian’s voice boomed, shaking the chamber.
Gisela banged on the clear walls, tears mixing with her desperate pleas. “Thorne! Listen to me. It’s not real. He’s an illusion!”
She scrambled to the other side of the box, but the walls were closing in fast. She hit the wall sooner than expected.
The air was too thin to fill her lungs. Her hands shook as she brought them to her head and slid down the wall.
She curled her knees close against her chest, making herself smaller.
She forced her eyes shut and focused on taking deep, rhythmic breaths. Breathe.
Four seconds in, six seconds out.
Again.
The jagged rhythm of panic eased, and her heartbeat slowed. The walls still moved, but their speed faltered. With each measured breath, they hesitated.
“Thorne, please. Please get up,” she whispered, voice cracking. “You can do this. I trust you.”
Thorne opened his eyes. His attention locked on Gisela, hugging her knees to her chest.
His expression smoothed as he looked at the illusion of Cillian.
“You’re a shit father,” he said. “You’re the coward.”
Nocking the final arrow, Thorne aimed at the target aligned with Cillian’s head. Steadying himself, he released the arrow. It flew true and pierced the illusion. In a flash, Cillian vanished.
The sound of the walls moving ceased.
Gisela reached out, meeting nothing but cool air. Her legs wobbled as she tested weight on her feet. She had to steady herself before standing fully.
Thorne was still across the chamber, shoulders slumped, breath uneven. For a moment, neither of them moved—like stepping too fast might shatter whatever fragile calm they had just earned.
Then their eyes met.
Thorne crossed the distance first, and she met him halfway. They held each other fiercely, hearts hammering in sync.
“I’m so sorry,” Thorne whispered into her ear. His arms tightened around her once—hard—before he let himself breathe.
“You did it. I’m safe, you’re safe. We made it through,” Gisela reassured him.
“No . . . I—I nearly got you killed,” he whispered.
Gisela shook her head, pressing a hand to his chest. “You didn’t. You did what you needed to. I’m proud of you.”
Thorne pulled away in an instant and averted his gaze.
“Was that something that happened in the past?” she asked.
“What?”
“Cillian . . . and your mother.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen him hurt her.” His voice shook as he spoke. “The older I got the more he focused on me. Better me than her.”
Gisela said nothing.
His eyes were fixed somewhere beyond her. “Then I grew taller, stronger than him. That pissed him off. It didn’t make things better. It just . . . made her the target again, in a way. Like punishing me for existing wasn’t enough.”
“At least he’ll be away from her now. And he can’t control you anymore.”
He let out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah, I’m something else now. Something he hates even more.”
She bit her lip, thinking. Part of being an herbalist was knowing when to intervene and when to let a process run its course. With Thorne, she decided it was better to just listen.
“Now what?” he asked.
Gisela released a sigh and wandered around the cave. She searched for a hidden hallway, a separate room, anything to hint at what was next. “I faced my fear, and you faced yours . . .”
“Hardly,” he said but it came out a little harsh.
Gisela looked back at him, opening her mouth to respond to his tone but decided against it. “Well, we controlled it. Our fears. When I controlled my breathing, my panic . . . the walls stopped closing in so fast.”
Thorne’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I just shot arrows at targets,” he said, bitterness coiling around every word. “That’s hardly controlled fear.”
“You helped me survive,” she said. “Even if you don’t see it that way right now.”
He clenched his fists, eyes turning wild. “I didn’t do enough. You were the one who got me—” He cut himself off.
Gisela didn’t try to argue. She could feel the tension radiating off him, like heat from a fire.
Instead, she let the silence linger. The cave was cold again, the dripping water echoing louder. She went back to where the word fear was etched into the stone, seeing trust underneath it.
“Thorne, look. It says trust now.”
He moved toward her—and then a high-pitched ringing pierced the air, growing louder until it pulsed behind her eyes. They clutched their heads, teeth gritted as the sound bore down on them. One by one, the torches guttered and died, plunging the chamber into a suffocating darkness.
They dropped to their knees.
The relentless ringing pressing against their eardrums transformed into a haunting, inescapable lullaby.