The First Age

Consciousness seeped in slowly. Her hands ached, the tips of her fingers stinging sharp and sore when she twitched them, as though she’d been clawing at rock. Around her the darkness was thick and heavy. Thalia shifted her protective curl of limbs, cautious and afraid. She was bone-dry, not soaked through as she remembered. From the fleeting drift of her thoughts, she realised she must have been sleeping – or unconscious. Who knew for how long or how many times she’d roused before now. Which explained the terrible pain in her hands. She pressed her palms against her face, ran them gingerly over the fluffy curls of her wild hair, like it would somehow settle the feeling that she might float away and disperse into nothing.

“Tristan?”

There wasn’t even an echo, let alone an answer. She swallowed, found her mouth dry and parched as sand. Guilt crushed cold in her chest as she folded in on herself in distress. She recalled light so strong it had hurt. Her grip slipping away, though she tried desperately to hold on. Thalia squeezed her eyes shut, and they burned, but no tears seeped their dry edges. For a while she panicked and acclimated. Alone was nothing new. Strange places, impossible places. Just a normal day, right? In the silence she heard a shifting drag of metal. Something heavy slithered a hair’s breadth away, and it feathered a chill that made her want to jump. Instead she made herself peek into the dark.

When she opened her eyes she did not see what made the noise, but a small red light blossomed like unfurling petals in the shadows. As it drew closer, the Nemesyne’s big eyes stared up at her through its low luminescence. It blinked. Sat.

And hacked a barking cough.

Arms folded around her knees, and feeling quite miserable, Thalia watched as objects pinged against the floor, just outlines and shadows in the red glow. A shard of metal that tickled a memory, a ring, and various other indistinguishable things, one of which bounced right off her bare foot and skittered beyond sight into the dark. She stared back at Neme in confusion, but it only shook itself all the way to a wiggle of its forked tail, and then folded its ears down.

After a moment Thalia shifted to get a better look at what it had dropped, poking first with a sore finger to make sure none of the things were coated in anything gross, and then running a curious examination over the rest. It had stolen the shard the guardian had laid reverently at the side of the pool, she realised (though where it had been keeping it she really had no idea). So filled up with the wonder of what they had witnessed and accomplished in reuniting mother and child, she had not given it a second thought at the time.

My duty is yours, the guardian had said. The last thing she said, before she disappeared with her kin.

“-- NEVER listen to the Nemesyne, big stupid humans. And now we here! Mother will be mad. The Nemesyne is mad!--”

“Where are we now? What happened?” Thalia interrupted, glancing up from the ring she currently twisted between her fingers when she realised, with somewhere between excitement and concern for her own sanity, that words which weren’t really words at all were bouncing around in her skull. Maybe her mind just cracked a little further open. No point imagining a crazy-looking cat if you couldn’t communicate with it when you needed to.

“Home,” it said immediately. Then, “You smell different, sister. You hear different. And you–”

It wasn’t any kind of answer, but it unfurled in Thalia an amazing relief; just that one simple connection, like a touchstone of normal in the void. Or her version of normal at least. The rest of Neme’s words spiralled away unheeded while she processed. Tristan had to be here somewhere, and this had to be just another room in the labyrinth of them. Though when she glanced up with the thought, no stars glittered overhead. There was nothing at all, just the press of the dark. Though her heart was shuddering on the edge of fear, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit it also felt familiar.

“I’m sorry I called you ugly,” she added into the creature’s monologue. The ring in her palm was all swirly, but there was a gem buried within which glistened a matching hue to the winking ruby above the Nemesyne’s eyes. She slipped it on a finger without thinking.

“Knew it was somewhere,” it said in satisfaction. “Just all look the same to the Nemesyne.” It stretched and began pouncing across the shadows, and where it landed it fizzed a little. The objects disappeared, shard included, and Neme licked its lips when it was done. Meanwhile (no point trying to understand what she saw), Thalia took a breath, settled herself, and after a time the gentle glow of power finally came to her call. The last time she’d threaded it into a ball of light had not exactly gone well, but she could barely see her own hand let alone anything else around her. As the fresh light cast, she looked around immediately. The black walls were coiled close, moving gently, and for once Thalia was reticent to touch. Mostly because she didn’t want to lose the hand. Not so far away, a giant eyeball stared back at her unblinking, with one great slit for a pupil almost as tall as she was standing. She could see her own horrified expression in the reflection.

