"No!" I tried to hold onto the memory, tried to clutch the image of the crumbling city, the truth of Hera’s desperation. "I need to know! I need to tell Kaelen!"
"You will keep the feeling," Hecate promised. "The seed of doubt. The understanding that your enemy is not a monster, but a mother. That will be enough to stay your hand when the moment comes. It will be enough to make you look for a third path."
White light swallowed me.
Wake up, Little Door.
I gasped, my body jerking violently as air rushed into my lungs.
My eyes snapped open to the dim, bioluminescent gloom of the cavern. The silence was gone, replaced by the steadydrip-drip-dripof water and the comforting, rhythmic sound of heavy breathing.
"Easy," Flynn mumbled, shifting in his sleep. His arm tightened reflexively around me, pulling me back against his heated chest. He nuzzled the back of my neck, his stubble grazing my skin. "Still here. Still got you."
I stared into the darkness, my heart hammering against my ribs like a caught bird. I felt... terrified.
Why was I terrified?
I scanned the cavern. Kaelen was still keeping his vigilant, fake-sleep watch by the stalagmite. Thane was a silent boulder by the tunnel. Elias was curled in a ball. Steve the Skal was twitching in a nightmare.
Everything was exactly as it had been.
But I felt a profound, aching sadness in the center of my chest. It felt like grief. Like I had just watched something beautiful die.
I sat up, gently dislodging Flynn’s arm. I needed water. My mouth tasted like dust.
"Aria?" Kaelen’s voice was a soft rasp in the dark. He didn't open his eyes, but his head tilted toward me.
"I'm okay," I whispered, my voice shaking. "Just... a bad dream."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
I frowned, trying to grasp the edges of the nightmare. There had been a woman... and fire... and falling...
It was gone. Smoke in the wind.
"No," I said, rubbing my temples. "I can't remember it. Just a feeling."
I looked at the obsidian amplifier across the black water. It loomed in the darkness, silent and waiting.
"Kaelen?"
"Yes?"
"When we go there," I said, and I didn't know why I was saying it, but the words felt heavy, important. "When we facethem... we have to listen. Before we burn it down. We have to listen."
Kaelen opened his eyes then. In the gloom, the gold irises seemed to glow. He studied me for a long moment, sensing the shift in my mood, the sudden weight I was carrying.
"Okay," he whispered. "We listen first."
I nodded, settling back against Flynn’s warmth, though the chill in my bones refused to leave. I closed my eyes, but the darkness behind my eyelids didn't feel empty anymore. It felt crowded.
It felt like I was standing at a crossroads, and every path led to a cliff.
SEVENTEEN
Elias
The growl of Aria's stomach disrupted the heavy, suffocating silence of the cavern like a thunderclap in a library.
