Cold came first.

  Not the sharp bite of winter air, but the vast, indifferent cold of an unknown world. It stretched in every direction—stone, water, darkness—an endless stillness that pressed against the senses without mercy. And yet, within it, something held her. A quiet warmth gathered close around her bones, steady and protective, like unseen arms refusing to let the cold take everything.

  Then the warmth slipped away.

  One moment there had been darkness—thick, warm, heavy against her bones—and the next she was standing again in the cavern.

  The stone ceiling arched high above her, impossibly tall, its jagged ribs disappearing into a darkness that seemed to breathe. Water dripped somewhere in the distance. Once. Then again. The sound carried too far, too clearly, like the cave itself was listening.

  Her boots were wet.

  She looked down.

  Black water pooled around her ankles, rippling outward in slow circles that never quite reached the edges of the cavern floor. The surface trembled each time the dripping echoed through the stone.

  Something moved beneath it.

  The Song was already there.

  Soft.

  Patient.

  It curled through the cavern like mist threading through broken pillars, a low harmony that never quite settled into melody. Lina felt it immediately—behind her ears, along the inside of her ribs, beneath the fragile rhythm of her breathing.

  It knew her.

  The realization arrived without explanation.

  The Song shifted.

  The water stirred.

  Shapes rose from the black surface, pale and swollen forms pressing upward like drowned things remembering they once belonged to air. Flesh folded over itself in wet, uneven ridges. Limbs that were not quite limbs stretched and sank again.

  The Great Olm.

  Except there was not just one.

  The cavern floor bulged and churned as the mass grew, a mound of slick flesh slowly assembling itself from the dark water. Faces appeared where there should have been none—half-formed impressions of human features, mouths that opened without sound before melting back into the larger body.

  They were watching her.

  Waiting.

  Lina tried to move.

  Her body did not answer.

  The numbness began again at her toes.

  That quiet absence crept upward the way it had before—ankle, shin, knee—erasing sensation with patient certainty. She knew what came next. She remembered it now with terrible clarity.

  The Song deepened.

  It was beautiful.

  The melody wrapped around her thoughts like warm hands, guiding them gently away from fear. The cavern did not feel hostile anymore. It felt welcoming. Familiar.

  A place she belonged.

  The mound of flesh shifted, rising higher now, forming something almost upright. Within its folds, dozens of mouths moved slowly, opening and closing in rhythm with the Song.

  The melody changed.

  It was singing her name.

  Lina tried to scream.

  Nothing came out.

  The numbness had reached her chest now. Her lungs worked, but the breath felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. Her hands hung useless at her sides, fingers twitching in slow, delayed motions.

  The Song swelled.

  Closer and closer.

  Something wrapped around her ankle.

  She did not feel the touch—only the movement. A pale strand of flesh emerged from the black water and coiled upward like a curious serpent. Another followed. Then another.

  They were gentle. Careful, even.

  The cavern darkened as the mass of the Olm rose around her, its immense body shifting like wet clay beneath the weight of its own shape. The Song filled every space now, each note vibrating through bone and blood alike.

  She could feel it behind her eyes.

  Inside her throat.

  The melody wanted something.

  No.

  It wanted her.

  The flesh tightened around her leg and began to pull.

  Slowly.

  Patiently.

  The water swallowed her boots first.

  Then her knees.

  Cold should have followed.

  But there was no cold.

  There was only the Song.

  The cavern blurred.

  The massive body of the Olm folded inward around her, flesh rising like a tide that did not hurry because it did not need to. Faces surfaced in its surface again—empty impressions of mouths that stretched open as though waiting to welcome her inside.

  The Song rose higher.

  Higher.

  A lullaby.

  Lina felt something break inside her chest—not bone, not breath, but will.

  And then—

  A sound.

  Tink. Tick. Tick-Tick. Tink.

  The cavern hesitated.

  Tink. Tick. Tick-Tick. Plank.

  The Song faltered.

  Plank. Tick. Tick-Tick. Plank. Tick.

  The sound did not belong to the cavern.

  Tick. Tick. Plink. Tick. Plank.

  A strange metal melody. Strange in a way like it was an object pretending to sing a Song.

  The Olm shifted uneasily, its great body trembling as the rhythm intruded upon its melody.