“Give it,” Neme demanded, perhaps repeated a couple of times before Thalia found the sense to respond. It took her a moment to realise it meant the ball of light, and longer to consider that she could literally tie a little knot and actually pass it to the creature. Neme snatched it easily into the curve of its tail and began to trot forward. Since it seemed so unconcerned she decided to follow suit, though as she clumsily pushed to her feet she wondered where it was even going.

“Do you know where Tristan is?”

“She will forgive you, Lethe. But Mother does NOT like uninvited guests.”

Thalia ignored the things she did not understand, including the name not her own. It seemed she was collecting them. “Is that a yes or a no?” She plodded a little after, but couldn’t take her eyes off the enormous coiled body looped all around them. Curiosity soon got the better of her, and she pressed a tentative hand out to touch. A single scale was bigger than her entire hand, and it was warm like heated metal. It flickered half a smile to her lips. She could feel the rise and fall of its breath, slow and steady. The creature made a noise, like a great contented sigh.

“Bad blood,” Neme said. “Punished. Forget the Tristan, done now.”

“Bad blood?”

That captured her attention. She looked over at the cat and its bobbing light, and whatever sense of wonder she’d manage to unearth in their terrifying surroundings drained away. My fate will be worse than the trolls, he’d told her. They’d spoken about blood and prisons; it felt an uncomfortable prescience now, and she thought about how Neme had reacted to Tristan slicing open his palm in that chaotic moment before the study had begun to shake and groan. She hadn’t even understood why he’d done it.

She moved without thinking, filled with a cold sort of urgency. The scaled body around them began to roll and twist, and Thalia ducked under the arch it made with a pat of thanks.

“Hey! No!” the Nemesyne protested. There was a literal yowl as it hopped after her.

“The gods are wrong, Neme,” was all she said. Beyond the giant creature’s embrace, the walls just seemed simple rock. She could feel it uneven underneath her toes, and scraping against her shoulder as she walked. She called Tristan’s names out into the darkness ahead; all of the ones she knew.

Tristan's return to consciousness was a slow crawl through layers of darkness, each moment a struggle against the weight of his own body. The last thing he remembered was the ground trembling and water sloshing up over his face. Yet here, the air was stifling, thick with the scent of brimstone and the oppressive heat that radiated from the very stones beneath him. As awareness fully took hold, he realized he was confined in a cell, its walls rough-hewn and glowing faintly from the veins of lava that coursed through them. The heat was intense, enough to make the air shimmer and dance before his eyes, but it was the sense of utter isolation that weighed heaviest on his heart.

None of his belongings lay at his side, no tools within reach to aid his escape. The realization brought a sharp pang of vulnerability, a reminder of his situation's gravity. The cell seemed designed not just to confine, but to break the spirit of those who found themselves within its grasp.

As if summoned by his awakening, a disturbance rippled through the pools of magma visible through the cracks in the floor. A fire snake, a creature of legend, slithered forth from the molten rock, its body a fusion of stone and flame, its presence both terrifying and awe-inspiring. Tristan had heard tales of such beings, guardians of the deep earth, creatures that were both a part of the volcanic fury and its masters. Yet, no tale had prepared him for the reality of the beast that now fixed its gaze upon him.

Cornered and unarmed, Tristan knew that conventional weapons would be of no use here, even if he had them. Instead, he locked eyes with the fire snake, tapping into an ancient, primal part of himself. His eyes, golden and monstrous in his own right, shimmered. It was a gamble, an attempt to communicate on a level beyond words, to appeal to the creature not as prey, but as an equal, a being deserving of respect.

The fire snake hesitated, its advance slowing as it met Tristan's gaze. There was a moment of intense scrutiny, a silent exchange that spanned the gap between species. Tristan stood his ground, every muscle tensed, yet exuding a calm dominance, an acknowledgment of the creature’s power but also a declaration of his own.

Slowly, its aggressive posture lessened. The air between them crackled with tension, but no longer with the promise of immediate violence. It was as if Tristan had reached something within the creature, a recognition of his unique presence, his unspoken challenge to the natural order of predator and prey.

The fire snake withdrew, slithering back towards the molten rock from which it had emerged. It did not flee but instead seemed to accept Tristan's silent assertion of spirit. After it receded into the molten shadows from which it emerged, Tristan found himself alone once more, the tension in the air dissipating with the creature's departure. The immediate threat may have been averted, but his situation remained dire. Where was he? Where was Thalia?

