Aiden's POV
The horn echoed through the mountain.
The sound rolled through the valley and reached me several seconds later, vibrating through the glass of the car windows.
I froze, the low, unnatural hum lingering in the air until the silence of the hollow swallowed it whole.
I looked toward the dark gap in the rock face where Kael had disappeared.
Kael.
My hand tightened around the heavy silver dagger resting against my thigh. He had told me to stay here. He had made me promise, his voice still ringing with absolute certainty in my mind: Stay inside the vehicle.
I swallowed, the mountain suddenly feeling much farther away and infinitely more dangerous than it had just minutes ago.
Then I caught movement between the pine trunks.
At first, I thought it was just the mountain mist shifting in the wind. But as the fog parted, several figures moved fluidly through the trees. They were draped in long, dark robes that swept against the frosted ground, pale, sharp faces flickering beneath their deep hoods whenever they passed through a break in the trees.
My stomach dropped into a cold, heavy pit.
Black Priests.
There weren't many—maybe six or eight. But I didn't need an army to understand what their presence meant. They were tracking Kael, following the scent of his bound magic straight to the core.
My fingers cramped around the dagger's hilt. Kael and Arith were somewhere inside that mountain, believing I was safe out here. If those men reached the fissure, they would cut off their only exit.
I could stay in the car. I could duck beneath the dashboard, hold my breath, and hope they walked right past.
And then what? They would corner Kael while his mind was split, fighting his own curse.
"No," the word left my mouth before my brain could even finish processing the fear.
I grabbed the dagger, threw the car door open, and stepped into the biting cold. I hesitated for only a fraction of a second beside the hood, staring up at the sheer rock face. Kael was going to be furious. Absolutely, dangerously furious.
A ghost of a smile touched my lips despite the terror clawing at my throat. "Sorry," I muttered to the empty air.
Then I ran.
I scrambled up the incline, heading toward the gap where I had seen them vanish. But the moment my boots hit the unpaved trail, the mountain path proved far harder to navigate than it had looked from the car.
The air grew unnaturally thick the higher I climbed, turning heavy and wet, like trying to inhale damp cotton. My lungs burned with a sudden, dull ache.
I slowed, pressing one hand flat against my sternum. "What the hell..."
The spiritual energy wasn't just in the air—it was alive. It crawled across my skin like static electricity, heavy and suffocating. Even without a drop of magic in my veins, the raw pressure of the valley made my head throb. The mist gathered thick around my ankles, twisting the terrain until the world looked warped. Trees seemed closer than they were, and the crunch of gravel echoed strangely off the stone walls.
Then I heard the rapid rustle of cloth behind me.
I spun around. Three black-robed figures emerged from the fog, their faces obscured by shadow. One of them raised a pale hand, dark, sickly mana pooling around his fingers like ink in water.
I ducked purely on instinct.
A jagged arc of black energy shot over my head, slamming into the pine tree behind me and shattering the bark with a deafening crack.
"Stop!" a harsh voice barked.
I didn't think twice—I bolted.
Another blast singed the sleeve of my jacket. I stumbled around a jagged rock face, nearly losing my footing on the loose slate. As panic surged through me, the silver dagger in my hand suddenly ran hot. The sapphire on the hilt flared with a bright, golden shimmer, casting a protective aura over my arm.
A priest burst through the mist ahead of me, reaching out a hand to grab my shoulder.
Don't let him touch you.
I twisted my weight to the side. His fingers missed my coat by an inch, his momentum carrying him forward. Before my mind could even calculate the move, my body reacted on pure, buried instinct—a distant memory of childhood taekwondo drills kicking in. I pivoted on my heel and snapped my foot upward, driving the sole of my boot straight into his ribs.
The priest let out a choked gasp and stumbled backward into the brush.
I landed awkwardly, staring at my own foot in utter disbelief. I hadn't thrown a kick like that in years, and my form was painfully rusty, but the impact had been real enough.
