Chapter 134: The crown’s weight

Kai’s POV

The stronghold is coming down faster than I thought.

Dust fills my throat. Burns my eyes. The smell of blood and crushed stone is so thick I can taste it...metallic and bitter on my tongue. I carry Ophelia through the collapsing corridors. She’s out cold. The bandage on her side is soaked through with blood from Damien’s blade. Warm blood seeps into my shirt with every step, sticky and hot against my skin.

My own body is screaming. I’m barely recovered from the ceiling that almost crushed me. The deep ache in my ribs flares with every breath. I held our baby so tightly as she was strapped to my chest in a torn shirt I ripped up. Her tiny body is warm against me, soft and fragile. That heat is the only thing keeping me moving.

Damien limps behind us, one arm hanging useless. Eve covers our backs, snarling at anything that gets close. The walls shake harder. Small rocks rain down and bounce off my shoulders, sharp edges scraping skin.

“Keep moving!” Eve shouts. Her voice is raw and cracked from the dust. “We’re almost at the surface! Don’t stop!”

“I’ve got her,” I growl. My arms are shaking from the weight and the blood loss. “Just clear the path.”

Damien coughs hard, the sound is loud and painful. “The whole lower level is going to come down. Faster.”

We burst into the open air just as the failsafe detonates.

The mountain stretched longer.

A deep tearing sound rises from under the ground, vibrating up through the soles of my boots. Shockwaves rip through the rock. The ground splits open under my feet with a violent crack. I throw myself over Ophelia and her baby, covering them with my body as drops of rain came down. Vai howls in pure agony inside my head. The sound is so loud it feels like my skull is cracking open.

Rain and dirt filled the air as if the air is ripped from my lungs. Dust forces its way into my mouth and nose until I can’t breathe, coating my tongue in grit. Cold air presses against my back. I lock my arms around Ophelia’s still body and the tiny shape of our child. I will not let go.

When the shaking finally stops, the world is quiet except for the soft sound of falling rock and the baby’s thin, scared cry against my chest. The cry is high and desperate, vibrating through my bones.

I dig myself out first. My hands are already bleeding. The stone cuts deep into my palms, sharp and wet. The baby is still against me, crying, her small fists curled tight. Ophelia is gone.

A massive stone slab has fallen between us. She’s on the other side. Buried under the mountain.

“Ophelia!”

The scream tears out of my throat so hard it hurts. I throw myself at the debris, tearing at it with my hands and claws. Blood runs down my fingers and drips onto the broken stone, warm and slick. I don’t care. I dig harder. The smell of her blood is stronger now sharp cutting through the dust.

Damien drops beside me even though his arm is clearly broken. His face is full of pain. He digs with his good hand, teeth clenched. “I’ve got this side. Keep going. She’s under here. I can smell her blood.”

“Help me move this,” I snarl. My voice doesn’t even sound like mine. “Now.”

Eve drops to her knees on the other side, ignoring the blood still running down her body. “I’ve got the left edge. On three.”

We dig until our hands are raw and shaking. The stone finally shifts enough to expose her face. Dust covers her skin in a thick gray layer. Her lips are blue. Her chest is still.

She’s not breathing.

My heart completely shatters. The world stops. Everything goes silent except the baby crying and my own broken breathing. I drop to my knees beside her. The cold ground bites into my legs. I tip her head back. I breathe into her mouth. The taste of dust and blood fills me. I push on her chest. One. Two. Three. Breathe. Again. One. Two. Three. Breathe.

I beg the Moon Goddess out loud like a desperate fool.

“Please. Don’t take her. Not after everything. Please. I’ll do anything. Just give her back. Please.”

The baby screams against my chest as if she knows. The sound is high and sharp and full of something that doesn’t belong to a newborn. It cuts through the dust and the blood and the fear, raw and piercing.

Ophelia’s mark flares bright silver.

Light pours out of the crescent on the back of her neck. It floods the broken ground in a sudden wave so bright I have to close my eyes. Heat follows the light, washing over my face. She chokes hard on dust and gasps. Her chest rises. Her eyes fly open. They find mine first wild and confused then her baby still strapped to me, then the ruined mountain around us.

Her voice is cracked and barely there, but the words are clear.

“We must stop The Architect… He possesses our baby’s blood.”