The bars of his cell were unlike any metal Tristan had seen before; they shimmered with an inner light, casting eerie reflections on the stone floor. They seemed forged not from iron or steel but from something altogether more formidable. Upon closer inspection, he realized the bars were crystallized magma, cooled into a substance harder than any metal known to man. They radiated a faint warmth, a lingering testament to their fiery birth.

Tristan pushed against the bars, testing their strength. As expected, they remained unyielding, solidified proof of the underworld's craftsmanship. The walls of his cell were carved directly from the volcanic rock, rough and uneven. Here and there, cracks seeped faint, sulfurous vapors, a reminder of the fiery veins that pulsed beneath the land. He ran his hands over the stone, feeling its texture, searching for any oversight, any flaw in its construction that might offer a means of escape. But the rock was implacable, as immovable as the fate that had brought him here.

As he explored the limits of his confinement, Tristan's mind raced with questions. How had he come to be in this place? His last memories were fragmented, a chaotic whirl of danger and blood, and then darkness. Now, here he was far from the lands he knew. Everything about this place felt wrong—the air was too thick, the heat unnatural, even the smells were alien, a mix of brimstone and something else, something he couldn't place, an odor that seemed to claw at the back of his throat.

Settling back against the wall, Tristan closed his eyes, trying to piece together the events that had led to this imprisonment. But every attempt to unravel the mystery only led to more questions, each answer slipping away like shadows at dawn. It was a puzzle with too many missing pieces, a story half-told.

Then, breaking the silence, a sound reached his ears. At first, it was faint, barely more than a whisper against the stone. But slowly, steadily, it grew louder—a rhythmic clanking, the unmistakable echo of metal dragging on stone. Someone, or something, was approaching. Tristan tensed, every sense on alert. The memory of the fire snake’s departure was still fresh in his mind, yet this was different. The sound was too deliberate, too controlled, for a creature of instinct.

He pressed himself against the bars, straining to see through the distance that enveloped his cell. The light from the lava cracks flickered, casting dancing shadows across the stone, but offered no glimpse of the newcomer. The metallic dragging grew closer, accompanied now by the sound of footsteps, heavy and measured.

The Nemesyne continued to talk, though by then Thalia had begun to simply tune it out. It muttered about stars, its mother, and a duty it seemed to feel it was being prevented from completing – though by the plaintive way it decried the last, it seemed to feel Thalia was always the one responsible for getting it into trouble. She quickly realised that despite its bluster the creature was simply afraid. It carried the light high in the hook of its tail but it did not walk ahead, just trotted warily beside her as she forged on through the narrow tunnel with arms outstretched to balance against the rocky walls. It had called this place home, but she was wondering now if what it actually meant was they had left whatever strange world had housed the water guardian. That surely meant they were somewhere inside the rock that thrust upwards from Lake Baikal.

She had not been cold when she woke, not in the snake’s coiled embrace, but she shivered now. A swimming costume was not exactly the ideal garment for exploration of a mysterious underworld, and she hadn’t kept hold of the shimmery blanket when they’d stepped through the glowing archway because it had been soaked through. Or maybe she hadn’t even picked it back up after she nearly slid into the guardian’s pool – everything had happened so quickly in those last confusing moments. Either way, though she was barely dressed, the chill that cut through her bare arms and legs now carried the promise of a bite far colder than Baikal’s waters had been. Although maybe at least a little of the sensation was actually fear.

Because if they weren’t under the rock on the lake, she didn’t want to think about what might lay above.

When they eventually reached a fork in the darkness, Neme suddenly shot off at an upward incline, the light bouncing spirals and shadows all around as it left her behind. For a moment it loomed like a giant against the wall. But its shadow quickly diminished again as it returned just as fast.

“Smell that?” it asked, paws tapping an impatience dance for her to follow.

Thalia squat in front of it, arms around her knees. Her skin felt like ice under the press of her palms. She could in fact smell nothing, but by the sudden perk of the creature’s demeanour, she presumed that what it meant was fresh air and not an indication of where to find Tristan.

“You’re as lost as I am. Is this the first time you ever left the other place?”

Neme’s ears flattened against its skull, apparently indignant. “You never needed the Nemesyne here,” it bristled, offended. Its tail swished, sending the light dancing, and it blinked its big eyes, looking up above them – where no stars led their way. Its shivery fear only lasted a moment before it returned to imploring her again. “The Tristan is gone. Should have listened to the Nemesyne! Told him so. Come now and follow!”