"Okay," I panted, wiping the cold sweat from my forehead. "That worked."
The second priest lunged, his hand outstretched with crackling black magic. I scrambled backward, raising the dagger defensively. The moment his spell hit the blade, Kael's golden barrier flared like a localized explosion, knocking the priest off his feet and sending him sliding across the wet gravel.
I didn't wait to see if he got back up. I turned and ran into the narrow subterranean passage.
Inside, the mountain seemed determined to crush me alive.
With every step deeper into the tunnel, the ambient mana pressed heavier against my chest. My vision blurred at the edges, dark spots dancing across my eyes. I could hear the muffled shouts of the remaining priests behind me, but their voices sounded muffled, as if underwater.
I stumbled into a wider stone cavern and collapsed against the rough rock wall, my chest heaving violently.
My lungs refused to expand. I tried to pull in a breath, but the air felt solid, sealed off by the crushing weight of the mountain's raw power. Panic clawed at my throat.
No. Not here. Kael is just ahead.
I forced my legs forward, taking one agonizing step, then another, dragging my boots over the stone. My knees buckled, and I hit the cold cavern floor, dropping to one knee. The dagger nearly slipped from my numb fingers, but I forced my grip to tighten around the leather hilt.
"Come on..." I choked out, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs. "Just... keep... going."
The black mist coiled around the floor, and through the haze, I saw the dark robes of the priests closing in.
Before they could reach me, a blinding streak of silver light sliced through the cavern.
A wave of raw, razor-sharp magic detonated through the narrow space, slamming into the priests and hurling them backward into the fog.
I barely managed to lift my head before a blur of movement settled in front of me. Arith emerged from the silver light, her silver-blue hair whipping around her face, her sharp eyes widening the second they landed on me.
"Aiden!"
She dropped to her knees beside me as I tried to force myself up.
"I was... coming to..." My voice failed completely, cut off by the utter lack of oxygen in my lungs.
Arith didn't waste time asking questions. She slammed her palm flat against the center of my chest, a soothing silver light washing out from her hand. The suffocating, invisible weight pressing down on my lungs vanished instantly.
I gasped, dragging in a huge gulp of freezing air that made me break into a harsh coughing fit.
Arith's expression hardened into something lethal. "What in the world were you thinking?"
I looked up at her, still clutching my chest. "Kael."
"That is not an answer," she snapped, her silver eyes narrowing. "You were ordered to stay at the car."
"I know," I rasped, my voice raspy. "But half a dozen Black Priests showed up out of nowhere. What was I supposed to do—wait for them to ambush you two from behind?"
Her jaw clenched, but her posture slackened just a fraction. "Let's get you out of here," she said, grabbing my arm and hauling me to my feet. "If anything happens to you, Kael will tear this entire mountain apart—and then he'll kill me."
Despite the lingering pain in my ribs, a small laugh escaped me. "He'll have to get out of the mountain first."
Arith stared at me for a long moment. Then, the corner of her mouth twitched upward into a faint, reluctant smirk. "You're spending far too much time around him. You're becoming remarkably stubborn."
"Where is he?" I asked, looking toward the darker depths of the tunnel.
"Trying to break through the ancient wards surrounding the core," she answered, her tone growing serious again. "It's heavily guarded."
"How far is he?"
"Not far."
"Then take me to him."
Arith let out a dramatic sigh, shaking her head. "You are becoming quite demanding, human."
"You can thank Kael for that."
She scoffed, but her grip on my arm tightened into a protective anchor. "Stay close to me, and keep that blade up."
I nodded, adjusting my grip on Kael's dagger.
Together, we moved deeper into the dark, winding subterranean passage. And somewhere further ahead, amidst the heavy, suffocating pressure of the mountain, I could feel it—a faint, steady pulse of warmth thrumming through the stone.
Kael.
I held the blade tighter and stepped into the dark. Whatever was waiting at the heart of this mountain, I was going to reach him.