White.
There was nothing else.
No stone beneath my boots.
No cavern around me.
No Raiden standing only an arm's length away.
Just endless, blinding white.
For one terrible heartbeat, I wondered if I had made a mistake.
If reaching for the relic at the same time had been the wrong choice.
If the Earth Goddess had expected one of us to surrender it to the other.
Then—
Warmth brushed against my fingers.
Not magic.
Not the bond.
Skin.
Raiden.
Our hands were still there.
Somewhere inside all that impossible light, our fingers had landed on the relic at the exact same moment.
Neither of us pulled away.
The white began to fade.
Green bled slowly through it.
First as thin veins.
Then light.
Then stone.
The cavern returned around us piece by piece.
And there, suspended between our hands, was the completed Earth Relic.
My breath caught.
It was beautiful.
Not polished.
Not perfect.
Ancient.
Veins of emerald crystal ran through dark stone, pulsing beneath the surface like a heartbeat.
Raiden's fingers rested against one side.
Mine against the other.
Our fingertips brushing against eachother.
Neither of us moved.
I looked at him.
He was already looking at me.
For the briefest moment, everything that had happened before the relic flashed between us.
You are my destined mate.
I'd finally said it.
After carrying the truth alone for so long...
I'd said it.
And he knew.
Gods.
He knew everything.
Or at least enough.
His mother.
His scar.
Us.
The memories he'd lost.
The love he'd forgotten.
My heart squeezed.
This was not how I'd imagined telling him.
Not trapped beneath a mountain while a magical prison threatened to crush us into paste.
Then again...
Nothing about Raiden and me had ever happened the way it should.
His eyes dropped toward the relic.
"So."
I swallowed.
"So."
"Which one of us moves?"
"I don't know."
"Helpful."
"You don't know either."
"No."
The corner of my mouth lifted.
"Then we're equally useless."
"I would argue I'm slightly less useless."
"Of course you would."
Something almost resembling a smile touched his face.
It disappeared quickly.
His attention returned to the relic.
Mine followed.
The Earth Goddess had told us the choice was ours.
Except neither of us had chosen.
We had reached together.
I waited.
Nothing happened.
Then—
Crack.
I froze.
Raiden's eyes snapped toward the relic.
A thin fracture had appeared through its center.
"No."
Another crack.
Louder.
"Raiden—"
"I see it."
"What did we do?"
"I don't know."
The fracture raced from the top of the relic to the bottom.
Emerald light poured through it.
I instinctively tried to pull my hand away.
I couldn't.
My palm was locked against the stone.
"Raiden."
His jaw tightened.
"I can't move either."
Of course.
Because apparently surviving the trials hadn't been enough.
We were going to be murdered by the prize.
"Wonderful."
The relic split.
Not shattered.
Split.
Perfectly.
One half beneath my hand.
One beneath Raiden's.
For half a heartbeat, they hovered there.
Then both pieces dissolved.
"What—"
Emerald light surged into my palm.
I screamed.
Not from pain.
From—
Everything.
The cavern disappeared.
My body disappeared.
For one impossible moment...
I was beneath the world.
I felt mountains pressing downward.
Roots twisting through soil.
Underground rivers carving paths through stone.
I felt seeds buried in darkness waiting patiently for warmth.
I felt bones.
Ancient cities.
Graves.
Forests that had existed before kingdoms had names.
Every footstep that had ever pressed into soil.
Every structure raised from stone.
Every wall destroyed and rebuilt.
Earth wasn't still.
That was what everyone misunderstood.
Earth moved.
Slowly.
Patiently.
But constantly.
Mountains rose.
Cliffs crumbled.
Continents shifted.
Roots cracked stone.
Life emerged from darkness and eventually returned to it.
The sheer enormity of it crushed the breath from me.
Then something moved beneath my feet.
Not physically.
Inside me.
A pathway opening.
A door I hadn't known existed.
And through it came a voice.
Warm.
Ancient.
Amused.
"There you are."
My eyes flew open.
I was on my knees.
Both palms pressed against the cavern floor.
Emerald light raced through cracks spreading outward beneath me.
I gasped.
"Well..."
I knew that voice.
"...that's new."
