Chapter 237

Agnes

Dawn had barely broken over the horizon when we set out the next morning. Elijah and I had woken early, checked in on a still-sleeping Thea, and met James and Lena in the foyer. James had prepared a backpack full of supplies—ropes, flashlights, water bottles, and energy bars.

Richard had been surprisingly understanding when we’d explained that we wanted to explore some more local hiking trails. He’d even offered to keep an eye on Thea along with our security team.

The morning air was crisp and cool as we made our way through the forest. Lena took the lead, navigating the trails with confidence. I found myself grateful for her presence; without her, we would have been relying solely on the vague directions from the letter.

“It’s about a two-hour hike to the north ridge,” Lena explained as we walked. “The trail gets a bit rough in places, so we’ll need to be careful.”

She wasn’t exaggerating. As we moved deeper into the forest, the well-worn path gradually gave way to more challenging terrain. Roots crisscrossed the ground, tripping us if we weren’t vigilant, and in some places, the trail narrowed so much that we had to walk single file.

“Did you really explore these woods as a child?” I asked Lena after we’d been hiking for about an hour. The forest had grown denser, the canopy overhead blocking much of the morning sunlight.

Lena nodded as she ducked under a low-hanging branch. “All the time. My siblings and I would sneak away whenever we could. Our village was small and there wasn’t much to do, so the forest became our playground.”

“You must have been brave kids,” Elijah remarked from behind me. “These woods are pretty dense.”

“We knew them like the back of our hands,” Lena said with a small shrug. “There was a larger village not far from ours, and sometimes we’d play with the children from there. Hide and seek among the trees, racing to the waterfall—that sort of thing.”

As Lena spoke about her childhood, I couldn’t help but notice something odd about her descriptions. There was no mention of television, video games, or any of the other things that most children growing up in the last couple of decades would have been exposed to.

“The way you talk about it,” I said with a chuckle, “it almost sounds like you grew up in a different time.”

Lena’s steps faltered slightly, and I saw her shoulders tense. But it was just for a moment, and then she was moving forward again.

“Our village was very set in its ways. Very traditional. We didn’t have much in the way of modern conveniences.”

“Is that why your family never received any of the Omega aid that Richard mentioned?” James asked from the back of our line.

Lena nodded without turning around. “Probably.”

I thought about what she’d told me before—about her parents dying because the pack’s healers had prioritized the higher-ranking members. Perhaps if her village had been more connected to the pack, her parents would have received the medical attention they needed. But I kept that thought to myself, not wanting to cause her any more pain.

The trail grew steeper as we approached the north ridge, the incline forcing us to dig our heels into the soft earth to maintain our footing. By the time we reached a particularly challenging section, my legs were burning from the exertion.

“We’ll need to do a bit of climbing here,” Lena announced, pointing to a rocky outcrop ahead of us. “It’s not too bad, but we’ll need to be careful.”

The “bit of climbing” turned out to be more intense than I’d anticipated. The rocks were slick with morning dew, and in some places, the handholds were barely wide enough to grip properly. My heart raced as I pulled myself up, painfully aware of the drop below me.

Elijah stayed close behind me, his hand occasionally brushing my leg or back to guide me or steady me when I faltered. James proved surprisingly agile, scaling the rocks with relative ease. But he was nothing compared to Lena, who climbed the wall as if she had done is a thousand times before.

“Almost there,” Lena called down to us from the top of the outcrop. She’d made the climb look effortless. How the hell did she do that?

With a final burst of effort, I hauled myself over the edge, collapsing onto my back with a gasp. Elijah joined me a moment later.

“That was more challenging than I expected,” I admitted, sitting up and taking a long drink from my water bottle.

“Worth it, though,” Lena said, gesturing ahead of us.

She was right. Beyond the outcrop, the forest opened up to reveal a stunning vista. The north ridge stretched out in a rugged line of cliffs cutting through the dense greenery. And there, in the distance, a sliver of white falling against the rocks—the waterfall.

“Is that it?” I asked, pointing.

