Chapter 17. Thorne’s Warning

Aeryn’s fingers stayed pressed against the throne’s crooked spine, each knuckle whitening as she leaned forward. The stone was colder than the damp air around her—as though the throne exhaled a frost-laced warning into the chamber. Tiny beads of condensation formed where her skin met the rock, glinting in the torchlight like tears. Through her palm she felt it: a slow withdrawal of the gnarled roots braided into the walls, curling back on themselves as though muscles bracing for a blow. The shiver that ran down her arm carried no fear—only the sharp thrill of recognition, a messenger from the thing that slept beneath all this weight of rock and earth.

Her pulse remained steady. She noted the steady drum in her temples rather than the quiver she might have expected. She was never the sort to falter. Not here. Not now.

Thorne did not advance. He lingered at the chamber’s mouth, where the thick tendrils of root surrendered to bare, slick stone. The glow of Aeryn’s torch poo