Hours bled by outside the shattered mouth of the cave.

  Men cycled in and out in grim silence, arms shaking, backs bowed, hauling stones away one by one and dragging rubble down the slope. Dust hung in the air like a permanent haze, coating hair and lashes, turning sweat into pale streaks across cheeks.

  “Prince!” someone shouted again, voice cracking from overuse. “Serena! Leif!”

  Aristide stood near the jagged collapse, boots planted in churned gravel, his hands clenched hard enough to hurt. He’d been calling too until his throat turned raw and every shout started to feel like an accusation. Another boulder scraped free with a harsh grind. The sound echoed into the blocked passage, swallowed by darkness.

  A knight stepped up behind Aristide, jaw tight beneath his dust-caked beard. “Your Highness,” he said low, careful, tension causing him to drop the prince’s fake name. “We should send word to the capital.”

  Aristide didn’t look away from the rubble.

  “We must alert His Majesty,” the man pressed. “To request more hands. Engineers. Tools. If…” He hesitated. “If the worst has happened, it’s better the court learns now than later.”

  The words landed like a blade between ribs. Aristide’s shoulders stiffened. “No.”

  “But, Your Highness—”

  “No,” Aristide repeated, sharper. He turned then, eyes bright with something fierce and restrained. “That will cause panic across half the realm. We won’t send word to the capital until… until anything is confirmed.”

  He inhaled, forcing the anger back down into a steadier thing. “We are not declaring my brother dead.”

  The knight swallowed and nodded. “Then what are your orders?”

  “Send to the nearest village,” he said. “Ask for more hands, ropes, picks. Anything they can spare. Offer coin. Don’t bargain, just accept whatever they demand.” His voice lowered, hardening. “But don’t tell them who we’re digging for.”

  The knight frowned. “If they ask?”

  “Say a member of our party is trapped,” Aristide replied. “A traveler. A soldier. Anyone.”

  A scuff of boots approached from the side. Minos stood there, face ashen beneath the dust, eyes avoiding Aristide’s for a moment too long. He looked like he’d been carrying guilt the whole way down the mountain and was only now finding it too heavy to hold.

  “Your Highness,” Minos began, voice tight. “I— I’m sorry. This was my fault. I shouldn’t have—”

  Aristide’s eyes flicked to him. “That can wait, Minos,” the prince cut in, quieter. “Help us dig an opening, then you can apologize to Edmund directly.”

  Minos nodded quickly, shame flickering across his face. He glanced at the pile choking the entrance, then at the men struggling to shift another slab. “We could clear it faster.”

  “With more hands,” Aristide said. “They’re on the way.”

  Minos’s gaze darted back to the rubble again. “Or… we could use explosives.”

  The air seemed to stop at that last word. Aristide stared at him as if he’d spoken a foreign language. “What?”

  Minos lifted his hands slightly, as though trying to soften the suggestion. “A controlled blast. Just enough to break the larger stones. It would save us time.”

  A few nearby soldiers overheard and turned, faces tightening.

  Aristide’s expression hardened in an instant. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Minos flinched. “Your Highness, I’m just—”

  “Just suggesting we bring the entire mountain down on them?” Aristide snapped. His voice rose, sharp enough that several men straightened. “You want to gamble that Edmund survived the collapse, only to crush whatever space is left with your ‘controlled blast’?”

  Minos’s mouth opened, then shut. He looked away, jaw working.

  “You don’t know what’s holding in there,” Aristide continued, forcing each word through clenched restraint, “how thin the stone is, if a single tremor will cause the rest of the cave to collapse.”

  He stepped closer, eyes burning. “If my brother is alive, Minos, and we kill him because you were impatient—”

  “I wasn’t—” Minos started, voice cracking.

  “Enough,” Aristide said, and the single word ended it.

  Minos lowered his gaze. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  For a beat, Aristide stood there, breathing hard, the anger in his chest threatening to become something reckless. Then he exhaled, long and controlled, and looked back at the men. They were still digging, still refusing to stop.

  Something in Aristide’s throat tightened. Unable to stand still while others did the work, and despite his exhaustion from hauling stone earlier, he stepped forward, grabbed hold of a rough-edged stone with both hands, and heaved.

