“You’re counting the minutes until the eclipse, then.”
His silence was all the confirmation I needed.
My heartbeat quickened. “When does it happen?”
His voice was flat, clinical. “In just over an hour. The moon will pass between the sun and the Earth. Total darkness.”
Perfect.
And as if summoned by the words, another Braxton-Hicks seized my body. I doubled over slightly, breathing and trying to calm my frantic nerves.
Not yet. Just hold on a little longer. Not now.
We still needed to find the cave’s heart—whatever mystery lay hidden.
The further we descended, the more the cave swallowed us. Water dripped from jagged stalactites, echoing off the stone like a ticking clock. Each sound twisted into a whisper in the back of my mind, feeding the anxiety building beneath my skin.
I winced, gripping my side as another ripple of pain pulsed through me.
Jack turned, concern darkening his features.
I ignored it, pointing toward the pool glimmering faintly deeper in the cave. “There. Keep going.”
“I’ll follow,” he said, shrugging off his pack and retrieving the lantern.
The light flickered to life, dim and wan—as if it, too, feared what lay ahead.
As we moved further into the abyss, I realized something that struck me harder than the looming eclipse or the suffocating shadows?—
The true terror wasn’t in the cave.
It was inside me.
This baby, this child I never wanted, might be born under the eclipse—a Timeborne.
And that thought filled me with more fear than any darkness ever could.
“Let’s go,” I said, steeling myself.
Jack nodded and led the way, the lantern’s dying glow our only shield against the ancient dark.
A shudder rippled through me as I stepped deeper into the cave—a place so damp and dark it felt untouched by time, utterly alien. The silence pressed against my ears, broken only by the slow water drip echoing through the stone.
Then, a shaft of sunlight broke through from a narrow crevice high above, piercing the gloom and striking the pool ahead. It shimmered with a brilliance so intense that it looked like a reservoir of ethereal magic—alive, glowing, otherworldly.
I stepped closer.
My foot caught on a jagged rock.
I crashed hard, slamming into the cave wall with a sickeningcrack. Pain exploded in my skull as I crumpled to the ground. A cry tore from my lips just as the edges of my vision blurred and the cave seemed to ripple around me like heat over stone.
“Alina!” Jack’s voice rang out.
He dropped beside me, his panic unmistakable. “Are you okay?”
I blinked, trying to make sense of the shadows swirling aroundme. My hand trembled as I reached the back of my head and felt warmth. Wet, sticky warmth.
When I pulled my fingers away, they were coated in blood. Thick. Hot. Crimson.