A sharp inhale came from my right.
Raiden.
I twisted.
He was kneeling too.
One fist braced against the ground.
Green light crawled beneath his skin before disappearing under the sleeve of his coat.
His eyes were wide.
Not frightened.
Raiden rarely looked frightened.
Utterly confused.
"Tell me you heard that."
I stared at him.
"You heard her?"
His expression flattened.
"That is not the response I was hoping for."
A laugh bubbled out of me.
I couldn't help it.
After everything—
the troll,
the prison,
the whispers,
the separation,
nearly being crushed,
confessing that the infuriating man in front of me was my mate—
Raiden looking genuinely offended that another deity had gained access to his thoughts was somehow what broke me.
I laughed.
He glared.
"Am I amusing."
"a little."
"There is another god in my head."
"Goddess."
Raiden went completely still.
My laughter became worse.
His eyes narrowed.
"Did she just correct me?"
I covered my mouth.
"Yes."
Accuracy matters.
"Please stop encouraging her."
"I didn't say anything."
"You laughed."
"That's not encouragement."
"It absolutely is."
The Earth Goddess's amusement rolled through the new connection.
Not quite laughter.
Something deeper.
Like distant stone shifting beneath the ground.
Raiden looked vaguely betrayed.
I pushed myself upright.
"She's not actually inside your head."
His stare moved slowly toward me.
"Lyra."
"What?"
"I can hear her."
"I know."
"Inside my head."
"Technically—"
"Do not technically me."
I bit my lip.
He pointed toward himself.
"I have spent over half a year with one unwanted immortal voice commenting on my decisions. I have no desire to begin collecting them."
The humor disappeared.
Mortimer.
I reached instinctively for the bond.
Nothing.
Still gone.
And judging by Raiden's expression...
Mortimer was still absent too.
The thought should have relieved me.
Instead, unease settled low in my stomach.
I looked at Raiden.
"It's different."
His irritation faded slightly.
"What is?"
"The gods."
I touched my chest.
"The relics don't put them inside you. Not really."
I searched for the right words.
"It's more like..."
"A doorway?"
The Earth Goddess supplied.
I blinked.
"Yes."
Raiden sighed.
I ignored him.
"The relic opens a channel. We can reach their power through it, and they can reach us."
His brow furrowed.
"We?"
I hesitated.
"It's we now."
His eyes dropped briefly to his hand, then returned to mine.
Understanding settled across his face.
"Fire. Water. And now Earth."
Of course he'd put it together that quickly.
This was Raiden.
He could be infuriating, arrogant, and occasionally impossible, but stupid had never been one of his flaws.
"Three gods," he said.
Not a question.
I nodded.
"Three."
The lie slipped out far too easily.
Or maybe it wasn't technically a lie.
Three gods had come through relics.
The fourth...
She was different.
Moonlight flashed through my thoughts.
Silver eyes.
A voice older and softer than the others.
A presence that had found me long before I understood what any of this meant.
I pushed the thought away.
Raiden had learned enough truths about me for one day.
There were some things I still didn't understand well enough to explain.
And the Moon Goddess was one of them.
Interesting.
The Earth Goddess's voice drifted through my thoughts.
I resisted the urge to glare at absolutely nothing.
Don't.
Her amusement deepened.
Some truths need time.
Raiden was still watching me.
Too closely.
"What they say?"
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"Nothing."
"That isn't your nothing face."
"I don't have a nothing face."
"You do."
I folded my arms.
"You've been able to hear a goddess for all of five seconds and you're already an expert?"
"No."
"I'm beginning to understand why you occasionally stare into space as though arguing with yourself."
"I do not."
"You absolutely do."
"Well..."
I slapped him on the shoulder playfully.
"Now you can join me."
"I would rather not."
Too late.
Raiden closed his eyes.
I smiled.
Then the cavern shifted.
The humor vanished.
A pulse rolled outward from beneath our feet.
My new connection to Earth responded instantly.
I felt the cavern.
Not merely the stone touching my boots.
All of it.
Every fracture.
Every crystal vein.
Every layer of rock surrounding us.
My breath caught.
I lifted one hand.
The stone answered.
A thin emerald line raced across the floor toward me.