  Pain flared along his palms. The rock scraped against skin, tore at gloves, but he didn’t care. He dragged it back, muscles straining, then shoved it aside with a harsh grunt. A few men glanced at him, startled to see the younger prince joining the line again.

  Aristide bent once more, fingers closing around another stone. And as the hours continued to crawl, he hauled alongside them, calling Edmund’s name into the dark between every breath.

  Inside the cave, the trio ran.

  Boots slapped stone, breath tore at throats, and the tunnel walls blurred past in jagged flashes of light and sickly green glow. Edmund didn’t look back, not even once. He didn’t need to. The sound behind them was enough. Distant roars, the echo of countless claws, the mountain itself seeming to howl in outrage at what they’d stolen.

  Leif held the egg tight against his chest, arms locked around it. The severed vine still clung to it like a tail, pulsing faintly.

  They barreled through narrow corridors that widened without warning, then tightened again into cracks that scraped their shoulders. Shadows moved everywhere, small shapes startled by their sprint, skittering away into crevices.

  A thick-bodied lizard the size of a hound lifted its head from a ledge as they passed, tongue flicking. Farther on, a cluster of bats exploded from the ceiling in a panicked storm, wings snapping against stone. Insects, too many legs, too many eyes, spilled across the floor like living gravel. Most of them didn’t even try to stop the trio, and the few that did regretted it.

  One pale, hunched creature scuttled from a side passage, jaws opening with a wet clicking sound as it lunged for Edmund’s legs. The prince barely slowed down. He simply swung as he ran. Ether flashed along the blade, and the thing fell in two limp halves without even finishing its cry.

  Another time, something skittered up the wall ahead, faster than it had any right to be, and dropped toward Serena’s face. Serena’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t break stride. A sharp burst of golden ether snapped from her palm and the creature became cinders midair, its ash scattering harmlessly behind them.

  None of them spoke as they ran. There was no air for words, only the rhythm of survival.

  They didn’t bother counting time or try to measure distance. All that mattered was putting stone between themselves and the raptors as much stone as Hemera would allow. Eventually, the tunnels tilted upward, then opened into a wider passageway.

  Ahead, a natural rise jutted from the rock like an elevated platform, broad enough for three bodies to crouch low. More importantly, there was a deep shadowed hollow behind it, a tight pocket in the stone that looked like it might hide them if anything came searching.

  Edmund veered toward it immediately. “There,” he rasped, voice raw. He practically dragged the others the last few steps, ushering Serena up first, then Leif. They scrambled onto the platform and dropped down hard, backs to stone, chests heaving. For a moment, none of them moved.

  The cave behind them answered with distant echoes, but no immediate pursuit. Only the drip of water somewhere, and the rasp of their own lungs. Leif kept the egg in his lap, still cradled like something fragile and dangerous all at once.

  Serena pressed a hand to her chest, eyes squeezed shut, fighting the lingering tremor in her muscles. Edmund’s sword still glowed faintly, the light painting their faces in pale angles. He finally forced himself to move, fumbled at his belt and pulled out his waterskin with shaking hands. He uncorked it and immediately held it out to Serena. “Drink,” he said, less a suggestion than an order. Serena took the waterskin with both hands and brought it to her lips, sipping carefully so as not to waste even a drop.

  “I think…” Leif breathed, still watching the darkness beyond the platform, “…I think we’ve lost them.”

  Edmund glanced back the way they’d come, listening. The growls that were stalking them were gone. “I think so too,” the prince said, then his gaze moved between them. “How are you two holding up?”

  Serena set the waterskin down. “Just needed…” She swallowed, drawing in a longer breath. “…to catch my breath.”

  Leif nodded in agreement. “Me too.” He pulled his own waterskin from his belt, took a quick sip, then wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist without taking his eyes off the egg for long.

  Edmund’s attention lingered on the pale oval in Leif’s arms, the severed vine still clinging to it and pulsing faintly. His brow furrowed, and after a moment, he leaned a little closer, voice lower.

  “So…” he said. “What happened back there?”

  Leif looked up, confused.

