But moments can’t last forever.
Eventually, Torin stirs. “We need to move. The hunters we left unconscious—someone will have found them by now. They’ll know we’re heading to the Citadel.”
“Will Caspian try to stop us?”
“He’ll try.” Torin sits up, reaching for his clothes. “But the Citadel is neutral ground. Even he can’t attack us there without the High Elder’s sanction.” He pauses. “Probably.”
“Probably isn’t very reassuring.”
“It’s the best I can offer.” He helps me to my feet, steadying me when I sway slightly. The bond lets him feel my lingering exhaustion, my healing shoulder’s protest. “Can you travel?”
I test my wing carefully. The break has healed remarkably well—whether from time, his care, or the bond’s influence, I’m not sure. “I can manage. How far?”
“A few hours through the tunnels. Then we emerge at the lake.” He pulls on his shirt, and I try not to mourn the loss of skin against mine. “The Citadel rises from the water. You’ll see it before I can explain it.”
There’s something in his voice—pride, maybe, or longing. This is his home. His people. And he’s bringing me there as his mate, knowing they’ll see it as betrayal.
I reach for his hand. “Whatever happens when we get there—we face it together. Okay?”
He squeezes my fingers. “Together.”
The word has become our promise. Our anchor. The thing we hold onto when everything else is uncertain.
I just hope it’s enough.
The tunnels seem lessoppressive now.
Maybe it’s because my shoulder doesn’t scream with every step. Maybe it’s because Torin’s hand in mine makes the darkness feel less like a cage. Maybe it’s because the bond lets me borrow his comfort with enclosed spaces, his ease in the deep places of the earth.
Or maybe I’m just too distracted by what’s coming to panic about where I am.
We walk in comfortable silence, occasionally touching—his hand at the small of my back when the path narrows, mine on his arm when I need steadying. Every contact sends gentle sparks through the bond. Not overwhelming. Just present. A constant reminder that we’re connected now in ways neither of us fully understands yet.
“Tell me about the Citadel,” I say eventually. Diplomacy training kicking in. Know the ground before you enter negotiations.
Torin’s quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “It’s ancient. Built when the Deep Runners first retreated from the surface world. The elders say it took three generations to carve—both above and below the water line.”
“How big?”
“Big enough to house five thousand people comfortably. Though we’re nowhere near that number now.” Sadness colors his tone. “Maybe three thousand at most. And declining every generation.”
The genetic bottleneck. The isolation slowly killing them. Everything I suspected confirmed.
“The upper levels are air-filled,” he continues. “For councils, for trade with the few surface-dwellers we allowed contact with, for raising children who haven’t learned to shift yet. The lower levels are fully submerged. That’s where most Deep Runners spend their time—it’s where we’re most comfortable.”
“And the High Elder?”
“She dwells in the deepest chambers. Says the water speaks clearest there.” He glances at me. “She’s been blind since birth, but she sees more than anyone I know. Reads truth in water currents, in the way blood moves through veins. If anyone can judge fairly what we’ve done—what we are—it’s her.”
I hear the hope in his voice. The desperate wish that someone in authority will understand. Will see the bond not as betrayal but as something else. Something that might save them.
“What if she doesn’t?” I have to ask. “What if she sides with Caspian?”
“Then we run.” He says it simply. Factually. “There are deep places in the waterways where even the Sentinels don’t patrol. We could hide. Build a life. It wouldn’t be—” He stops. “It wouldn’t be what either of us wanted. But we’d be together.”
Together. Always back to that word. That promise.
“I won’t let it come to that,” I say firmly. “I came here to negotiate. To find a peaceful solution. I’m not going to fail now.”
