Her throat tightened. So the mountain was not her ally at all, but an extension of him. Every door that opened, every path revealed, every hidden chamber… had been his will. His thoughts wrapped in stone.
That was why the Gate had sealed before her eyes. Not the mountain. It was Rune who hadn’t wanted her to see it.
Her mind flickered back to the garden cavern, to the sunlight, the flowering bushes, and the sapling that had reached for her hand. That had beenhimtoo. Rune’s consciousness shaping beauty out of shadow.
A gift. A kindness.
But Alora’s jaw clenched, her cheeks burning. She could not let herself be fooled by pretty illusions. He had given her a garden with one hand while shackling her with the other. Even his “kindness” was a cage.
One she still needed to find a way out of.
She eyed her reluctant guard, sulking in the chair. He wanted out and she needed him out of her way, too.
“Then perhaps you could do something else for me. A true task that does not require fetching fruit.”
His eyes narrowed, suspicion flaring.
“I want news of Argyle and the state it’s in. Of… Theia, and Caelum. My friends. Will you look for them?”
Deimos’s expression flickered with irritation. “You ask much. Why should I waste my stealth spying on mortals who mean nothing to us?”
“Because they mean something to me.” she said, sharpening her tone. “Hadeon told you to grant my every wish. And I wish to know if my friends are alive.”
He bared his fangs in a snarl.
“You serve your king, do you not? And he has named me queen. If that title is worth anything, then I command it.”
“You think to command me?” A low growl rolled in his throat, his eyes gleaming like coals, but he didn’t refuse her.
He only looked away, as if the demand pricked some unwanted nerve.
Alora sighed. “Deimos, I cannot leave this room, and you would rather pick out your eyes than guard my door, right?”
His jaw ticked once, betraying thought. She could almost hear the battle between pride and duty. That long tail lashed against the floor with a sharp snap.
“Clever,” Deimos muttered, voice dripping with disdain. His claws tapped the armrest in an pensive rhythm before he finally pushed to his feet with a huff. “Very well. I will go. Perhaps I’ll kill them myself if Calveron has not.”
A mild threat. Still, Alora caught the flicker of relief in his posture, the way his limbs twitched with eagerness at the thought of leaving.
He wanted out. And she had given him the excuse.
Deimos stalked toward the wall, his form already unraveling into shadow. “Pray your little friends are not already carrion,” he said with a wicked smile, “for I cannot promise to return with good news.”
Then he vanished, wisps of smoke curling in his wake.
Alora exhaled. For the moment, at least, she was alone again. Free to test the mountain’s paths without the Harbinger hovering.
Standing, Alora pressed her hand against the wall. It was warm, alive, and listening.
It obeys him first.
Her throat tightened. If she begged for freedom, the mountain would shut her in tighter. If she asked for escape, it would smother her hope with stone. But there was one thing Rune might not deny her.
Himself.
She lifted her gaze to the ceiling.“May I see him?”
For a breath the mountain was still. Then it groaned, the wall parting as torches lit one by one, revealing a new path.
