Ragnar's mind spun in the suffocating dark, every ragged breath echoing off the cave walls like a betrayal.
The blackness pressed against his skin, thick and oily, carrying the faint metallic tang of old blood and wet stone.
Then it hit him—the echo. The creature didn't have eyes. It hunted by sound.
Every footstep, every whisper, even the frantic thud of a heartbeat painted them bright as torches in its mind.
He clamped his jaw tight, copper flooding his tongue from where he'd bitten the inside of his cheek.
No more noise. No more anything.
"Everyone," he hissed, the word barely louder than exhaled breath, "not a sound. Not one. Freeze. Right where you are."
Aria's silhouette stiffened instantly beside him.
Her fingers twitched once toward the dagger at her belt—pure combat instinct screaming to draw steel, to act, to *do* something—before she forced them still.