Thalia’s chin fell to rest on the tops of her knees. Maybe it was actually sensible to leave and find Sierra first. Her eyes were not gold like Tristan’s but she clearly had the same connection to the wolves that followed the both of them, and maybe she would be able to use that to more easily navigate this warren to actually find him. With some despondency Thalia recalled that she had promised to bring him back. It had been Tristan’s own choice to follow into the unknown oblivion beneath the water, and she did not feel guilty about that, but there was a deep clawing feeling in her chest nonetheless – that this ill he suffered now was entirely her fault. Whatever cold creep of memory tried to surface, though, it was swallowed instead with resolution.

“If you won’t help me, Neme, then I’ll just have to do it alone,” she said, as stubbornly as she had declared she was diving the lake in the first place.

The creature did not respond with words. Its lip curled once, flashing razor teeth, and then the darkness around it began to ooze deeper. The red glow of the jewel above its eyes flashed and winked out, and as the after impression of crimson light faded she realised it had actually gone.

Thalia blinked in surprise, hurt at its abandonment at that moment of all moments despite what she’d said. The power-wrought ball dropped and began to roll, spinning past her feet and into the thick shadows beyond, until it hit what appeared to be the impenetrable rock of a deadend. As she watched, the threads that held it together began to unravel and fray, until it disintegrated right through.

As the last of its pale light faded, she crawled after it. The tunnel in this direction led downwards, and when her fingers touched what her eyes had said was rock, they passed right through.

---

It was different and not behind the hidden entrance. In places the walls and floor were as smooth as glass, as though the earth itself had been tamed into submission by an unfathomable power. For some reason she thought of the rearing horses of the Ascendancy’s Arch, then. A flow of red veins cast a dull light, and while the way led down, it fell at an unnatural angle; like the passageway itself had been tipped. But as she descended the biggest difference was the blossom of heat, pleasant at first on her stiff limbs as she wiggled and blew on her sooty fingers, but less so when it began to band around her chest. Every breath drew like a furnace by then. Sweat beaded and slid down the side of her neck.

In places the floor ruptured, oozing actual magma. The first time she encountered it she called out Tristan’s names in the hopes she would not need to continue; the heat off it blazed, and what if he wasn’t even down here? There had been unsettling noises for a while now, like something still a way off thundered a heavy step. She fancied she could actually feel little shuddery vibrations through the entire structure. The whole place might break apart with them still in it, and it seemed a terrible way to die, but escaping without him seemed a worse way to live. Fortunately, though the scalding earth around the fissures sparked her soles, she managed to nimble her way around them. Her feet seemed sure. She ignored the pounding of her own heart.

The tunnel finally ended, widening to a platform encased in darkness and the terrifying glow of a shimmering heat. At the far end, thick bars rose from the ground and disappeared into the pitch blackness above. A gold-eyed face was pressed between them, intense to what lay ahead, and for a moment she was running in relief. Until she realised what Tristan was staring at.

Thalia’s eyes could not easily pierce the veil of shadows from which the shape emerged towards them, but it was large and carried chains that it looped and held in its thick arms. The noise it made as it moved rattled her soul. Certainly it was not a man.

Her legs fell out from underneath her.

“T-T-Trespass,” it intoned. There was nothing pleasant in the scrape of its voice as it passed its judgement upon the soul in its cage. It looked nowhere else but the small mortal it towered above. “You are con-d-d-demned.”

A glow swirled out through the rivers of lava, and for a moment Thalia caught sight of its grotesque face as inscriptions over its skin pulsed in time with the same questing light. Flesh crawled away from its skull, which gleamed black as volcanic glass. There was no beat of power that she recognised, even as the luminescence travelled beneath where she sat and sped into the cage itself. But clearly it did something.

The chains creaked as its grip tightened and released. The creature flinched, expression twitching into a grimace. “An E-E-Error,” it said. “And an anom-m-maly.”

Tristan's golden eyes, wide and unblinking, fixed on the advancing figure as it emerged from the shadows, its form a grotesque mesh of flesh and darkness. The creature, with its skin hanging loosely from a skull black as obsidian, sought him out with a deliberateness that belied its monstrous appearance. Chains clinked and scraped against the stone floor with each step, the sound echoing ominously through the cavern. Tristan's instincts screamed danger, his body tensing as he assessed the jailor. His jailor.

As the creature approached, its intent clear in the steady, unnerving focus of its gaze, Tristan's mind raced. He had no weapon, no tool with which to defend himself. The cell, his block of crystallized magma and stone, offered nothing but its unyielding solidity. His hands, though capable and strong, seemed pitifully inadequate against the might of a being that seemed born from the very bowels of hell.