Small green shoots pushed through cracks that hadn't existed seconds earlier.
Leaves unfurled.
Tiny.
Delicate.
Alive.
I stared.
"Raiden..."
A violent crack answered from behind me.
I spun.
A section of the cavern wall had split from floor to ceiling.
Raiden stood before it, hand extended.
His expression mirrored mine.
He hadn't touched it.
The stone had simply...
broken.
Not randomly.
Precisely.
A clean fault line cut through the rock.
The Earth Goddess's presence settled between us.
Warm.
Observant.
My vines curled around my boots.
Stone fragments hovered around Raiden's hand.
Raiden looked toward me.
I looked toward him.
Neither of us spoke.
We didn't need to.
Something impossible had happened.
Again.
The Earth Relic hadn't chosen.
It had accepted us both.
"Why?"
No answer.
"Goddess?"
Silence.
Of course.
Gods loved cryptic nonsense right until you actually needed an explanation.
Raiden lowered his hand.
The floating stones dropped.
"You seem surprised."
"I am."
"Why?"
"Because you're holding half my element."
His eyebrows rose.
"Your element?"
"You know what I mean."
"I believe the Earth Goddess might disagree with your claim of ownership."
"Don't start."
His mouth twitched.
For just a moment...
everything felt normal.
Then the mountain moved.
Power slammed into me.
Fire.
Water.
Ice.
Every channel burst open at once.
I cried out.
The bond returned.
Not gradually.
Not gently.
It snapped back into place.
Raiden.
His shock crashed through me.
His confusion.
His exhaustion.
His—
Longing.
My breath stopped.
The emotion was so clear that I almost stumbled.
His eyes found mine.
He felt me too.
And now...
We knew what the thread was.
Not strange magic.
Not some unexplained connection created by prophecy.
Mates.
The shared truth changed the feeling of it.
Made every pulse through the thread seem louder.
More intimate.
More real.
Raiden stared at me.
I could feel his disbelief.
His fear.
His confusion.
And beneath all of it...
something warm that made my chest ache.
Then—
Cold.
It slid through the bond like black water.
Raiden stiffened.
No.
His expression changed.
Barely.
But I knew him.
I knew.
Mortimer.
The darkness curled around the edges of Raiden's emotions.
His jaw clenched.
His hands closed into fists.
Through the bond, I felt something that wasn't mine.
Wasn't Raiden's.
Ancient.
Suspicious.
Furious.
Raiden's face went blank.
Too blank.
Then his eyes flicked toward me.
"What?" I whispered.
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
I felt the sudden spike of fear through the bond.
Not fear of Mortimer.
Fear of what Mortimer might learn.
The Earth Goddess went strangely quiet.
Listening.
Raiden's breathing changed.
Then his expression hardened.
I knew someone had spoken.
Mortimer.
Raiden turned away from me.
I reached for his hand.
His fingers closed around mine immediately.
Instinct.
Even now.
Even with Mortimer back.
He reached for me.
"Raiden."
His eyes met mine.
There were a thousand things between us now.
Things said.
Things remembered.
Things stolen.
Things neither of us knew how to fix.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this," he admitted quietly.
The honesty broke something in me.
"You don't have to do anything."
His brow furrowed.
"Lyra—"
"Not yet."
I squeezed his hand.
"You just learned that part of your life was taken from you."
His expression tightened.
"I'm not asking you to decide what I mean to you because a mountain forced me to tell you what you mean to me."
Silence.
I swallowed.
"I meant everything I said."
His fingers tightened around mine.
"But those are my feelings."
I looked directly into his eyes.
"Only you can decide what you will do with yours."
Something shifted through the bond.
Pain.
Relief.
Fear.
Hope.
Then he asked the question I hadn't prepared myself for.
"What if I never remember?"
My heart cracked.
Not completely.
Just enough.
I stepped closer.
I didn't need the old Raiden.
I had mourned him.
Loved him.
Lost him.
And somehow...
against every reasonable instinct...
fallen in love with the man standing before me all over again.
So I smiled.
"Then we'll make new memories."
The bond pulsed.
Once.
Strong.
Warm.
Ours.
And beneath it...
something dark shifted.
Listening.
Waiting.