  Edmund tilted his head toward the tunnel behind them. “I could’ve sworn the raptors stopped attacking after you grabbed the egg.”

  Leif’s grip tightened unconsciously. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I didn’t— I didn’t do anything.”

  “They all froze,” Serena murmured. “Even the big ones.”

  Leif shook his head, still baffled. “No idea. Maybe… maybe they’re afraid we’ll break the egg if they come at us.”

  Serena tilted her head, skeptical. “Can animals think that deep?”

  Leif let out a soft, humorless breath. “That’s the best guess I have for now.”

  Edmund stared at the egg for a beat longer, weighing everything he didn’t understand. Then he spoke, in a firm and decisive way when fear threatened to creep in. “Whatever the case,” he said, “our best bet is to keep the egg safe until we get out of here. If it’s the only thing keeping them from tearing us apart, then we don’t treat it like an enemy while we’re still trapped underground.”

  Serena’s lips pressed into a thin line, but she didn’t argue. Not yet. The prince had a point, despite the possibility that the egg belonged to a Draemhyr.

  They rested a little longer, just long enough for their breathing to steady and for their legs to stop trembling from the sprint. Then Edmund rose, sword lifted again, letting only a faint glow spill across the stone. “Let’s move,” he said quietly.

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  Their pace was quick, but they weren’t running anymore. Not unless they had to. They hadn’t gone far before something caught Leif’s eye along the ground ahead—a vine. Thin, vein-like, half embedded in the stone, running across the floor in a branching strand, pulsing with a soft green light. The same living glow as those connected to the nest. The same rhythm, like a heartbeat traveling through roots that shouldn’t have existed in bare rock.

  Leif slowed, crouching slightly. “Could it be—”

  Edmund stepped beside him, eyes narrowing. “Another one?”

  “Do you think it will lead to another nest?” Serena whispered.

  “It might,” Leif said, voice tight. “There must be plenty in this cave.”

  They stared down at the glowing strand, then at each other, the decision settling between them.

  “We follow it,” Edmund said.

  “Toward the source,” Leif added immediately, pointing the way the pulse seemed to feed from rather than where it branched outward. “Not the destination.”

  Serena swallowed, then nodded. “If it’s drawing from somewhere…” she murmured, “maybe it’s drawing from outside.”

  That, she thought, or at least from something that wasn’t deeper.

  They shifted their direction, stepping carefully alongside the pulsing vine, letting it guide them, hoping, quietly and desperately, that it would lead them to a way out. They followed the vine deeper.

  At first, nothing changed, same uneven stone, same damp air, same distant drip echoing through the dark. But the farther they went, the more the cave began to feel wrong in a different way.

  There were fewer creatures here.

  A handful of large insects clung to the walls, scuttling away as the trio approached, their legs clicking faintly against stone. But the larger reptiles were gone. Even the bats had thinned out, the ceiling quiet and still.

  “It’s empty,” Serena murmured, glancing around uneasily.

  Edmund didn’t answer, but his grip tightened on his sword. Silence in a place like this didn’t mean safety. More often than not, it meant something worse lay ahead.

  Leif kept close, the egg still cradled tight against his chest. The pulsing vine beneath their feet forked again, then again, until the ground seemed webbed with thin, branching strands. Smaller vines, like pale green threads, dug into cracks in the stone, spreading on the surface.

  Serena slowed, staring at the floor. “There are more of them…”

  Edmund’s gaze swept the passage ahead. “Too many.”

  The deeper they went, the more those strands multiplied, disappearing beneath stone and re-emerging farther ahead in faint pulses. And with them came the glow, subtle at first, but steadily growing. Luminous moss returned in thick patches along the walls. Crystals reappeared too, embedded in clusters like teeth, their surfaces catching the green light and throwing it back in shimmering fragments.

  Leif swallowed hard, eyes flicking down to the severed vine still clinging to the egg in his arms. It pulsed… and the vines on the ground pulsed back. They kept moving anyway. There was no better choice. Eventually the passage widened, the ceiling lifting high enough that the light from Edmund’s sword didn’t reach the top. Ahead, the tunnel opened into another cavern’s mouth. An uneven arch in the stone that spilled an unnatural brightness into their path. They stopped at the threshold.

