Before I could blink, he dipped his head and pressed his lips to my own as though he was reclaiming me in front of the others, like he wanted to be sure all I could taste was him. My body responded, and I found myself opening for him.
"Well," Flynn’s voice cut in, dry as desert sand, before Kaelen's kiss could deepen any further. "Now that we’ve established the hierarchy of needs and stroked the dragon’s massive, fragile ego, can we eat? Because these fish smell like dead feet, and I’m going to need to cook the hell out of them if we want to avoid dysentery."
The tension in the cavern didn't vanish, but it shifted. It transformed from the sharp, explosive pressure of a bomb into the heavy, humid weight of a gathering storm. We were okay. For now.
We gathered around the small fire. The meal was grim. The cave fish tasted of mud and minerals; the meat was rubbery and required a lot of chewing. There was no salt, no bread, just the primal act of consuming calories to keep the engines running.
I sat between Kaelen and Flynn, a physical buffer zone. Kaelen ate mechanically, his eyes fixed on the fire. Flynn ate with gusto, tearing flesh from bone with his teeth, seemingly unbothered by the taste. Elias picked at his portion, looking as if he were dissecting a mystery rather than eating dinner.
Thane lumbered back from the perimeter, Steve the Skal scuttling at his heels like a grotesque shadow. The Bear Prince took one look at the fish skewer Flynn offered him and grimaced.
"I will wait for breakfast," Thane rumbled, settling down near the tunnel entrance again.
"Your loss," Flynn mumbled around a mouthful. "It’s, uh, textured."
I forced down another bite, feeling the nourishment settle in my stomach. Strength was returning, crawling back into my limbs. It wasn't enough, though. I knew I needed more than a few mouthfuls of fish and stale water to get myself ready for the binding ritual.
For some reason, more than anything in that moment, I wanted to feel the heat of the sun on my skin.
"I want to feel the sun," I whispered, the words slipping out before I could check them. They hung in the damp air, fragile and desperate. "Real sun. Not moss-light. Not fire. Just... daylight."
Kaelen shifted beside me. He didn't speak immediately. Instead, he opened his hand, palm up. A sphere of golden flame bloomed there, hovering inches above his skin. It wasn't the destructive dragon fire he used for war; this was softer, radiating a gentle, dry heat that pushed back the cavern’s oppressive chill.
"I can give you light, fireheart," he said softly, his golden eyes reflecting the flame. "I can give you heat and burn away the dark until you forget we are underground."
He moved his hand closer, letting the warmth wash over my face. It was beautiful. It was a testament to the controlhe was willing to exert just to comfort me. But it wasn't the sun. It smelled of sulfur and magic, not ozone and sky. It felt contained, a caged star held in a lover's hand, and suddenly, that containment felt like a weight on my chest.
"It’s not the same," I said, my voice tight. "Thank you, Kaelen. But it’s... it’s just more magic."
I pushed my half-eaten fish away, my appetite vanishing and the fish in my belly turning to stone. Elias’s healing had knit my bones and soothed my nerves, but it hadn't touched the icy knot of anxiety tightening in my stomach. If anything, being physically whole just gave my mind more energy to panic.
The walls of the cavern seemed to lean in. The darkness beyond the firelight felt heavy, pressing against my temples. We were miles beneath the surface, hiding in a tomb, preparing to perform a ritual that required me to surrender my body and soul to four demigods so we could invade a dimension ruled by a hostility that wanted to erase us.
I couldn't breathe. The air was too thick, recycled through ancient stone lungs, tasting of dust and the Skal’s brine.
"I can't do this," I gasped, the words tumbling out. "I can't... the binding. The amplifier. It’s too much. It’s too fast."
I scrambled backward, away from the fire, away from Kaelen’s well-intentioned heat. My back hit the cold stone of a stalagmite, and I curled into it, trying to find a solid anchor in a world that wouldn't stop spinning.
"Aria?" Flynn was on his feet in an instant, his predator instincts misinterpreting my panic for external danger. "What’s wrong?"
"She is suffocating," Thane rumbled.
The Bear Prince stood up. He didn't rush like Flynn or flare like Kaelen, instead he moved with the slow, inevitable momentum of a glacier. Thane walked past the fire, past his confused brothers, and stopped in front of me. He blocked outthe rest of the cavern, his massive frame creating a wall of privacy.
"The earth is heavy," Thane said quietly. "It presses down. For those not born to it, it can feel like being buried alive."
I nodded, unable to speak, my fingers digging into the markings on my arms.
"Come," Thane said, extending a hand the size of a shovel head. "We will go up. Not all the way out, but to the upper vents. I can shape the stone. I can make an aperture small enough to remain hidden, but large enough to let the sky touch you."
"We'll come with you," Kaelen said immediately, the fire in his hand dying as his hand dropped to his sword hilt. "If she goes up, we all go."
"No," Thane said. He didn't look back; he kept his eyes on me, his expression calm and unyielding. "You will stay."
"Thane," Flynn growled, stepping forward, his hackles rising. "She is vulnerable. We don't separate."
"She is not vulnerable to the rock. She is vulnerable to the pressure," Thane corrected. He looked over his shoulder then, meeting his brothers' gazes with a look of profound, ancient understanding. "We spent a thousand years in a box, brothers. We know what it is to crave a sensation you have lost. But we also know what it is to be crowded."