Lena nodded. “That’s our destination.”

The final leg of our journey took us along the ridge, a narrow path that hugged the cliffside. The sound of the waterfall grew louder as we approached. It was stunning.

Water cascaded down from above, falling at least fifty feet into a clear pool below. Mist rose from where the water met the pool, cooling the sweat on my neck. The beauty of it momentarily distracted me, and I took a few minutes to just take it all in.

“The cave should be behind the waterfall,” James finally said, consulting the letter once more. “Beyond the waterfall and through the narrow passage—”

Lena was already moving, picking her way carefully around the pool’s edge toward the curtain of water. “There’s a ledge here,” she called back to us. “We can use it to get behind the falls.”

Too exhausted to ask how she seemed to know it like the back of her hand, I followed her, with Elijah and James close behind. The ledge was slippery and narrow, barely wide enough for us to edge along it sideways with our backs pressed against the wet rock wall. The roar of the waterfall was deafening now, and the mist soaked through my clothes almost instantly.

And then we were through, standing in a small, damp alcove behind the curtain of water. The light that filtered through the falls gave everything a ghostly blue glow.

“There,” James said, pointing to a dark opening at the back of the alcove. “That must be the entrance to the cave system.”

We switched on our flashlights before entering the cave. The beam of light revealed a narrow passage that seemed to tunnel deep into the heart of the ridge. The air was cool and damp, with the smell of wet stone permeating everything.

“Stay close,” Elijah said as we began our descent. “These passages could twist and turn in unexpected ways.”

Indeed, the cave narrowed as we progressed, the ceiling dropping so low in places that we had to crouch or even crawl. The passage branched several times, forcing us to make decisions about which way to go. But all the while, Lena led us confidently.

“Have you been in these caves before?” I asked her during a brief rest.

She hesitated before answering. “Once or twice, when I was younger. Never very deep, though.”

We continued on, the passage growing darker and narrower as we went. The walls pressed in from both sides, and at times I had to turn sideways to squeeze through particularly narrow sections. I felt my anxiety spiking at one point when I had to wedge myself between the stones.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if we should turn back—if this whole expedition had been a mistake—the passage suddenly widened.

And then we emerged into a chamber so vast that our flashlights couldn’t reach the other side. The ceiling soared above us, disappearing into darkness, and the floor dropped away to reveal a pool of water that almost seemed to glow with its own pale blue light.

“The pool of clearest blue water,” James murmured, quoting the letter. “This is it.”

We approached the edge of the pool cautiously. The water was indeed remarkably clear—I could see straight to the bottom despite its depth. And there, resting on a small underwater ledge not far from the shore, was the object that was causing the ethereal blue glow.

A stone.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “It’s really here.”

“I’ll get it,” Elijah said, already removing his jacket. He quickly stripped down to his underwear, setting his clothes and boots in a neat pile on a dry rock. Lena quickly turned away, and despite everything, I couldn’t help but smirk as I watched my mate undress.

“Be careful,” I said as he approached the edge of the pool. “We don’t know how deep it is, or if there are currents.”

Elijah gave me a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine, Agnes. It doesn’t look too far down.”

With that, he dove into the water. The pool swallowed him up, his form becoming a dark shape below the surface as he kicked his way deeper.

I watched anxiously as he swam toward the gleaming object, my heart pounding in my chest. The seconds ticked by, feeling like hours. Elijah reached the ledge and seemed to be examining the stone, perhaps checking for traps or triggers.

Then he reached out to grasp it.

And nothing happened. No flash of light, no tremor in the earth. He simply picked it up and began to swim back toward the surface.

But he didn’t resurface immediately. In fact, as I watched his dark form moving through the water, he seemed to be swimming slower, as if the stone was weighing him down. Or as if something was holding him back.

Then, suddenly, the light went out. The cavern was cast into darkness, the only light that of our flashlights.

“Elijah?” I rushed forward alongside James. “Elijah!”

No response. No light. No movement.

One of us was going to have to go in after him.