The monster — for Tristan could think of no other way to describe it — peered deep into the cell, and in that moment, faint script glowed across the tapestry of its leathery hide. Tristan’s golden eyes were drawn to the glow, and every inch of him stiffened such that he could not draw a single breath. He felt as if his own skin was peeled back and his bones beneath examined before the spell broke and he was released to control of his own body once more. He backed away at the voice which followed, bellowing an accent so heavy, Tristan could barely discern it. In fact, he wasn’t sure it spoke at all except that whatever sounds echoed on the chamber, the reverberations entered his mind in a language he understood.

It wasn’t in English.

“O..o..o..óleyfi.” Tristan heard. “Þú ert dæmdur.”

So preoccupied with the monster condemning him to death, he barely recognized Thalia’s arrival. His golden eyes swung straight to where she huddled in the shadows moments before the monster turned to address her. He all but threw his body at the gate, stretching one arm long through the iron bars as if he might grip the monster’s tattered clothing and halt its approach. But for all his strength, the attempt was futile, and he watched powerless, yet the monster all but dismissed Thalia, and moments later, it wrenched a lever upward.

The gate to his cell began to rise, its long spikes dripping with an unearthly substance, scrolling upward in clunky, metallic thumps. Tristan's heart pounded in his chest, not just with fear but with a burgeoning resolve. If this was to be a battle, he would not meet it as a passive victim.

His eyes darted around, searching desperately for any advantage. The gate itself, he realized, was the only moving part in his otherwise static prison. Its mechanism, powered by some unknown enchantment, offered a potential, albeit slim, opportunity. Tristan stepped back into the shadows of his cell, eyes locked on the creature, waiting for the precise moment to act. He silently begged Thalia to stay back.

As the creature stepped beneath the gate, its grotesque face contorted in anticipation of claiming its prisoner, Tristan moved. He lunged forward, his movements fueled by adrenaline and desperation, and slammed his body against the side of the chains that were still laboring, their movement slow and heavy.

The impact jarred Tristan to his core, pain shooting through his shoulder, but the result was instantaneous. The balance of the gate's ancient mechanism was disrupted. With a grinding screech of protesting metal and stone, the gate shuddered and halted momentarily, before giving way to gravity and crashing down.

The creature, caught unawares by the sudden collapse of the gate it had controlled moments before, had no time to react. The spikes, dripping with their sinister substance, impaled the jailor with a horrific death screech, pinning it to the ground beneath the massive weight of the gate.

Tristan stumbled back, his breath ragged, eyes wide as he took in the scene. The creature lay motionless, its life extinguished in a rush of fluid flooding the floor. For a brief, surreal moment, Tristan stood in stunned silence, his survival instinct giving way to the shock of what he had just accomplished.

His heart still thundering in his chest, Tristan approached the fallen creature. The gate was askew from its tracks, and he was too large to slide beneath the spikes that claimed the monster’s life.

Tenuous, he squat near the monstrous skull, surveying the air for scents of life. Upon finding none, he attempted to lift the gate, every muscle in his body straining at the teeth-grinding attempt, but it would not move.

“Thalia, are you there?” He called out. His arm and shoulder throbbed from having dislodged the gate. “It’s stuck. Do you see anything I can use as a lever? Maybe I can wedge it enough to slip out.”

She stared upwards. The abyss of the towering creature’s gaze pinned her rigid, even as it swept past perplexed but ultimately uninterested in her presence. Afterwards she was left motionless not in fear but in confusion at the dissonant buzz of her own thoughts. She will forgive you, the Nemesyne assured, and its promise rang now as a frightening truth she could not place but neither questioned. Instead a powerless wave of anger washed her through as the soul cell’s gate began to rise, and in readiness the warden snapped taut the deimos chains coiled around its forearms. When she realised what it intended, desperate panic filled her. She struggled like a newborn fawn to find her legs enough to stand and hurry after. The 100-hands were not usually so imprecise with their initial probing, but it seemed as inexplicably disorientated as she felt herself right now. Her lungs were burning with just the effort to breathe, let alone summon the mageia to her bidding. To make it forget its intent, at least long enough to beg her Yiayia for clemency.

