“Everything that hums is alive,” he says. His voice softens, almost reverent.
The glow from the pool touches his face—half light, half shadow—and for a heartbeat he looks unreal again, like something the stars forgot to reclaim. My throat tightens. “You knew this place was here.”
“Mags calls them the Silent Hollows,” he says, crouching beside me. “Said they were made when the mountain wept fire.”
The idea feels right somehow, grief carved into shelter. I press my hand to the minerals again, watching light travel outward from my fingers in soft ripples. “Maybe it remembers.”
He glances at me, something unreadable moving behind his eyes. “Maybe it does.”
Silence settles again, but it isn’t empty this time. It’s full… of breath, of shared warmth, of everything we haven’t dared to say.
He sits back, pulls me tightly into his arms, his warmth shrouding me. His hot breath warms the shell of my ear, and he murmurs, “Rest, Starlight. We’ll move north at dawn.”
“Starlight?” I ask.
“A fitting name for an alien cowboy’s mate, don’t you think?”
I giggle, pressing my heart to his chest. His pulse matches mine.
“And if they find us?”
His gaze flicks upward, toward the dark crack in the ceiling letting stars peek through. Somewhere, the hum deepens like a sleeping heartbeat. “Then, the mountain won’t be the only thing waking.”
The words linger in the cold air—half promise, half omen—as the light flickers across the heat between us.
His skin vibrates low, a sound more inside me than out, like a lullaby urging me to sleep. I yawn, press my head to his chest, melting into his warmth. It feels like completeness, destiny, despite everything.
“Those things at the cabin…” A shiver slides down my spine, memory seizing me. “What were they?”
“Tech I’ve only ever heard about in legends.”
“Like robots?”
“Like things that don’t dream. Don’t bleed, just hum the orders of ghosts. Don’t worry, Starlight. You’re safe now.”
I fight sleep, blinking against the pull of his frequency, wanting to memorize the sound of him before the dark takes me. “But Grandpa and Grandma…”
His big hand strokes my cheek. “They know you’re with me?” he asks, rugged and dark.
I nod, yawning again, unable to fight the frequency pulling me under.
His jaw ticks. “Then they know I’ll protect you to my last breath.”
My hand finds the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his thick hair. He kisses the tip of my nose, and I chuckle softly, drifting far away.
I startle,listening, frozen. I don’t know how long I’ve slept before the hum changes—no longer a song but a warning.
At first, it’s faint, tucked into the wind beyond the cave. Then, it sharpens, gaining teeth, rising through the stone like a bullet through bone.
I feel it before I hear it. A pressure. A presence.
Ash freezes. “That’s not the mountain,” he says quietly. “That’s them.”
The air in the cavern changes. The horses snort, muscles shuddering, hooves scraping against stone.
The hum deepens. Static crawls through the air. Far above, through the split in the ceiling, I glimpse faint shapes in the clouds—swarming, rising then dipping.
My breath catches.