  Plank. Plank. Pling-Pling. Ting.

  The cavern fractured like glass.

  The black water vanished.

  The flesh dissolved.

  And Lina was no longer standing.

  She was moving.

  No—

  She was being carried.

  Her cheek pressed against rough fabric, the steady rise and fall of someone else's breathing beneath her weight. The world swayed with each step.

  Darkness stretched ahead.

  Stone corridor.

  Footsteps echoing softly.

  Tink. Tick. Tick-Tick. Tink.

  Tink. Tick. Tick-Tick. Plank.

  Plank. Tick. Tick-Tick. Plank. Tick.

  The sound was louder now.

  Lina forced her eyes open.

  She saw the back of a coat.

  Broad shoulders beneath it.

  Sawyer.

  Her arms hung loosely around his neck, barely holding on. One of his hands gripped her leg to keep her from slipping as he walked.

  The corridor was dim.

  Torchlight flickered along the stone walls as they passed.

  Tick. Tick. Plink. Tick. Plank.

  Plank. Plank. Pling-Pling. Ting.

  Tink. Tick. Tick-Tick. Tink.

  The music box.

  It sat against his chest, half-hidden beneath the fold of his coat, the small brass lid vibrating faintly with each mechanical beat.

  The sound was wrong. It felt dead.

  Tink. Tick. Tick-Tick. Plank.

  Plank. Tick. Tick-Tick. Plank. Tick.

  Tick. Tick. Plink. Tick. Plank.

  The rhythm swallowed everything.

  Sawyer’s footsteps.

  The echoing corridor.

  Even her breathing.

  Plank. Plank. Pling-Pling. Ting.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Tink. Tick. Tick-Tick. Tink.

  Tink. Tick. Tick-Tick. Plank.

  The sound grew faster.

  No.

  Not faster.

  Closer.

  Louder.

  The ticking filled her skull like a hammer striking the inside of bone.

  Plank. Tick. Tick-Tick. Plank. Tick.

  Tink. Tick. Tick-Tick. Plank.

  Plank. Tick. Tick-Tick. Plank. Tick.

  Lina jerked upright.

  Air tore into her lungs as the world snapped back into place.

  Stone walls.

  Dim morning light.

  A narrow bed beneath her.

  Her hands clenched in the blankets as her chest heaved violently, breath coming in sharp, ragged bursts.

  For a moment she could not move.

  Could not think.

  Could only listen.

  Silence filled the room.

  No cavern.

  No Song.

  No ticking.

  Only her heartbeat pounding wildly against her ribs.

  And realized—

  She was awake.

  The memory shattered.

  Lina sat upright in bed, breath tearing into her lungs as though she had surfaced from deep water. Her fingers clenched into the sheets before she even realized she was awake. The room around her swam in dim morning light, the stone walls unfamiliar for a moment as her mind struggled to separate dream from waking.

  Her throat burned.

  A deep, raw pain scraped along the inside of it with every breath she took.

  She lifted a trembling hand to it, touching the bandaged skin there as though confirming it still belonged to her.

  Footsteps thundered somewhere beyond the door.

  Fast.

  Unsteady.

  Then—

  The corridor erupted with the sharp echo of someone running.

  Lina barely had time to turn her head before the door slammed open.

  Father Francis burst inside.

  The priest looked like anything but calm. His hair was unkempt, the collar of his robe crooked, and the dark circles beneath his eyes suggested he had not slept at all. Sweat clung faintly to his brow as he stopped beside the bed, chest rising with quick, controlled breaths.

  Relief and worry warred openly across his tired face.

  “Lass!”

  That single word left him almost as a breath.

  But he did not linger on it.

  His hand came up immediately.

  “Light.”

  The word was spoken plainly.

  No singing.

  The spell answered anyway.

  A small sphere of white light snapped into existence above his palm, sharp and sudden in the dim room.

  Lina flinched.

  The reaction was instinctive. Her shoulders jerked and her eyes squeezed shut as the brightness struck them. The motion sent a fresh pulse of pain through her throat.

  Father Francis noticed immediately.

  “Easy,” he said quietly.

  He leaned closer before she could recover, the glow of the conjured light steady in his hand as he angled it toward her face.

  “Look at me.”