Instead she found herself flinching hard at the slam and death scream, hands tight over her ears as she scuttled backwards in fear. Tears tracked the streaks of sweat already striping her cheeks. She was not squeamish at the carnage, though her eyes were round in shock at what should not have been possible. Her hands trembled, heart racing. But it was to the shadows from which the creature had come that she looked in horror. For a moment she was utterly convinced they had just brought real catastrophe down upon their own heads; that something far worse would follow to punish the hand’s death. When she finally clawed herself up to standing, it was as a hopeless sentinel to protect against what ultimately never came.

The sound of a name beckoned her back into her own skin, a transition so soft she never even noticed it. When Thalia finally turned she saw the monstrous body anew, swathed in darkness and utterly still beneath the weight of the gate. Impossibly dead. She could barely discern anything else around her by the molten glow in the walls and floor, and where she could, the air shimmered and danced in the oppressive heat, distorting everything into a dark and dizzy haze. But she saw the lucent reflection of Tristan’s eyes like guiding stars, and a little relief settled her restless spirit as she stumbled closer. At least until her hands finally met the unyielding bars of the cage that separated them, and her heart sank with his declaration that the gate was stuck.

“I can barely see anything at all. The tunnel here was empty, just bits of broken floor, like this whole place is falling apart. Above us are ordinary caves,” she told him. “But I could go down and search where it came from. I’ll find something.” The offer was made in quiet but honest earnestness, conjuring hope from resolution alone, though even as she said it the possibility felt remote. She didn’t know why she whispered other than a sense of defiance and danger still lingered – her heart was hammering loudly, pounding in her head. The creature had not been hostile towards her, in fact it had barely acknowledged she was there, and if Neme was right she might at least explore freely. Only it wasn’t why she was afraid.

"Where ever we are, it is old." Tristan looked around, confirming, gaze coming to settle on the passageway Thalia described. As he looked over her head into that darkness she wondered what he might see that she could not, but she already knew she would take the risk and go anyway. Surely it was no more impossible a task than the monstrous creature dead at their feet in the first place, the sludge of its blood now beginning to seep hot under her bare toes. She’d already told Tristan she trusted the journey and wherever it led her, and she did; she’d cast herself wild to the wind countless times since leaving Moscow, come what may of it. But it had always been alone. For that, her hands remained curled around the bars, reluctant to let go. She was hesitant to leave him; more afraid of losing her way than of whatever else might be lurking in the shadows, but most of all afraid of not being able to find him again.

“Did it hurt you?”

"No," he mumbled, clearly lying, only to attempt to jostle the gate once more. When it showed itself as hopelessly stuck, he reached through the bars to cup her face gently, expression drawn. "You may walk out of here and never be able to find your way back. You should go, and keep going, until you find a way out. I won't suffer, I give you my word."

He looked worn. Despite his gentleness she could feel the calluses on his palms, sharp against her skin; solid, and very real in a world that had lost all its normal boundaries. The touch was bittersweet, a connection of reassurance she craved, and one which deepened the breathing in her chest: settling her of turbulence. But though she listened enthralled to the deep timbre of his voice, the words themselves rushed past unheeded. She didn’t want to think about the cold and inevitable grief threatening to unfurl at such a promise, or the way it alarmed her, even as she refused to acknowledge what he might mean by it.

“But I would suffer, knowing,” she said softly. Back in the strange study he’d shared too much of what he believed fate held in store for him, and by the openness of her expression it was clear she’d taken it all for truth and was thinking about it now. It wasn’t the pliability of a soft heart that made her stay; it was a binding made of her own choice, the same simple resolution that made her shrug away Neme’s sensible pleas to abandon a hopeless cause. It might as well have been an etching on her soul. Of course she would stay. Thalia didn’t understand the mystery of him, not even a little, but she was compelled nonetheless by the unseen weight he carried on his shoulders. She wished she could have slipped through the bars, so that it was not his prison alone.

Her hand swept over his against her cheek, and rested there. Quiet resolve did not mean she had given up on thinking furiously for a solution, no matter how defeated he seemed. Impossibility was an inconvenience, and she was good at makeshift hope. Good at being it, when there were no silver linings to be had. Her fingers interlaced through his, only to gently tug his hand loose, turning it palm up to trace the cut he’d made there. When Thalia had rushed towards the guardian at sight of her injury she had been bright with the desire to help, but the instinct left little imprint beyond intention, and she did not know how to recreate it without incentive. Tristan clearly was hurt, whatever he said; Thalia had seen it when he tried to shake the gate free. And while she couldn’t fathom in the shadows exactly what was wrong with him, she realised it was enough to compromise his brutish strength. A lever, if one could be found, was nothing without that. She’d been hoping for a reaction inside herself, but the wound was small and scabbing already; nothing happened to spark her into uncontrolled action, much to her frustration.

