The cold subterranean river rushed past our boots with a heavy, hollow roar.
The damp air inside the limestone canyon was freezing, smelling of ancient silt, wet stone, and sulfur.
I adjusted the leather straps across my chest, ensuring Seraphina was firmly secured against my back.
Her wet cheek rested against the side of my neck, her breathing shallow and cold from the freezing spray.
"Hold onto my coat," I murmured, my voice low over the sound of rushing water. "Keep your hands tucked inside my collar to share body heat."
"I have you," Seraphina whispered back.
Her arms were stiff from the paralyzing poison, but she hooked her fingers tightly into the sturdy seams of my torn jacket.
Ahead of us, Isolde led the way along the narrow, slick rock shelf.
For the first time since we met, she did not stumble.
Her eyes glowed with a faint, steady light in the pitch-black cavern.
She stepped over jagged granite outcroppings with easy grace, her gaze scanning the dark water and the high rock walls above.
Faint clusters of blue-green glowing moss clung to the ceiling high above, casting a dim, ghost-like illumination across the underground gorge.
"The ledge narrows twenty yards ahead," Isolde called softly over her shoulder. "Step where I step. The black moss on the lower stones is slick as oil."
"Understood," I replied, keeping my boots firmly planted on the dry, chalky limestone.
Every step sent a dull ache through my ribs, but the newly evolved Abyssal-Forged Mana Core thrummed steadily in my chest.
The dense black star in my core radiated a quiet, protective warmth, circulating through my bloodstream and keeping hypothermia at bay.
I channeled a thin stream of that stable warmth into the straps touching Seraphina’s shoulders.
She let out a soft, trembling breath as the bone-chilling cold began to lift from her chest.
"Your core," Seraphina murmured, her lips brushing my ear. "It feels different from before. It is not wild or burning. It is deep and calm."
"It ate the demonic fragment Silas threw at us," I said plainly. "The Abyssal Crucible turned it into raw fuel."
"You took a lethal curse with your bare hands," Isolde said, pausing on a flat boulder to look back at us.
Her face was pale in the dark, framed by wet black hair, but her eyes were clear and sharp.
"In House Draven, anyone who touched a living fragment of the Abyss had their flesh rotted to bone in seconds," she continued, her voice filled with quiet disbelief. "Yet your hands are healed."
"I am built differently," I told her with a faint smirk.
’The Wife Investment System does not let its host die so easily.’
Isolde looked down at her own pale hands, flexing her fingers in the damp gloom.
"The black smoke that used to blind me is gone," she whispered. "The bond Vane placed on my optic nerves is shattered. But I can still feel the frost sleeping deep in my core."
"The acute curse is dead," I explained, stepping onto the flat boulder beside her.
"The spy link Vane used to track you is broken.
But the bloodline cold in your veins will take time to fully balance.
As long as we stay together, my core will keep it in check."
Isolde gave a small nod, a rare softness touching the corners of her lips before she turned back toward the dark path.
"Then I will keep watching the road for you," she said.
We continued our slow trek deeper into the subterranean canyon.
High above us, the fissure where we had fallen was completely lost in the impenetrable darkness.
The storm raging on the surface could not reach us down here.
Silas and his fifty surviving mercenaries would search the cliff edge in vain, convinced the raging river and jagged rocks had crushed our bones.
We had bought ourselves time, but we needed dry shelter and warmth before exhaustion set in.
The rocky path sloped downward, following the natural curve of the underground river.
Jagged stalactites hung from the cavern roof like stone daggers, dripping mineral water into the deep pools below.
I paused for a brief moment to rest against a dry limestone pillar, checking our meager supplies.
The leather water skin was still intact, filled with clean water from the upper spring.
The dry rations from the fallen templar captain were slightly damp at the edges, but the hard wheat biscuits remained edible.
I broke off a piece of the biscuit and offered it to Seraphina.
She leaned forward, taking the bread between her lips and chewing slowly.
"Thank you, Cassian," she said quietly, her golden amber eyes meeting mine in the gloom. "I can feel the warmth from your core spreading down to my waist. The numbness in my spine is not as choking as before."
"We will find a way to break the rest of the curse," I promised her, gently brushing a wet strand of golden blonde hair from her forehead. "One step at a time."
Isolde stood a few paces ahead, keeping watch over the dark river.
She held the iron dagger loosely in her right hand, her shadow mana coiling faintly around her boots.
"The silence down here is strange," Isolde remarked softly. "For months, the only world I knew was darkness and the sound of footsteps coming to hurt me. Seeing the stone, the water, and the light... it makes the world feel real again."
"You don’t have to hide in the dark anymore," I said, walking up to her side.
She looked at me, her violet eyes holding a mixture of fierce pride and emerging trust.
"I have no intention of hiding," Isolde said, a dangerous smirk returning to her face. "When the time comes, Cardinal Vane will pay for every single day I spent in the dark."
After another ten minutes of picking our way along the winding riverbank, the air began to shift noticeably.
The bitter, icy draft from the upper canyon was replaced by a gentle, humid current of warm air.
A faint scent of sulfur and thermal minerals drifted through the tunnel.
"Do you smell that?" Seraphina asked, lifting her chin from my shoulder.
"Sulfur and warm mineral water," I confirmed. "There is a geothermal spring somewhere just ahead."
Isolde moved quickly toward a sharp bend in the river canyon where the rock walls widened into a massive chamber.
She stepped to the edge of the limestone ledge, her eyes scanning the warm mist rising off the boiling water.
"The cavern ahead is huge," Isolde called back, her voice dropping into a tense whisper. "The hot spring fills the center of the grotto. But we are not alone."
"What is it?" I asked, quickening my pace while keeping one hand on the hilt of my shortsword.
Isolde raised her hand, signaling for absolute silence.
"Hundreds of them," Isolde whispered, her violet eyes glowing with a sharp light in the dark mist. "Along the riverbank. Waiting in the water."