He fed me again, piece by piece. It was a slow, rhythmic dance. He would tear a strip, cool it with that subtle flare of magic, and place it in my mouth. Every time his skin brushed mine, whether it was his thumb grazing my lower lip or his knuckles brushing my cheek, each time the golden markings on my skin pulsed in response. It was an intimacy that felt deeper than the kiss we’d shared in the Sanctorum. That had been adrenaline and desperation; this was care. This was sustenance.
"You're scorching the meat, brother," Elias noted without looking up. "You run too hot when you're focused on her."
"Watch the shadows, bird," Kaelen snapped without heat, his attention entirely on me. "I’ll watch the roast."
I leaned back against him, feeling the solid thump of his heart. It was slower than a human’s, heavy and powerful, like a forge hammer. "Where did Flynn go?"
"He’s scouting the tunnels," Kaelen said, offering me another bite. "And working off energy. The wolf stands still about as well as a lightning strike."
The food settled the tremors in my limbs. The fog in my brain receded, replaced by a sharp, crystalline awareness of exactly how precarious our position was. We were eating cave-rabbit in the dark, hunted by gods and mortals alike.
But for this moment, wrapped in dragon-warmth, I felt strangely invincible.
"Why?" Elias’s question cut through the comfortable silence like a blade.
I swallowed the last bite, looking across the fire at him. He had finally lifted his gaze from the flames. Those turquoise eyes were focused on me, swirling with a mixture of confusion and a terrifying, ancient curiosity.
"Why what?" I asked, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
"Why did they let it happen?" Elias tilted his head, copper hair catching the firelight. "The Keepers. The Council. Why did they allow you to become the last of the Pandoros line?"
I stiffened. Behind me, I felt Kaelen's muscles tense, the relaxed embrace suddenly turning rigid as he sensed my own tension.
"Elias," Kaelen warned, his voice a low growl. "Not now."
"It matters," Elias insisted, his voice stepping up an octave into that harmonic resonance that signaled prophecy. "It matters because the threads are tangled, Kaelen. I am trying to unspool the future, but the past is... knotted." He looked at me, intense and unblinking. "Why are there no others? No cousins? No branches? Why just you?"
"That's right," I said slowly, the warmth of the meal beginning to sour in my gut. "Is that... strange? Lines die out." I looked anywhere and everywhere, except at Elias.
"Not when they are the only lock on a prison for gods," Elias said. "For a thousand years, the Council maintained Pandora's bloodline with obsessive redundancy. There were always spares. Always sisters, cousins, aunts. A carefully pruned garden to ensure the Gate never went hungry. And yet... your mother was an only child. You are an only child. Two generations of a single point of failure."
"Why are you asking me this?" I asked, my voice rising. "You're the seer. You see everything. Shouldn't you know?"
"I see time," Elias corrected softly. "I see flashes. I see lightning strikes in the dark. I do not always see the landscape that they illuminate. But the Council... they use wards. They hide their sins in the shadows. And lately, when I look at your timeline, Aria, I see... gaps. I want to know from you." He leaned forward, his face illuminated by the dying fire. "I want to see it from your point of view, not what the magic is trying to show me. Why did they risk everything on just you?"
"Enough," Kaelen snapped. His hand moved to cover my heart as if shielding me from the question. "She is tired, Elias. She doesn't need to be interrogated about the Council's breeding programs."
His words stung though. It had been exactly that at one point. A breeding program.
"It is important!" Elias pressed, his calm fracturing. He stood up, pacing a tight line back and forth. "Because I keep seeing it. Flashes. Stuttering images in the static. You, Aria. Pregnant."
The word hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.
I felt all the blood drain from my face. My hands grew cold.
"What?" Kaelen’s voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the threat of a coming storm.
"I see her with child," Elias said, looking distressed, running a hand through his copper hair. "But the image... It feels wrong. It feels forced. Like a reflection in a broken mirror. I needto know why the line thinned so dangerously. Did they stop trying?"
I wanted to vomit. The meat that had been such a delicacy a moment ago now churned in my stomach, threatening to come up. I tried to pull away from Kaelen, suddenly unable to bear the contact, but he held me fast, not trapping me, but grounding me as he stroked soothing paths up and down my arms.
"Aria?" Kaelen asked gently.
I stared at the fire, watching a log crumble into ash. The memory clawed its way up from the dark place where I had buried it five years ago.
"They didn't stop trying," I whispered.
The cavern went silent. Even Thane’s sharpening stone stopped its rhythmic scraping.
