"Thank you," she says quietly. "For last night. For staying."
The simple gratitude in her voice does something uncomfortable to my chest.
"We should move soon," I say, deflecting before the moment can grow too intimate. "This place doesn’t stay mapped for long."
"What do you mean?"
I gesture toward the corridor beyond our chamber. "Look at the passage we used to get here."
She leans closer to peer through the doorway, close enough that her shoulder brushes my arm. The contact sends an unwelcome jolt through my body—not the sharp pain of shared injury, but something warmer. More dangerous.
Her sharp intake of breath tells me she sees what I’ve noticed. The corridor that led us here last night now curves in the opposite direction, disappearing around a bend that definitely wasn’t there before. Where we should see the intersection with the main hall, solid stone blocks our view.
"The abbey’s layout has shifted," she whispers.
A grinding sound cuts off her words. Deep in the walls, something massive moves. Not settling or collapse, but deliberate rearrangement. The building itself is reshaping around us, corridors flowing into new configurations.
"We need to leave. Now." I’m already moving, gathering our supplies with practiced efficiency. "If we get trapped in a dead end?—"
The grinding intensifies, and the floor beneath our feet begins to tremble. Dust rains from the ceiling as stress fractures spider across the walls. Whatever force controls this place has grown impatient with subtle manipulation.
"Krath—"
The far wall erupts inward with a sound of breaking thunder. Not collapse, but forced entry. Something has punched through three feet of solid stone as if it were parchment.
Shadow pours through the jagged opening in writhing tendrils, coalescing into shapes that might once have beenhuman. Gaunt figures with elongated limbs and fingers that end in bone-white claws. They smell of old graves and older malice.
Bone-constructs. The Marshal’s latest gift.
The first one lunges before I can draw my sword, moving with inhuman speed. I catch it by the throat, claws raking across my forearm as I slam it into the wall hard enough to crack stone. Ancient bone dust explodes from the impact, filling the air with the scent of charnel houses.
But there are more. Too many for the confined space.
"Behind me!" I shout to Rhea, finally managing to clear my blade. Fire blooms along the steel as I carve through the closest attackers.
But she’s not retreating. Blue-white flames erupt from her palms, catching two constructs’ center mass and reducing them to drifting ash.
We fall into rhythm without needing to speak—I create openings with brute force while she exploits them with precision. My blade cleaves through bone and shadow while her fire turns the Marshal’s creations back to the dust they were raised from. The sound of battle fills the chamber—steel on bone, the hiss of purifying flame, the clatter of destroyed constructs hitting stone.
A construct breaks through my guard, claws raking toward her exposed flank. Without thinking, I pivot and catch her around the waist, pulling her against my chest as my other hand drives upward through the creature’s ribcage. The impact of catching her sends us both stumbling backward.
She’s pressed fully against me, soft curves fitting against hard angles in ways that have nothing to do with combat. Her hands have fisted in my armor for balance, and I feel the rapid flutter of her pulse against my throat. For one heartbeat, the battle fades. There’s only the warmth of her body bleedingthrough fabric and mail, the way she fits against me as if she belongs there.
Heat races along my palm where the brand burns—not pain this time, but recognition. The absolute certainty that this woman belongs at my side, fighting beside me, trusting me to guard her back while she guards mine.
The thought comes unbidden, primal: She is mine to protect, mine to claim, mine to?—
I push the dangerous direction of that thinking away before it can fully form.
"Are you hurt?" The words come out rough.
"No, I—" She looks up at me, green eyes wide, and I realize how close we are. How easily I could lower my head and claim the lips that part slightly in surprise.
The brand pulses between us, carrying more than magical energy. I smell her arousal beneath the scent of battle-sweat and fear—warm musk that makes something in my chest rumble with approval.
Her hands are still fisted in my armor, but the grip has changed from desperate balance to something else entirely. Her breathing has quickened, and not from exertion.
"Krath..." My name on her lips carries a question she’s not ready to voice.
