Page 28 of Aïdes the Unseen
Like it knew, even if it didn’t yet understand.
Her fingers brushed mine, then closed fully. No trembling. She said nothing. She didn’t need to. Her hand was in mine again.
I—
I was undone.
We walked deeper.
The world behind us sealed itself in silence. The cave narrowed. Grew colder. Faint bioluminescence shimmered from unseen stone—like stars scattered under skin.
Still, she did not slow, nor speak.
Not until we reached the place where the cave widened, opening into the mouth of the descent proper. The true path. The sacred path. The one that winds through silence and memory and the bones of forgotten things.
Here, the Underworld waited. Here, she turned to me. “So,” she murmured, voice low and steady, “this is what happens when you choose the shadow.”
I nodded, the breath catching in my throat.
She studied my face, as if committing every line of it to memory. As if she already knew what it meant. Then, slowly, deliberately, she rose on her toes, one hand still in mine, the other at my collar, and kissed me.
It wasn’t wild. It wasn’t frantic. It was deep.
Certain.
The kind of kiss that wrote a promise in the marrow.
She kissed me like she already belonged.
Like she had always known where she was going.
And I—I kissed her like time had bent around us, like the stars had waited lifetimes for this collision.
When we pulled apart, the doorway behind us no longer existed. The path was sealed. The world we left behind was gone. Only what we chose remained. Onlyher. Onlyme.
And the silence that welcomed us home.
Chapter
Five
AÏDES
She crossed the threshold and my world bent around her presence.
The Underworld was not made for light, but she did not bring it the way mortals do. No fire. No brightness. She softened the dark instead and made itbreathe. Not invaded, not claimed. Justfilled.
Like roots claiming a forgotten place, not to break it, but to make ittrueagain.
She walked beside me down the winding path of the underdeep. No fear. No second glance. Even the spirits stilled at her passing.
She touched nothing. Yet everything leaned toward her.Ileaned toward her.
We reached the first hollow, one of the hidden courts near the Lethe, and I paused, waiting to see if she would ask. She didn’t. She only looked around, her eyes thoughtful, absorbing the space.
Then she said, “It’s quieter than I imagined.”
“Most things are,” I said, “once you stop fearing them.”