  A bright green glow poured from the other side, so intense it made Edmund’s blade seem dim by comparison. It wasn’t the gentle moss-light they’d seen before. This was stronger, and denser, like standing at the edge of a furnace made of emerald.

  Leif stared, breath caught in his throat. “It’s brighter than anything here.”

  Edmund scanned for any other route, any side passage, any crack in the stone that might offer an alternative. There was nothing, only the glow.

  Seeing no other options, he stepped forward, voice low. “Stay close.”

  They moved toward its source, unwilling but with nowhere else left to go, crossing the threshold and letting the bright green light swallow them whole. Stepping inside, the three were mesmerized by what they had stumbled upon.

  The cavern was large, wider than the one where they had found the egg, greatly so. It was bright enough that they could see everything inside without Edmund needing to raise his sword any higher. The air felt different here too. Warmer, heavier, tinged with a faint metallic taste that clung to the tongue, but the most striking aspect of this cavern was the source of the light itself. It was impossible to miss.

  At the center of the cavern lay a huge clump of crystals, pouring out a vivid green glow so intense it made the walls look pale by comparison. For a heartbeat, it seemed like a simple formation, another vein of luminous stone, until they looked closer. It wasn’t a pile of rocks at all.

  A single, enormous mass rose from the floor in swollen, rounded lobes. Its surface was riddled with thousands of tiny openings, pores, pits, little mouths, each one lit from within. Light didn’t shine on it so much as through it, pulsing in slow waves. And around it, thick root-like structures jutted from the ground, half-buried and twisting outward in branching lines.

  Edmund took an involuntary step forward, eyes fixed. “What is that?” he whispered, then caught himself and cleared his throat, voice tightening. “It doesn’t look like a normal crystal.”

  Leif narrowed his eyes. He could feel it before he even touched it. Edmund was right. This wasn’t ordinary.

  “It…” Leif swallowed, the egg in his arms giving a faint warm pulse as if in answer. “…it’s alive.”

  Serena’s brows knit. “Alive?”

  Leif nodded, gaze still locked on the formation. “Like… a plant,” he said carefully. “I can feel vitality coming off it. A steady pull, like roots drinking from the earth.”

  Reluctantly, the three stepped closer, drawn by equal parts awe and unease, and that was when they saw it.

  Scattered around the base of the living crystal were torn scraps of fabric, mud-stained, frayed, some half-rotted as if they’d been left here for a long time. Among them were bones, more than a few. Leif crouched, careful not to touch the roots, and examined one pale length of bone before his expression tightened. He looked at another, then another, the pieces forming a grim inventory in his mind.

  “They’re not all human,” he said quietly. “Different animals… different sizes.”

  Up close, the scale of it became even more unsettling.

  The formation was large, towering several meters tall, its swollen lobes stacked and clustered. The green light washed over everything. Bones evidently littered the ground around it, but looking past the brilliance, squinting into the deeper hollows, Leif saw it. Remains were also lodged within the pores themselves. Fragments caught like hooks and snagged fabric. Splinters of bone wedged in the pits. It was like the thing had swallowed them.

  Serena recoiled a half step, hand flying to her mouth. “Why are there remains on it too?” she whispered.

  Leif didn’t answer right away. His mind had started to race, pieces clicking together with a cold inevitability. The odd shape, the fact that it was alive, the thick roots creeping through the cavern floor… the luminous moss and crystals returning in greater numbers the closer they got… and the way the predators had reacted to the egg.

  His gaze snapped to the root structures again, then to the pulsing pores, then briefly, to the egg in his arms.

  “This thing…” he said slowly, voice tightening as the conclusion formed. “…this is a fungus.”

  Edmund and Serena both turned to him at once.

  “A fungus?” Edmund echoed.

  Leif nodded, forcing himself to keep his breathing steady. “Mushroom, basically,” he said, then winced as he tried to grasp the term. “There’s a rare type I’ve read about. One that forms a sym—symbi—” He shook his head, frustrated. “I can’t remember the exact word. But they form this strange bond with other living creatures.”

