We die here.
The thought sinks into me, cold and absolute.
“Nothing,” one of them calls after what feels like an eternity.
“Nothing here,” another answers from deeper in the cave.
Silence stretches, tense and brittle, before the king roars again, louder this time, the sound echoing so violently it makes my ears ring. “Then they have fled! Out into the maze like the cowards they are. Go. Find them. Tear the labyrinth apart if you must.”
The footsteps shift, turning away, the sound of them moving deeper through the cave and then out, one by one, their weight fading slowly but never quickly enough. I don’t trust it at first. I don’t trust the quiet that follows, thin and fragile, like it might shatter at any second.
“Keep moving,” Sylvian breathes, his voice barely there.
I nod even though he can’t see it and start crawling again, my hands slipping against the stone, my body shaking with leftover adrenaline. The tunnel stretches on longer than I expect, twisting just enough to keep us blindly twisting and turning in the dark. The air is stale and close, thick with the scent of earth and blood, and every movement sends pain shooting through my limbs.
Behind me, I can hear the others struggling to keep up, the quiet scrape of bodies against stone, the faint, uneven rhythm of their breathing. And I know, Cassius is still the same, too still,his weight dead and unresponsive as Sylvian carries him forward inch by inch.
We crawl until the walls finally begin to widen, the tight pressure easing just enough for us to lift our heads. The tunnel opens into a small chamber, barely larger than a roomy closet, but it feels like freedom after the crushing narrowness behind us.
Oberon’s fire leaps into existence, filling the darkness with light. I drag myself inside and turn immediately as the others file in, reaching for Cassius as Sylvian lowers him carefully to the ground.
None of us speak. We just listen. The cave beyond is still quiet. No footsteps. No voices. No shaking stone. Just the distant, empty silence of a place that has been abandoned.
“They’re definitely gone,” Ashton whispers, his voice raw.
I don’t answer right away. I can’t. My body is still braced for the sound of them returning, for the roar that will shatter this fragile calm.
But it doesn’t come.
“They’re gone,” I repeat, softer this time, the words almost disbelieving.
Relief doesn’t come all at once. It comes slowly, seeping in through the cracks in my fear, leaving behind something heavier. Exhaustion. Pain. The sharp, lingering awareness of how close we came to losing everything.
“We stay here,” I say, my voice hoarse. “For a while. We don’t move until we have to.”
No one argues. They don’t have the strength to, and we all know. That’s why I took the lead. Why I said the words. Otherwise, these cocky fools might have tried to rest for a short while and push on tonight. Something I don’t think we’d survive.
I drop to my knees beside Cassius, my hands already moving, brushing blood from his face, searching for the worst of hisinjuries. Sylvian rolls him gently onto his stomach and lifts up his shirt. Up close, it’s worse than I thought. The wounds are deep, too many of them, the blood loss far too much. His skin is cold beneath my fingers, his breathing shallow and uneven.
“Cassius,” I whisper, my throat tightening as I press my hand lightly against his shoulder, as if I can somehow keep his heart beating through sheer will.
He doesn’t respond.
Panic rises again, quieter this time, but no less sharp.
“He’s breathing,” Sylvian says softly beside me, though there’s strain in his voice, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as me. There’s dried blood streaked across Sylvian’s back and legs where the blades first caught him, the cuts shallow compared to the others but still enough to leave him pale and weakened. He had been the first freed. The first pulled away from the knives before they could dig too deep.
Oberon crouches on Cassius’s other side, his jaw tight as he presses a hand against one of the deeper wounds, trying to slow the bleeding. His movements are rough at first, then careful, controlled, like he’s forcing himself to be gentle. Blood slicks his hands, fresh and dark, seeping steadily from the long, carved gashes along Cassius’s back and legs. Oberon’s own injuries are worse than Sylvian’s, deeper cuts where the blades had risen higher before he was freed, but he ignores them completely.
Ashton sinks down against the wall with a quiet exhale, his head falling back for a second before he forces himself upright again, dragging himself closer. His breathing is uneven, his body clearly giving him trouble, the fabric at his side torn and stained where one of the blades had bitten in deeper. “What do you need?” he asks, his voice unwavering despite the weariness dragging at him.
“Cloth,” I say quickly. “Anything clean.”
He nods and starts tearing a piece of cloth from inside his bag without hesitation.
“And something to stitch him up?”
“I don’t think we have anything,” Sylvian says.
