The silence pressed in like another wall. My vision tunneled, the edges going dark despite Wickett’s light. I hit the rocks again, harder, feeling skin split. Again. Again. Blood made my palms slick, but I couldn’t stop, couldn’t think past the need to break through, to get out, to breathe properly because there wasn’t enough air.
There wasn’t enough air.
There wasn’t enough air.
The panic in my soul woke the fire in my veins, and it took every bit of restraint I had to keep it hidden, to overpower it with water, gathering what little I had left between my hands. I shaped it into pressure, driving it into cracks. Whispering spells that went unanswered because there wasn’t enough. Because I wasn’t a fucking water witch. There were too many stones. Too heavy. The water dispersed uselessly, running down stone faces in pathetic rivulets.
“Move,” I commanded it, pulling it from the useless trickles. “Move, damn you?—”
The rocks didn’t budge.
“Silas!” I reached for our bond, pulling hard, desperate for any response. The connection was there but muted, distant, like trying to shout through water. “Silas, please?—”
Still nothing. Just crushing silence and the weight of a mountain between me and almost everyone I cared about.
My breathing came faster, shallower.
“Syneca.” Wickett’s hands caught my wrists, stopping me mid-strike.
I tried to pull away, but he held firm. My knees buckled, and suddenly I was on the ground, gasping like I’d been running formiles. The stone floor was cold. Everything was cold. Or maybe I was shaking too hard to tell the difference.
“I can’t—” The words came out broken. “There’s not enough—I need?—”
The walls were definitely closer now. Had to be. The ceiling lowered. The mountain settled, crushing down, and we were going to die here in the dark with all that weight above us and no one would ever find us and?—
What if Calder were buried under rubble right now, suffocating, calling for me, and I couldn’t hear him?
And Pip? She was too small. Too small and too good to be gone.
“They could all be dead.” The words burst out of me, panic clawing up my throat with razor edges. “The cave could have crushed them; they could be buried, suffocating, dying right now, and we’re stuck here, useless, we can’t help them, we can’t do anything, and the walls. The walls are too close. Why are they so close?”
I pushed myself back to my feet, and hit the rocks again, harder. Something cracked. I wasn’t sure if it was stone or my hand and didn’t care. “We have to get through, we have to move these, we have to?—”
“Syn—”
I didn’t even look at him. “Why aren’t you helping me? Please. The walls?—”
Hands grabbed me from behind.
Wickett yanked me backward, away from the rockfall, spinning me around. Before I could protest, before I could fight, he had my wrists pinned above my head against the cavern wall, his body caging mine with absolute authority.
“Stop.” His voice cut through my panic like a blade. Not gentle. Not soothing. Pure command.
“Let me go?—”
“No.” He pressed closer, using his weight to hold me still when I tried to thrash free. “You’re going to listen to me. Do you understand?”
“Wickett—”
“Do. You. Understand?” Each word was deliberate, dangerous, the Ripper voice that made hardened criminals fold. “Answer, Syneca.”
“Yes.” It came out more gasp than word.
“Good.” One hand released a wrist, moving to my throat. Not squeezing. Just resting there, feeling my pulse hammer against his palm. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Slower.” His thumb pressed against the rapid flutter of my heartbeat. “In through your nose. Hold it. Out through your mouth. Do it.”
