Professional. Focused. Untouched.
That was the plan. It had been the plan when he arrived. It was going to remain the plan no matter how pink her cheeks got or how golden-eyed a basilisk fixer happened to be.
After breakfast, they loaded into the sand-cruiser and left the polished stone façade of the Stonestare Suites behind. Outside the city center, Solkaris sifted past, paved streets giving way to scorched clay, architectural symmetry dissolving into jagged sandstone and low, sun-bleached domes built half into the ground for heat protection.
Basilisk banners hung from basalt pillars each stamped with coiling serpents in gold leaf that shimmered against the glare. Markets thinned, caravans scattered, until the road became nothing but carved steps descending into a fault seam in the earth.
Here, ancient cooling systems hummed faintly beneath the surface, a lattice of steam vents and stone conduits older than any written language. Pythorus keyed open a gate of sand-smoothed iron, and the temperature changed at once: from blistering desert glare to cavern heat, heavy but a little bit cooler.
Then the tunnels yawned before them. And the true Solkaris, basilisk territory beneath the sun, opened its throat and swallowed them whole.
The deeper they walked, the thicker the heat pressed in. Humid, mineral-rich, the kind that wrapped around the lungsrather than filled them. The tunnels wound in slopes and narrow ribs of stone, Pythorus leading with an easy confidence that suggested he’d walked these caverns since childhood.
Hektor kept to the rear, not because he needed space but because someone had to watch their backs. In close quarters like this, shift-scent and heartbeat revealed too much, and he refused to be readable.
Despite himself, Hektor noticed how the basilisk moved. Even on uneven stone, Pythorus seemed to glide, silent, balanced, as if the ground simply arranged itself for him.
Zara, naturally, was the opposite.
Ahead, she slipped on a patch of slick rock, and Pythorus’s hand shot out to steady her. Useful, Hektor noted. Necessary. And yet the basilisk’s fingers lingered a fraction too long on her arm, his head tipped just a little too near hers as he asked if she was alright.
Every dip, ledge, or stray shard of rock found her boot, and Pythorus was there each time, steadying her with a hand at her elbow or waist. His touches lingered, polite but familiar, and Zara only flushed and muttered something about low lighting and traitorous rock formations.
Hektor forced his gaze away, cataloguing the cavern’s branching passages instead: left route sealed by collapse, right route freshly reinforced, center path marked by carved serpent sigils. All information. All relevant. And far safer to think about.
“How much farther?” he asked, voice intentionally businesslike.
Pythorus glanced over his shoulder, expression polite but threaded with satisfaction, like he’d expected the question. “It should be another twenty minutes or so,” he said. “Once we reach the lower vaults, the active cluster of basilisks makes their homes there. Heat vents, stone gardens, plenty of territory.”
“Good,” Hektor said, though the word came out more clipped than intended.
Zara looked back at him, smile bright, oblivious to the way the air between the males hardened. “See? Easy. We’ll be there before lunch.”
He nodded, shifting his weapon harness, eyes fixed ahead, but senses stretched wide. Twenty minutes. He could manage that. Even if their steps echoed with Pythorus’s low laughter, Zara’s soft thank-yous, and the unmistakable pulse of something he refused to name, beating under his ribs like an irritated drum.
Work, he reminded himself. This was just work.
Nothing more.
When they reached the underground neighborhood, a shallow cathedral of stone lit by sputtering lanterns, Pythorus excused himself, spotting a fellow basilisk overseer across the cavern. The siblings wandered off toward a vendor stand, debating juice flavors like they were life-or-death decisions.
Zara stayed.
Of course she did.
She hovered at his side, pretending to study a map or admire the cavern ceiling, but her foot kept tapping, her fingers fidgeting with her water bottle. Hektor braced. Whatever she was about to say, she would say it directly. Zara didn’t believe in subtlety.
“So,” she finally nudged, “what do you think?”
He didn’t look at her. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“It does,” she insisted.
“What matters,” he corrected, “is how you feel.”
She blew out a breath, cheeks puffing slightly. “I’m…not sure,” she admitted. “That’s why I want your opinion.”
He gave the smallest huff, close to a laugh, but not quite. “You suddenly value my judgment?”