  Lina blinked, still disoriented.

  The priest gently steadied her chin between two fingers, turning her head slightly toward the light.

  The glow reflected in her eyes.

  Francis leaned closer still, his tired gaze narrowing with intense focus as he studied her pupils. The room fell silent except for her breathing and the faint hum of the spell.

  Left.

  Right.

  Back again.

  He shifted the light, watching how her retinas responded as the brightness moved across them.

  For several long seconds he said nothing.

  Only observed.

  The tension in his shoulders slowly loosened.

  A quiet breath escaped him.

  “Good,” he murmured, almost to himself.

  The light faded as he lowered his hand, the spell dispersing into the air as though it had never been there.

  Only then did he seem to truly look at her.

  Father Francis straightened slightly, the tight focus in his eyes not yet leaving. Relief had touched him, yes—but it had not replaced the urgency.

  “Lina,” he said gently, voice still a little breathless from the run. “I need you to do something for me.”

  He lifted a hand halfway, gesturing.

  “Raise your right arm.”

  Lina stared at him for a moment, still fogged from sleep and pain.

  Then she tried.

  Her shoulder moved first. The rest followed slower—until the motion stopped halfway.

  White bandages wrapped thick around her forearm and wrist, the cloth stained faintly yellow where salves had seeped through. Angry patches of red skin showed along the edges where the wrappings did not reach.

  Francis saw it the same moment she did.

  The realization struck him like a small blow.

  “Oh.”

  The word slipped out quietly.

  His expression tightened, and he withdrew the gesture immediately.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, voice softer now. “That was… insensitive of me.”

  For a brief moment he looked genuinely pained with himself, as though annoyed that he had allowed the healer in him to rush ahead of the man.

  Then he recomposed.

  “Let’s try something simpler.”

  The priest raised both hands in front of her, spreading them slightly apart so they hovered at either side of her vision. His palms faced her, fingers relaxed.

  “Just look at me,” he said calmly.

  Then, after a beat—

  “Now… point to the hand you see on your right.”

  He held perfectly still, watching her carefully.

  Lina blinked slowly, her gaze shifting between the two hands held before her.

  For a moment the world still felt slightly distant, like she had not fully returned to it yet. The room was steady, but her thoughts moved through a thin fog left behind by the dream.

  She looked to the right.

  Her right.

  Then lifted her uninjured hand.

  The motion was clumsy, her arm still heavy from sleep, but her finger extended and pointed clearly to the priest’s left hand.

  The one that rested on her right side.

  Father Francis watched closely the entire time.

  The instant her finger settled, the tension drained out of him.

  His shoulders sagged.

  A long breath escaped his chest as though he had been holding it since the moment he ran down the corridor.

  “Good,” he murmured.

  The word came out softer than before, carrying the quiet weight of relief rather than clinical confirmation.

  “Very good.”

  For the first time since entering the room, the sharp edge of urgency faded from his eyes. Some of the worry remained—there was still far too much of that to disappear so easily—but the particular fear he had been looking for had not shown itself.

  Her mind was intact.

  Lina noticed the change immediately.

  Even through the haze, the way the priest’s posture eased did not escape her.

  Something had been wrong.

  Or feared to be.

  She swallowed carefully, throat tightening as she tried to gather her thoughts.

  Gabriella.

  The cavern.

  The Hunter.

  Questions crowded forward all at once.

  She opened her mouth.

  “Wha—”

  The sound collapsed.

  It tore out of her throat like dry cloth dragged across broken glass. Her jaw clenched instantly as pain flared along the burned tissue inside her neck.

  Her voice was not gone.

  But it was ruined.

  What escaped her was a shredded rasp that broke apart halfway through the word.

  Lina froze.

  The realization settled slowly.

  She tried again.

  “Wh—”

  The second attempt fared no better.

  The sound fractured into a hoarse, breathy scrape that barely resembled speech. It hurt—sharp and raw, the kind of pain that made the body instinctively recoil from trying again.

  Her hand lifted halfway toward her throat before stopping.

  Father Francis saw the moment the understanding reached her.

  The relief in his face dimmed, replaced with something gentler. Something more careful.

  He did not interrupt her.

  But he did not let her try again either.

  “Don’t,” he said quietly.