“Maybe you should have tied me to that tree,” she said after a moment. When her gaze cast back up to his, it was warm, not hopeless, and a smile curved her lips for whatever she beheld. There was no regret to her tone, despite the dire situation and where it had led them. Because she was glad he had followed her, even now amidst the damage of the consequences, and she found she could not be sorry for it. He might feel differently, being the one in the cage, but Thalia never made great effort to hide the captivation of her own emotions. Which meant it was also clear by the widening of her eyes that something new occurred to her, then. She was silent only a moment longer before it spilled out of her.

“I have a bad idea,” she breathed, curling his fingers closed under her palm, and gently pressing his hand back to him. She reluctantly remembered the blood trickling from the doctor’s nose (don’t think about it) and Tristan’s own blunt admission that she was clumsy as her touch skated the bars in front of her, wondering. It came in flurries of need, but less commonly to a conscious call, because she nearly always fell into it by instinct not purpose. In fact she’d never tried to actually do anything much with it – floating balls of light to see, bubbles of colour to entertain the lonely child on the grounds outside the church. Even now she heard Patricus’s admonishment, made out of care and more or less heeded since, because Thalia had no great desire for power. But like the entire world she’d seen it; the capability, when the Ascendancy announced his gifts to the world and melted Lenin’s tomb.

“Stand back, though. I don’t want to accidentally hurt you.” The words were whispered on anxious tides, but she was already falling back into the state which welcomed the power in. She didn’t want to hear him warn her away from the risk, nor would she listen if he did – she was already tumbling towards the attempt, come what may.

Now Thalia really looked, she became aware of a residue woven into the volcanic rock of the bars, else something that had been unravelling and fading since the death of the creature impaled under the gate. Caution squeezed her heart, but it felt like something distant, and she needed every ounce of her focus. The first thread she drew on was not a stable one, perhaps because the power always felt like it came from outside of her, and the chamber itself was hot and acrid as an oven. She felt it collect and weave around her before she pressed it in. After a moment something inside gave way. It felt like a tripwire, and she could not say if it faded with the rest or was simply released like a last dying breath. But she didn’t pause to worry what it meant.

She’d only ever seen the videofeed broadcasts of the Ascendancy creating his Arch. Thalia didn’t have anything like that kind of power of course, but this wasn’t art – it was desperation. When heat stung her hands, still touching the bars in curious hope of her having any effect, she made a sound of surprised pain and sprang back. A moment later she stumbled away from the red hot puddle beginning to spread from the melting bars. It wasn’t elegant, and she was hurrying as fast as she dared now that she realised it was working, like she still feared something might hurtle from the darkness to stop them. The exhilaration was wild in her chest.

She blinked when it was done, having stared for so long at the incendiary glow of the work that her eyes felt momentarily nightblind. Her breath came ragged, eyes stinging. The effort felt physical, legs left wobbly, but the surprised joy of the accomplishment surpassed the concern. She cooled the red-hot pool, tested its lingering heat with her bare foot without thinking (fortunately cool enough). Above it arched a hole in the gate, though Tristan would likely have to crouch. Even she would have to duck. She reached a hand in through the darkness to guide, forgetting he could see far better than she could.

“Is it enough? Can you fit through?”

[[Tristan's action/dialogue written by him]]

Tristan stared at Thalia with a mixture of awe and trepidation as she spoke, but the pounding of his heart began to slow as the gravity of their situation settled in. The dead jailor lay crumpled beneath the gate, a grotesque mountain to their desperate struggle. Tristan could see the toll the encounter had taken on Thalia; her face was streaked with sweat and tears, her hands trembling from the effort of summoning the mageia. He felt a pang of guilt for his helplessness, trapped within the bars while she risked herself to free him.

He listened to her, noting the urgency and resolve in her voice. She was determined to find a way out, and ensure that he was at her side when she did. Tristan's eyes, still glowing with their wolf-like intensity, softened as he cupped her face through the bars, feeling the warmth of her skin against his calloused palms. He wanted to tell her to be careful, to avoid the same fate as the creature they had just defeated, but he knew better than to try to dissuade her. Thalia was as stubborn as she was brave.

As Thalia stepped back, preparing herself for another attempt to manipulate the bars, Tristan withdrew similarly and watched her intently. Her focus was palpable, the air around her crackling with energy as she drew on the power within and around her. Tristan held his breath, knowing this was their last chance.

