"It has to be Marissa," I said, the name tasting like bile. "Unless Natalia somehow has her magic back." Thane shook his head at that. "The colors,Elias said Hera uses peacock feathers and woven stars, but this looks like deep magic. Abyssal."
The beam of sickly teal light pulsed, expanding outward in a shockwave that rippled through the clouds, turning the underbellies of the clouds above a bruised, greenish-black. It was a beacon. A calling card.
Thane stood up abruptly, lifting me with him. He set me on my feet but kept a hand on my back, pressing me toward the rock wall, into the shadows.
"We’re too exposed," he said, his eyes scanning the horizon, scanning the sky. "If that is a beacon, she is looking for something. Or someone."
"Us," I said. "She's looking for us."
"We must go back down," Thane said, his voice heavy with regret. He looked at me, his brown eyes filled with an apology that broke my heart. "I am sorry, Little One. I wanted to give you the sky. I wanted you to have a moment of peace."
"You did," I said, reaching for his hand. "You gave me everything I needed. But you're right. We can't stay."
"I have to keep you safe," he rumbled, his expression hardening into stone. "Above all else. If she sees us here, exposed on the mountainside..."
"She won't," I said, though my heart was hammering again. "We're going back to the cradle. Back to the pack."
I moved to start the climb down, but Thane stopped me.
"No," he said. "You are exhausted. And we need speed."
Before I could argue, he scooped me up into his arms. One arm hooked under my knees, the other around my back, pulling me high against his chest. I instinctively wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in the rough wool of his cloak to shield my eyes from the biting wind.
"Hold tight," he ordered.
He didn't climb down the way we had come up. He stepped off the ledge.
I gasped, my stomach dropping, but we didn't fall. Thane slammed his boots into the vertical rock face, earth magic flaring brown and gold around his feet. The stone softened, catching him, molding around his steps. He ran down the side of the mountain, moving with a terrifying, impossible grace for a man of his size. He was an avalanche, a controlled slide of power and mass.
We plunged back into the darkness of the fissure, the teal light of the Citadel vanishing behind the curtain of rock. The air grew stale and damp again; the scent of dust and ancient minerals replaced the smell of pine.
I pressed my ear against Thane's chest, listening to the steady, powerful thud of his heart. It was a war drum beating a retreat, but it was also a promise.
Safe,the rhythm seemed to say.Safe. Safe. Safe.
But as we descended deeper into the dark, leaving the sky behind, the image of that teal beacon burned behind my eyelids. Hera wasn't just waiting for us to come to Olympus. She was turning the mortal realm into a hunting ground.
And we were heading back into a trap with no exit.
"Thane," I whispered into his neck as the shadows swallowed us.
"I am here," he rumbled, his arms tightening around me. "I have you."
"I know," I said, letting the warmth of his body chase away the chill of the goddess's light. "That's the only reason I'm not screaming."
He didn't laugh. He just moved faster, taking us down, down, down into the belly of the world where the monsters, my monsters, were waiting.
TWENTY-ONE
Kaelen
The bond didn't just transfer information; it transferred impact.
When Elias had kissed her, it felt like a current of electricity, a bright, shocking realignment of the air in the room. It was cerebral, dazzling, a connection of breath and spirit. I had hated it, despised the way her relief tasted on my own tongue, but I had understood it. It was healing. It was necessary.
This was different.
I was sitting against the cold stone of the cavern wall, my sword across my knees, staring into the dying embers of the fire, when it hit me. It wasn't a spark. It was a shifting of tectonic plates. It was the heavy, undeniable settling of a foundation stone.
