It wasn't just a monster. It wasmymonster.
"No," I said, and the disappointment radiating from the creature was palpable. It actually slumped. "Not yet. Stay. Guard."
Sadness,the Skal projected, a wash of cold, damp melancholy hitting my mind.Hunger remains.
"It's... pouting," I said, a hysterical bubble of laughter rising in my throat. "Kaelen, look at it. It's pouting because I won't let it eat the Keepers."
Kaelen glanced at the creature, his lip curling in disgust. "It is an abomination, Aria. Do not anthropomorphize the calamari."
"It's kind of... I don't know," I said, tilting my head. The Skal chittered, its mandibles waving slowly. One of its eyes blinked at me, a lazy, sideways shutter. "In a horrific, nightmarish way... it's sort of cute."
Elias dropped from the ceiling, landing lightly beside the fire. He looked at me with genuine concern. "The magical exhaustion has finally claimed her mind. She is bonding with the deep-sea scavenger."
"It is useful," Thane grunted from the doorway. "And it has better hearing than us. If it says they are coming..."
A new sound echoed down the tunnel. The softpat-pat-patof running feet. Not the heavy, armored tread of guards, but the light, swift cadence of a predator.
Wolf,the Skal projected, perking up.Pack. He smells of ozone and trouble.
"Flynn," I said, relief washing through me.
A second later, Flynn burst into the cavern.
He wasn't moving with his usual sauntering grace. He was sprinting, his bare chest heaving, sweat slicking his skin and plastering his hair to his forehead. He skidded to a halt near the fire, his eyes wide and wild, the amber irises nearly swallowing the whites.
He smelled of digging, damp earth, crushed roots, and something metallic. Blood. Not his own, I realized with a jolt.
"We have a problem," Flynn announced, breathless. He didn't look at Kaelen or his brothers. He looked straight at me, devouring me with his gaze as if checking for injuries I hadn't sustained.
"We know," Kaelen said, stepping forward. "The Skal sensed intruders. The Keepers?"
"No," Flynn gasped, bending over to brace his hands on his knees. He took a deep, rattling breath. "Well, yes. The Keepers are in the upper tunnels. Lots of them. But that's not the problem."
He straightened, wiping a smear of dark blood from his cheek.
"I found where they went," Flynn said, his voice dropping to a grim tone I had never heard him use. "The remnants of the Order of Khaos. And the missing Keepers."
"Where?" Thane walked back toward the fire, his heavy club resting on his shoulder. "Are they regrouping?"
"They aren't regrouping," Flynn said. He pointed back toward the tunnel he had come from, his hand shaking slightly. "They're excavating."
I frowned. "Excavating what?"
"There is another chamber," Flynn said. "Deeper. Below the Cradle. I didn't know it was there until I smelled the... the leaking."
"Leaking?" Elias asked sharply.
"Magic," Flynn said. "Old, rotten magic. I followed the scent. They've breached a wall into some kind of sub-basement." Use of words like 'sub-basement' felt wrong for a cave system, but his meaning was clear. "And Aria..." He looked at me, his expression tortured. "They have something that smells like you. Containers of some kind."
"Containers?" I echoed, my mind blanking.
"Glass jars," Flynn clarified, his voice harsh. "Dozens of them. Glowing with stasis runes. And they have a woman with them. Wearing white robes. She's directing them."
My knees nearly gave out again. Kaelen caught me, his arm banding around my waist.
"Marissa," I choked out.
"I was able to watch for a while before… Anyway, they seem to be setting up a ritual circle," Flynn continued, the words tumbling out faster now. "Not a binding circle. Agestationcircle. They're drawing power from something in that sub-basement. Something... alive."