When Thalia finally unleashed the mageia, the effect was immediate. The bars glowed red-hot, then began to melt, pooling into a molten mass on the floor. Heat radiated from the metal, and although his instincts screamed at him to back away, he stayed close, ready to act the moment the path was clear.

As the bars gave way, forming an arch just large enough to crawl through, Thalia reached a hand into the darkness, her voice laced with hope. Tristan didn't need the guidance of her hand, his eyes capable of piercing the dimness better than hers, but he appreciated the gesture, the tangible connection between them.

"It's enough," he said, his voice firm despite the tremor of relief that coursed through him. "I'll fit." He declared though he wasn’t completely confident.

With a cautious glance at the cooling molten metal, Tristan crouched and began to squeeze through the opening. The residual heat bit at his skin like knives, but he pushed through, driven by the necessity of escape. Once on the other side, he stood, taking a moment to stretch his limbs and shake off the confinement of the cell.

He turned to Thalia, a grateful smile on his lips. "You did it," he said softly, awe evident in his tone. "You really did it."

Before they could share another moment, the oppressive surroundings was shattered by a distant sound. He turned his head, straining to listen. From the shadows beyond the molten glow, the unmistakable noise of footsteps echoed, heavy and deliberate. Accompanying it was the metallic scrape of chains being dragged across stone, the sound resonating like a death knell. The sound was distant even to his ears.

Tristan's body tensed. They had little time before whatever new threat was coming found them. He reached out and took Thalia's hand, squeezing it firmly. “Let’s go before something else finds us.”

He acquiesced to the direction Thalia led, but the whole journey, his senses were tuned to any other movements waiting around the next corner. Eventually, he sniffed the distant call of fresh air.

Relief flooded through her, bringing with it a tide of giddy exhilaration. Meanwhile the power swept away whether she cared to release it or not. Thalia’s wobbly legs wanted nothing more than to fold underneath her, but she wasn’t sure she’d easily stand again if she did. Instead she caught her breath while Tristan flexed into renewed freedom, her smile bright and unguarded with joy. It felt indescribably triumphant. She’d seen him grin sometimes, when lighter moods pierced the sombre caution that ruled his judgement of their strange travels, but his smile then, in this place of darkness, made her flutter warmly inside.

Whatever made him pause and tense a moment later, Thalia couldn’t hear it, but she trusted his instincts like they were an extension of her own. Fear had receded though, leaving only certainty despite the oppressive shadows and the creature’s cooling corpse by their feet. She squeezed his hand in return, and welcomed him into the current of motion that would see them free – far less cautious than he as she led him to retrace her steps.

If his shoulder pained him on the journey he said nothing, and for now she did not ask him about it again. Soon she was talking of her memories of waking instead: the enormous snake-like creature that had been coiled around her; how large a single scale had been under her hand, and how her whole arm moved with the weight of its breath. She offered no rumination on what it had been, or where they were, or how they had been separated. Rather she lingered on the small treasures, content to have someone with which to share the things which fascinated her.

By the time they reached the junction where the Nemesyne had left her, their roles reversed as naturally as day shifting to night. Thalia hugged herself loosely as the temperature began to plummet, and she trailed closely after him as he sought them a path through the natural tunnels. The closing jaws of whatever reality they returned to was not exactly welcome, yet she did not look back. Adventurous of spirit as she was, she had no desire to become lost.

One thing became rapidly clear as they left the blistering prison behind. It was cold. Colder by far than Baikal had been when they left it. She didn’t ask the obvious question, but it began to circle around her thoughts. Tristan must be wondering the same.

Where were they?

They emerged into the hollow of a cave, sheltered from the worst of the elements. Breath already ached Thalia’s chest, but for a moment at least curiosity led her onwards. In the weak light she noticed her hands were sooty dark to the forearms, but she barely noticed the oddness as she curled them around herself. A wild fall of curls blanketed down her shoulders, but it was meagre comfort; she shivered in her own skin. And still stared out, wide-eyed; a little in awe, a little in fear.

Beyond the cave mouth, utter desolation greeted them.

Volcanic ash striped the snow dark. A few abandoned buildings littered the distant vista, some mere carcasses of whatever they had once been, and large cylinders struck the earth like the carelessly flung toys of a giant. Grey water churned behind the black sand of a curling cove. Nothing stirred, just the solitary beat of her own heart.