  Serena’s eyes flicked back to the cavern, to the torn cloth and scattered bones. “What kind of bond?”

  Leif swallowed, throat suddenly dry despite the damp air. “A controlling one,” he said quietly. “It can… affect the behavior of animals around it. Mainly in its early stages, before it can root itself properly. It can compel them to help it grow, bring it food, keep threats away, and in exchange…”

  Edmund’s grip tightened on his sword. “What does it give?”

  “Once it grew enough, it starts to feed them in turn,” Leif replied. “A share of its energy. Enough to keep them satisfied, to keep them bound to it, ensure they will keep defending it.”

  Serena’s gaze drifted slowly across the remains, her expression turning pale. “That means the bones here are…”

  “Most likely what it fed on,” Leif finished, voice low and grim, “before its roots could reach deep enough to absorb nutrients directly from below.”

  A voice suddenly spoke, young, female, and close enough that it raised every hair on Edmund’s neck.

  “I guess that explains why they brought me here.”

  All three froze.

  Edmund’s sword snapped up on instinct as they turned toward the sound. Leif shifted the egg tighter into his arms. Serena’s breath caught. To their left, half hidden by the green glare and the branching roots, someone was there.

  Partially bound against the living crystal, pinned by thick, vine-like strands, was Filandra. She wore a simple gray dress now, plain and loose where her old work clothes had been torn away. Her hair was mussed, her face smudged with dust, but her eyes were sharp, sharp enough to carry that same deadpan tone even while she was literally trapped in a nest of glowing “roots.”

  For a heartbeat, the trio felt shock and relief collide so hard it left them dizzy.

  “You’re alive!” Edmund blurted, and then he was moving before he even realized it, running toward her.

  “Pretty much,” Filandra replied dryly, looking down at the vines holding her with clear irritation. “Not exactly enjoying the accommodations.”

  Serena hurried after Edmund. Leif approached more cautiously, eyes flicking between Filandra and the living crystal.

  Edmund reached her first and immediately began hacking at the vine-like growth binding her arm and waist. The stuff resisted, rubbery in some places, brittle in others, and it emitted a faint, wet crackle when cut. “Hold still,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I’d love to,” Filandra muttered. “I’m famously good at not moving when I’m tied to a wall.”

  “Those raptors brought you here?” Leif asked, disbelief tightening his voice.

  “Yes,” Filandra answered, wincing as the last binding loosened. Edmund and Leif caught her under the arms and lowered her carefully to the ground.

  The moment her feet touched stone, she bowed, small and proper, even with her hair in disarray. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

  Serena stared at her like she was seeing a ghost. “We thought you were eaten,” she said. “We saw pieces of your clothes in one of the raptors’ mouth.”

  Filandra’s mouth flattened. “That would be my apron.” She brushed at her dress as if annoyed by the memory. “When Minos and I ran, one of them lunged and grabbed the hem. It caught the apron first.” She paused, her eyes flicking away for the briefest moment. “Minos kept running.”

  Edmund’s expression darkened instantly. “That selfish—”

  “It’s fine,” Filandra cut in, calm but firm in a way that made Edmund stop mid-breath. She didn’t sound forgiving so much as… resigned. “This isn’t the first time it’s happened.”

  Leif’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?”

  Filandra looked between them, then toward the scattered scraps of cloth and bones at the base of the living crystal, as if it explained everything without her needing to spell it out.

  “In fact,” she said quietly, “this is how Minos lost most of his assistants.”

  Leif’s stomach tightened. “Using you as bait to get away from danger?”

  Filandra didn’t answer with outrage. She simply nodded once, and that made it worse than any angry accusation could have. Edmund exhaled hard, frustration scraping through his voice as he shook his head. “We’ll deal with Minos once we’re out of here.” His gaze swept the cavern again, roots, glow, bones, the single opening on the far side.

  Meanwhile, Leif’s gaze remained fixated on what he was holding. The pale “egg” rested in his arms, warm against his skin, the severed vine still clinging to it like a dead umbilical cord. Under the cavern’s green light, it looked almost harmless, but with the giant mass in front of them and the realization of what it was, he now understood better what he was holding.

