While Aria had been connected to the Skal, Elias had filled me in on what they had learned. He had said the breeding program was clinical. Cold. Obsessed with redundancy. Who better to oversee the continuation of a bloodline meant to serve as a cosmic lock than the Goddess of Marriage and Birth?
If Hera had been dormant inside a mortal shell, waiting then the question was, how long had she been waiting? Five years? Twenty? Since Pandora?
The redundancy of it was sickening. Poseidon leaves a Skal in the basement to eat the evidence if the prisoners get rowdy. The Council guards the door. And Hera? Hera stands in the delivery room, making sure the lock stays fresh. They didn't just build a prison; they built a self-sustaining ecosystem of suffering.
"Left!" Elias shouted from ahead.
I banked hard, my shoulder scraping against the rock wall, shielding Aria from the impact. A cloud of dust billowed out from a side passage that had completely caved in. The laughter was fading now, drowned out by the sheer volume of thedestruction, but the echo of it lingered in my ears. It wasn't just amusement. It wasownership.
We burst out of the tunnel and back into the vastness of the Cradle.
The black water of the pool was churning, agitated by the tremors rocking the earth. The obsidian structure, the amplifier, hummed with a low, dissonant note, reacting to the violence in the stone.
"To the tomb!" I yelled, sprinting for the raised platform of the amplifier. It was the sturdiest damn thing down here. If the mountain came down, that obsidian coffin would be the only thing left standing.
We scrambled up the rock shelf. Thane reached the edge of the tunnel we’d just exited and slammed his hands against the archway. Earth magic, brown and heavy, poured from his palms. He groaned, the sound tearing from his chest, as he forced the rock to fuse, creating a temporary seal against the collapsing tunnel behind us.
It wouldn't hold forever, but it would stop the dust from burying us alive.
Silence, or what passed for it down here, returned. The ground stopped shaking, settling into a sullen vibration.
I set Aria down on the smooth black stone of the amplifier's base, but I didn't let go of her. I couldn't. My hands were shaking, and it wasn't from exertion.
"Is everyone intact?" Kaelen demanded, his golden eyes scanning us. The dragon fire around his sword guttered and died, plunging us back into the dim gloom of the moss-light.
"Define intact," Elias wheezed, leaning against the obsidian wall, clutching his side. "I believe I have bruised a rib, and my dignity is currently in tatters."
"We are alive," Thane grunted, dusting rock powder from his hair. He looked at the sealed tunnel entrance. "But we are trapped. That collapse... it wasn't natural. It was directed."
"Hera," I said, the name tasting like poison.
I sat down with Aria, pulling her back between my legs, wrapping my arms around her waist. She was shivering again, shock setting in. I rubbed her arms, trying to generate friction, trying to scrub the feel of the goddess’s gaze off her skin.
"She has an avatar," Kaelen said, pacing the small platform. He looked like a caged tiger, ready to bite the bars. "Here. In the mortal realm. How many redundancies did the High Seat build into this torture chamber?"
"Enough to ensure we never leave," I muttered, pressing my cheek against the top of Aria's head. She smelled of dust now, overlaying the ambrosia scent. "Think about it. The Skal. The Council. The breeding program. And now this. They didn't just want us hidden, brother. They wanted us controlled down to the molecular level."
"But if she's here," Aria whispered, her voice hitching. "If she knows where we are... Why are we hiding in a cave? Why didn't she just crush us an hour ago? Or yesterday?"
"Because she's arrogant," Elias said, sliding down to sit on the floor. He looked pale in the dim light. "Or because she enjoys the game. Or..." He trailed off, his eyes narrowing.
"Or what?" I snapped. "Don't do the cryptic seer thing right now, Elias. I will bite you."
"Or she couldn't," Elias finished slowly. "Avatars are limited. To fit the ocean into a cup, you have to leave most of the water behind. She might be powerful, but she is constrained by the mortal vessel she is wearing. I doubt the cavern collapse was a snap of her fingers. No, that was more likely her using the Titan's bone energy against the structure."
"She saw me," Aria said again, fixated on it. "Her–Shelooked through Steve's mind and found me. She knows we're here. She knows we'retogether."
"Steve?" Elias asked, sounding like his brain was fracturing.
"Steve the Skal," Aria said matter-of-factly.
We all just blinked for a moment before Thane, of all people, laughed. It was too similar to the sound of rock that had been chasing us as we ran for me to join in.
I tightened my grip on Aria. My mind still stuck on what she had said. We had thought we were clever. Use the archives. Use the hidden tunnels. Use the places the Keepers forgot. We thought we were playing hide-and-seek in a messy room.
But if Hera had an agent here, worse, if shewashere in any capacity, then there were no blind spots. There were no shadows deep enough. We were just mice scurrying around inside her pantry, and she’d been watching us the whole time, probably laughing that bell-like laugh while she waited for the bread to rise.
"It explains the urgency," Kaelen said, stopping his pacing to look at the sealed tunnel. "The Sentinel. The sudden escalation. If the Devourer is close, and their trap is falling apart..."
