✧ Chapter Twenty-Five ✧
In the Dark, I Found You
from Have You Someone to Protect?
by ©Amer
The last echo of her scream still rang in Caelum's ears.
With the sound of Lhady's fall into the hidden passage—a rush of crumbling earth and swallowed light. Caelum had thrown himself after her, but the ground had sealed shut. The faint glimmer of the sigil fragment in his hand had reacted instantly, pulling at him with renewed urgency, like it knew where she had gone.
Caelum pressed a hand to the damp stone wall, his breath steady despite the shadows that surrounded him. In his hand, the small fragment of the sigil pulsed faintly, its silvery glow serving as his only guide. The path forward was narrow, winding like the roots of an old tree, but the fragment tugged him gently, leading him forward with strange certainty.
He had felt her presence—faint, like a whisper through fog—but it had been enough to know that Lhady was near. The small fragment, though weaker than the original, still retained a resonance with the larger piece. That resonance had begun to hum when she fell into the hidden chamber, a heartbeat echoing across stone and spell.
"Lhady," Caelum said softly, pressing the sigil fragment to his chest.
At first, silence answered.
Then, like a vibration more felt than heard, a low frequency ripple came through the sigil. A faint warmth.
"Caelum?" Her voice was barely there, soft and wavering, like it traveled from a great depth.
His breath hitched. "I'm coming for you. Don't be afraid."
There was a pause. He imagined her holding the larger fragment, its light casting weak circles around her.
"It's dark," she finally said. "But I'll find the way. I trust you."
A shiver ran through him—not from fear, but from that trust. A trust he had been protecting, guarding, and maybe unworthy of. He moved faster.
Lhady gripped the larger sigil fragment tightly, its glow barely enough to chase the dark away. Her fingers were trembling, though she did her best to remain calm. The air was dry and tight, thick with dust and the scent of old soil.
She moved through the corridor slowly, dragging one hand along the curved wall. The larger fragment in her grip lit a narrow radius of light—just enough to not trip. Her whole body was tense, the kind of weariness that didn't just belong to her limbs but to her heart. Her mind echoed with thoughts she couldn't hold down.
It was quieter now, but not silent. She heard her own breathing. The scrape of her boots against stone. The far-off drip of water.
The darkness here wasn't unfamiliar. It tugged memories from her chest.
She was seven. There had been a storm.
The old Amer house creaked under thunder, and she'd run to hide—beneath the floorboards, into a small forgotten cellar. No light. No voices.
She had sat there for what felt like eternity, curled up behind boxes of dried herbs and winter potatoes. Crying so softly. Trying to be invisible.
And then—
A voice. A pair of arms.
"Lhady. You stubborn, brave little thing."
Thorne.
He had found her with lantern in hand, his face dirtied with worry, his arms scraping as he pulled back the stubborn wood. He didn't scold her. He didn't say you scared me. Instead, he held her against his chest, whispered, "I was scared too. But I'll always find you, even in the dark."
The memory held her still now. Her eyes stung.
Tears formed quietly beneath her lashes, pooling just at the rim—but they didn't fall. They trembled there, held in place by some thread of iron she had forged in the years since.
"I'm not a child anymore," she whispered. "I'm not alone."
She touched the sigil gently. It was the only source of light. The only warmth.
"I'm not a child anymore," she whispered to herself. "I'm not alone."
And Caelum would come. He said he would.
Her foot twisted on uneven stone, and she caught herself against the wall. The glow of the sigil flickered, and her breath hitched—but it held.
She pressed forward, heart drumming.
The air underground was different—it was ancient, cold, and heavy with memory.
Now, underground and surrounded by stone walls etched with fading glyphs, Caelum pressed forward. The sigil fragment pulsed faintly, its glow barely enough to show the worn carvings on the walls. These tunnels weren't random—they felt ancient, yet familiar.
He paused, frowning. Dust clung to the edges of a weathered arch. He brushed his fingers across it, revealing the faint curve of an old crest.
A sudden realization struck.
"This is beneath the bookshop," he muttered, the words grounding him in place. "An old route... forbidden and blocked."
He remembered Virelia's words long ago, whispered half in jest: "There are bones beneath that place. Old paths the light no longer reaches."
Caelum's jaw clenched. They had both been searching for hours. Hours that had bled into exhaustion. How long had they been circling this stone maze, calling out, retracing paths that led nowhere?
He hadn't even stopped to sit. Not until now, when the sigil fragment buzzed gently. A soft, low frequency began to hum. Then a warmth, tentative and shy.
Light met light—his fragment glowed in response to hers.
She saw him first, his tall form silhouetted against the pale luminescence.
"Caelum!" Her voice was hoarse with relief.
He stepped forward, quickly closing the distance. "You're safe—thank the stars."
But before they could fully reach each other, a sudden hiss split the air.
From a crack in the stone wall, a shadow slithered forward. A snake, thick-bodied and glistening, its scales black as ink. A cobra, its hood flaring wide.
Lhady froze. The sigil's glow dimmed at the edges, caught in its own warning pulse.
"Don't move," Caelum said, voice low, eyes locked on the creature.
Time stretched. The cobra coiled tighter, scenting the air, its tongue flicking.
But it was already too late.
A blur. A lunge.
Instinct won.
Caelum surged forward, shoving her back with a cry.
His body met hers in a slam, knocking her off balance.
She stumbled, crashing into the wall behind her. The shock of impact made her gasp. Stones above groaned from the force. Dust rained down.
Caelum grunted. The fangs had found him—his leg spasmed with pain as the venom began its cruel work. The cobra hissed again and slithered back into the crack.
"Caelum!"
He staggered, hand bracing on the wall, the agony already crawling up his thigh like wildfire.
Then—
The ceiling cracked.
A rumble thundered through the chamber.
Rocks and dust poured down from above, the ancient dome collapsing inward.
Lhady was thrown backward by the wave of air and debris.
The last thing she saw before the dust blinded her was Caelum—still standing, still between her and the cobra, arms raised protectively.
And then stone thundered down.