Sylvian steps in closer, his expression focused, careful as his gaze tracks over me the same way Oberon’s did. “Can you move?” he asks gently.
I nod, forcing myself to shift, wincing as I push to my feet. My legs hold, shaky but solid. “I can move.”
There’s a visible release of tension between them, subtle but there.
Oberon’s jaw tightens anyway, like he doesn’t trust it. “Tell us if anything at all feels off,” he says, quieter now, but no less firm.
I nod again, and only then do they pull their attention away.
“Cassius?” Sylvian calls, turning.
“Still alive,” Cassius answers, his voice strained but controlled.
We all turn toward him.
He’s slumped against the wall of the pit, one knee bent, his head tipped back against the stone. Even in the dim light spilling down from above, I can see how pale he is, how drawn his features have become. He looks… spent. Like whatever strength he had left is barely holding him together.
Sylvian moves to him immediately, crouching at his side. Ashton follows, slower now, the strain of everything catching up to him.
“You with us?” Ashton asks, his voice quieter than usual.
Cassius huffs out something that might be a laugh. “Unfortunately.”
A quick pulse of relief moves through me, faint but real.
“He’s okay,” Sylvian murmurs after a moment, though his tone is still tight. “Just exhausted.”
“We all are,” Ashton mutters.
I drag in a slow breath, fighting for control as I finally look around.
The pit is steep and smooth, its walls rising high above us, offering no grip, no ledge, nothing to climb. The darkness presses in from every side, thick and suffocating, broken only by the faint circle of moonlight far above us.
The realization sinks into me like ice.
“We’re trapped,” Sylvian says quietly, echoing my thoughts. “And the cyclopes… they’ll find us trapped down here. It’s only a matter of time.”
My stomach drops, panic threatening to rise again, sharp and fast.
“There has to be a way out,” I say, forcing the words out before fear can take hold. “There’s always a way out.”
Ashton exhales hard, dragging a hand down his face, but there’s no real defeat in it. Just exhaustion. “Then we find it,” he mutters, glancing around the pit, already scanning the walls.
“We’re not trapped,” Sylvian says quietly, but there’s steel in his voice. “No matter what it takes, we’ll get out of this situation, just like we got out of all the others.”
Oberon lets out a low breath, rolling his shoulders like he’s already preparing for whatever comes next. “This is probablyjust a damn test from the goddess, which means there’s a way to win.”
The certainty in their voices steadies something in me.
“Could we use magic?”
Ashton and Sylvian exchange a look I can’t quite read, but Oberon is the one to answer, “I don’t think they have anything left to give right now.”
Okay, that’s fine. We can figure this out.
I take another breath and really look around. The pit is deeper than I first realized, the walls smooth in some places, jagged in others, rising high above us in uneven shadows. Moonlight spills in from the opening overhead, but it barely reaches the bottom, leaving most of the space in thick, shifting darkness. Corners disappear into black. Shapes blur. It’s impossible to tell where the stone and dirt ends and something else might begin.
There could be anything down here.
