"Just sleep, Aria," Kaelen said softly. "Dream of nothing. I will keep the nightmares away."
I wanted to tell him that he was the nightmare, the beautiful, terrifying monster that had haunted my sleep for months. But the exhaustion came down like a hammer, heavy and unstoppable.
"Don't... don't let Steve eat anyone," I mumbled, my head drooping onto Flynn’s shoulder.
"Steve's fine," I heard Flynn chuckle, the sound vibrating through his ribs. "Go to sleep, Aria. We've got this."
And for the first time in my life, surrounded by monsters in the crushing dark, I actually believed him. I let the darkness take me, not into the Threshold, not into a vision, but into the quiet, empty peace of obliteration.
The quiet didn’t last long enough.
I woke to the sound of water dripping.Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop.
It was a maddeningly steady rhythm, loud in the stillness of the cavern. I was stiff, my neck cricked at an awkward angle against Flynn’s shoulder. The wolf prince was asleep, actually asleep, his breathing deep and even, his hand still clutching mine in a death grip.
I carefully extricated myself, wincing as my joints popped. Flynn grumbled in his sleep, reaching out for the warmth I’d taken away, but he didn't wake. Across the dying fire, Elias was curled into a ball, looking impossibly small. Kaelen sat with his back against a stalagmite, his eyes closed, though his hand rested on the pommel of his sword. Even in sleep, the Dragon stood guard.
Thane might have been awake, I wasn't sure. He sat near what used to be the tunnel entrance, a massive, silent shadow. Next to him, the Skall, Steve, was coiled like a sleeping dog, its mandibles twitching as if dreaming of chasing sheep or whatever deep-sea horrors dreamed of.
I stood up, my legs feeling like jelly, and crept toward the water’s edge. My throat was parched, sandpaper-dry.
I knelt by the black pool, cupping my hands to scoop up the water. It was ice-cold, numbing my fingers instantly. I hesitated. It smelled of old minerals, but it was clear.
"It is safe to drink," Thane’s voice rumbled softly from behind me.
I jumped, somehow managing to splash water on my face which made me gasp at the sudden cold. I hadn't heard him move. For a man the size of a siege tower, he moved with the silence of a falling leaf.
"Sorry," I whispered. "I didn't mean to wake anyone."
"You didn't." He sat down on a rock nearby, the stone groaning under his weight. "Kaelen is feigning sleep to conserve energy, but he is tracking your heartbeat. Flynn is truly asleep because he trusts his nose to wake him if you go too far. And Elias always sleeps with one eye on the future."
I reached down once more and scooped up a handful of water, eyeing it wearily before I decided to drink. It was sharp and metallic, but it soothed the ache in my throat. I wiped my mouth and looked at the Bear Prince.
"You're the only one who's actually watching," I said.
"Someone has to be the stone," Thane said with a shrug that looked like a hill shifting. "Fire burns. Wind blows. Water flows. Earth... waits." He silently wandered back over to where he'd been sitting when I first got up.
I moved to sit beside him. The Skal chittered in its sleep but didn't wake. I looked at the hideous creature that was somehow cute, then at Thane’s scarred face.
"Do you really think we can do this?" I asked, my voice small in the vast dark. "Invade Olympus? Stop a cosmic parasite? I’m just... I was just a girl who bled on some rocks and pressed flowers."
Thane looked at me, his brown eyes warm and sad. "And I was just a construct designed to die. We are all more than our makers intended, Aria. That is the nature of living things. We grow. We change."
"But the power..." I looked at my hands. The golden veins were dull, barely visible. "I feel empty, Thane. Hollowed out. Kaelen talks about filling the vessel, about binding, but I’m scared. Not of the sex. Or the intimacy. But of what happens when you pour an ocean into a cup."
"The cup breaks," Thane said simply.
I stared at him. "That’s comforting."
"Or," he continued, turning a small stone over in his massive fingers, "the cup expands. It stretches. It becomes something that isn't a cup anymore." He looked at me. "You are afraid of losing yourself. Of being washed away by us."
"Yes," I admitted. "You are each thousand-year-old beings of immense power. There are four of you. I’m... me. If I let you in, fully, completely, will there be any room left for Aria?"
"Aria is the one who invited us in," Thane said. "Aria is the foundation. Without you, we are just energy without direction. We are chaos. You give us shape. You give us purpose."
He reached out, one large finger gently tapping the center of my chest.
"We do not want to erase you, Little One. We want to bekeptby you. Not as prisoners. But as partners."