  The priest rested a steady hand against the edge of the bed beside her, grounding the moment.

  “Your throat has been badly burned.” His voice was calm, patient. “You forced a spell your body wasn’t ready to carry.”

  His eyes moved briefly to the bandages along her neck.

  “You’re alive,” he added softly. “You are still, you.”

  The way the priest said those words unnerved the young girl to her core.

  Again, she tried to form a sentence to no avail.

  Then, after a pause—

  Footsteps.

  Loud.

  Rapid.

  Then a voice—high and breathless.

  “Lina!”

  The door flew open again.

  Gabriella burst into the room.

  She didn’t slow down.

  Her eyes were wide, bright with something that looked dangerously close to relief as she rushed straight toward the bed.

  “Lina!”

  Before Father Francis could even turn fully, she had already crossed half the room.

  Behind her came another set of footsteps—longer strides, heavier, controlled but fast enough to suggest someone trying very hard not to lose their patience.

  Vice-Guild Master Erika appeared in the doorway a moment later.

  “Gabriella—”

  The warning came a fraction too late.

  Gabriella practically threw herself forward, arms spreading wide as she leaned toward the bed.

  Lina barely had time to register the incoming blur before the girl wrapped her arms around her shoulders in a tight, sudden embrace.

  It wasn’t gentle.

  It wasn’t careful.

  It was the kind of hug given by someone who had been holding their breath for too long and had just remembered how to breathe again.

  “You’re awake!” Gabriella blurted, voice bright and breathless.

  Lina flinched instinctively at the contact, the sudden movement tugging painfully at her bandages. Her body stiffened before slowly settling again.

  Gabriella didn’t seem to notice.

  She pulled back just enough to look at Lina’s face, her hands still gripping the blanket near Lina’s shoulders.

  Her smile was wide.

  Too wide.

  Her eyes shone with relief—but something about them felt… wrong.

  They lacked the careful focus Lina remembered.

  The sharpness.

  Instead there was a strange softness there, a loose wandering brightness like a child who had just found something they thought they’d lost forever.

  “See?” Gabriella said quickly, turning halfway toward the doorway without fully letting go of Lina. “I told you she’d wake up!”

  Her tone carried an oddly simple certainty.

  As if the outcome had never truly been in doubt.

  In the doorway, Erika stopped.

  The vice-guildmaster’s gaze moved past Gabriella and settled briefly on Lina—checking, measuring, confirming she was indeed awake.

  Then her eyes shifted back to Gabriella.

  Something tight flickered across Erika’s face.

  Not anger.

  Not relief.

  Concern.

  Quiet and heavy.

  Gabriella turned back to Lina again, still smiling with the same bright, uncomplicated joy.

  “You’re okay now,” she said.

  The words were spoken with the warm confidence of someone stating an obvious truth.

  Her hands were still gripping the blankets near Lina’s shoulders, fingers curled loosely in the fabric. She didn’t seem aware of the bandages. Of the careful stillness Lina had been forced into only moments ago.

  She simply beamed at her.

  Waiting.

  Lina slowly lifted her eyes past her.

  Toward the doorway.

  Erika was still standing there.

  The vice-guildmaster had not stepped further into the room. Her broad frame filled the threshold, one hand resting against the door as though she had stopped herself there.

  Their eyes met.

  Lina didn’t move.

  Didn’t try to speak.

  She simply looked at her.

  The stare said everything her ruined voice could not.

  What happened?

  What is wrong with her?

  Erika held the gaze.

  For a moment it looked like she might answer with the same calm authority she used in the guild hall—some steady reassurance, some careful explanation that would hold the room together.

  Her jaw tightened.

  The words never formed.

  She looked down briefly at Gabriella, who was still smiling at Lina as if the world had righted itself.

  Then Erika exhaled.

  Slow.

  Heavy.

  Her eyes returned to Lina.

  “I’m sorry, kid.”

  The words were quiet.

  But they landed like stone.

  “Erika!”

  Father Francis’s voice cut through the room sharply.

  The priest turned toward her, shock and frustration flashing across his face.

  “That was not—”

  Erika didn’t look at him.

  Her gaze remained on Lina.

  And the silence that followed said far more than any explanation ever could.

  The person who clung to her was no longer Gabriella.