  Leif’s throat tightened. “If my guess is correct…” He looked up slowly. “Based on everything we’ve seen, this thing isn’t an egg.”

  Edmund’s brows drew together. “Then what is it?”

  “A seed,” Leif said. His grip tightened. “Or some kind of spore… produced by the fungus.”

  Everyone stared at him.

  “Are you sure?” Edmund asked, voice low.

  Leif nodded. “It would explain the vitality I felt coming from it. And why the raptors were protecting it.” His eyes flicked to the towering porous mass at the center of the cavern. “The fungus compels them to defend it. Maybe even to carry it and plant it somewhere else.”

  Edmund’s gaze narrowed, worry creeping in beneath his authority. “So does that mean it’s not a Draemhyr?” he asked, as if his earlier certainty had cracked.

  “It might still be,” Filandra said.

  All three turned to her.

  Filandra’s tone was flat, too familiar with ugly truths. “Draemhyrs come in all kinds,” she continued. “Some are obvious monsters. Others are… subtle. Useful. That’s why Minos wanted it.”

  Edmund’s jaw tightened. “Useful for what?”

  Filandra didn’t flinch. “For coin.” She nodded toward the seed in Leif’s arms. “It would be worth a fortune to a blood alchemist. Anyone who studies monster-spawn, breeding, control… you name it.”

  The trio’s faces hardened all at once. The idea that Minos had been willing to abandon Filandra, use her, to retrieve something that might hatch into a living curse made Edmund’s stomach twist. Serena’s eyes flicked instinctively to the bones. Leif’s arms tightened around the seed.

  “In any case,” the prince said, exhaling slowly, “if the seed makes the monsters docile…” He glanced toward the cavern opening again. “Then it may indeed be the only reason we’re still alive.”

  No one contradicted him. They all agreed that the seed stayed with them until they were out of the cave. Leif lowered it carefully and conjured a bundle of vines, weaving them together with quick, practiced motions until he had something like a satchel. Rough, green, flexible, and strong. He slid the seed inside as gently as if it might crack, then strapped the makeshift bag tight to his belt.

  The answer didn’t give him comfort. It made the unease grow, because it still didn’t answer the part that kept scratching at the back of his mind.

  They should’ve chased us.

  If this was truly a spore meant to spread the fungus, the raptors should’ve gone into a frenzy when he took it. They should’ve torn the cave apart to get it back.

  Instead… they had stopped.

  Before he could think more of it further, Edmund spoke, addressing Filandra. “Can you walk?”

  Filandra rolled her shoulders once, testing them. “I’ve had worse mornings,” she said dryly, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “Stay close,” Serena told her softly.

  They began toward the opening on the other side of the cavern, moving carefully now, eyes scanning, ears straining. Then a shriek split the air. Not the deep growl of a raptor. This was sharper, higher, multiple cries overlapping, thin and violent, like metal scraping glass.

  They froze. Edmund’s sword flared brighter at once, ether crawling along the blade. Serena’s hand snapped up and an ether lance formed in a blink, trembling with contained force. Leif drew his vine whip, green light spiraling down its length.

  The shriek came again, louder and closer. Pebbles rattled, then the rocks above the opening began to shift. Small stones fell first, clacking against the floor. Larger chunks followed, and the whole archway shed debris as something moved above it. Edmund took a step back instinctively. “Up,” he hissed.

  From a ledge overhead, a shape crawled out. Too many limbs, its body too wide, its movements fast. A giant arachnid, rivaling the two massive raptors in size, unfolded itself from the shadows and dropped down with a heavy thud that shook dust loose from the ceiling. Its legs splayed across the mouth of the passage, blocking the only visible exit, and its body gleamed under the green light like wet obsidian.

  All four of them backed away, slow and careful. Then, from behind them, somewhere deeper in the tunnels, a distant growl rolled through the cavern, low and familiar.

  Edmund’s eyes flicked toward the darkness they’d come from. “They’re catching up,” he muttered. With no other choice, he gestured sharply to Filandra. “Hide. Now.”

  Filandra didn’t argue. She hurried around, searching for a narrow crevice to hide in as the three shifted into a defensive line, bracing themselves to face the new threat in front… with the old one closing in behind.