More advanced than I ever imagined. Made to blend in—almost.
Ice floods my veins. Her eyes find mine, stricken.
“No time to waste,” I grunt, boosting her onto the Palomino. “Hope you can ride bareback.”
“Of course,” she hisses.
The mare bolts. I mount Winnie, chasing her through rain and fog.
The range sings differently now—deeper, protective. Almost maternal. Like the mountain gathers us beneath its wings.
We ride through rain and low clouds. The bond becomes our compass. Fog wraps us in white shadow, muting the world.
Each fork in the trail feels guided by a hand we can’t see. The Sentinel drones hum behind us, swallowed by storm and stone.
Josephine glances back once, eyes finding me through the rain. Relief washes over me.
I nudge forward, bringing my horse next to hers. Leading.
We drop into a ravine, disappearing as the Starborn aurora flickers overhead—its reds and purples bleeding across the clouds like the sky itself remembers what we’ve done.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
JOSEPHINE
The world finally stops shaking. For a heartbeat, even the wind forgets itself.
Only our horses move, steam rising from their flanks, breath ghosting white against the night. The rest of the range has gone still, as if the mountain itself holds its breath.
My pulse won’t settle. I can still feel him through the bond, faint but there—like a second heartbeat under my skin. Every few moments it flickers, a reminder that the cabin still echoes through us.
Ash slides from his saddle first, boots crunching over gravel. “Here,” he says, voice low, scanning the shadows. “We can’t stay in the open.”
I dismount clumsily, legs trembling, and stroke Sunshine’s neck to steady us both. The air tastes of rain and earth.
“They stopped following?” I whisper.
He looks back toward the ridge, eyes narrowing. “For now.”
The way he says it makes me glance over my shoulder. The sky is empty, but the silence feels unnatural, like the pause between thunder and lightning.
He nods toward a narrow slit in the cliff side. “There’s shelter in there.”
We lead the horses through the gap, rock scraping the stirrups, every sound amplified by the hush. The air cools, carrying the scent of sage and wet stone.
When the passage opens at last, I almost stumble forward. The cavern is small but luminous, a pocket of blue light spilling from a crack above. The walls glitter with frozen veins, like stars caught in ice.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmur. My voice trembles.
“Old mining tunnels,” he says, tethering the horses near a darkened pool. “Legend says Sentinels can’t track resonance through this much ore.” His mind is a swirl.
“Legend says?”
“Never seen one before. The Ancients, we sometimes call them. In the Starborn Range. Either living or buried there.”
I kneel beside a deep-cut vein. It hums faintly beneath my palm, answering something deep in my chest. “It’s singing,” I whisper.
