I meet her eyes. The bond hums between us, that impossible connection of lightning and water, and I see her feel it too—the pull, the recognition, the thing neither of us asked for and neither of us can ignore.
“To undo whatever this is.” I gesture between us. “This... bond. It shouldn’t exist. Cross-species bonds are almost unheard of, and this—” Steam and electricity and two elements that should destroy each other. “—this is something else entirely. If anyone can sever it, can explain it, it’s her.”
Something flickers across Zara’s face—relief? disappointment? I can’t read her well enough yet, though the bond is trying to tell me, offering emotional impressions I’m not ready to accept.
“And if she can’t sever it?”
“Then at least she can judge your case fairly. Decide whether you’re a threat or an opportunity. It’s better than what Caspian would give you.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, bound hands resting in her lap, broken wing splinted against her side. The waterfall roars behind us, masking our voices from anyone who might be listening. Finally, she nods.
“Fine. Take me to your High Elder.”
I stand, offering her my hand before I can think better of it. She takes it, and the bond sings at the contact—warmth and connection and a rightness that terrifies me. I pull her to her feet and don’t let go, because letting go feels like losing something I never knew I needed.
“The journey is dangerous,” I warn her. “We’ll be traveling through territory I’m not supposed to enter, avoiding patrols, moving through tunnels that haven’t been used in decades. If we’re caught?—”
“If we’re caught, we’re dead. I understand.” She squeezes my hand once, then releases it, and I feel the loss like a phantom limb. “I didn’t come this far to die in a cave, Sentinel Blackwater.”
“Torin,” I hear myself say. “If we’re going to die together, you should probably use my name.”
The smile that crosses her face is small, tired, and genuinely amused. “Torin, then. Lead the way.”
I turn toward the back of the cave, where a narrow passage leads deeper into the earth. Toward the tunnels. Toward the Citadel. Toward a future I can’t predict and a bond I can’t escape.
As the adrenaline fades, I pull out the kelp-rope from my pack. Zara sees it and her expression tightens, but she holds out her wrists without argument.
“If we encounter anyone else,” I say quietly, threading the rope more loosely than before, “this is the only thing thatexplains why I’m traveling with you instead of delivering your body to Caspian.”
“I understand.” Her voice is steady, but I feel her frustration through the bond. “The mask stays on a little longer.”
“Just a little longer.”
She follows, and the bond hums between us like a promise—or a warning.
Whatever this is, whatever we’re becoming, there’s no going back now.
4
ZARA
I’ve faced hostile alphas, brokered impossible treaties, stared death in the face. None of that prepared me for walking beside a man I can feel in my blood.
The tunnel swallows us whole.
Behind us, the waterfall’s roar fades to a distant whisper, then to nothing. Ahead, darkness stretches like a living thing, broken only by the faint blue-green glow of bioluminescent moss clinging to the walls. The air is thick and damp, heavy with the smell of wet stone and ancient water.
I hate it immediately.
Torin moves ahead of me with an ease that borders on insulting. He was made for this—the dark, the close spaces, the weight of stone pressing down from above. His scales catch the dim light as he walks, creating shifting patterns that might be beautiful if I weren’t fighting the urge to claw my way back to open air.
My bound hands ache. My shoulder throbs with every step, the makeshift splint doing its job but not gently. And somewhere deep in my chest, the bond pulses like a second heartbeat, constantly aware of the man in front of me—the distancebetween us, the rhythm of his breathing, the way his muscles shift beneath his damp shirt.
I try to focus on anything else.
The tunnel opens into a grotto that steals my breath for different reasons. Bioluminescent mushrooms cluster along the walls in shades of blue and violet, their soft glow painting everything in underwater light. Crystals jut from the ceiling like inverted towers, pulsing with a rhythm that matches—I realize with a start—the bond in my chest. Tiny fish dart through a shallow stream cutting across our path, their scales flashing silver-bright, like stars swimming through darkness.
It’s beautiful. Alien and terrifying andbeautiful.
