The eastern shaft had been abandoned since before Juno was born.
Her grandfather had told stories about it — half boast, half warning. How the old miners had chased a vein of silver too deep into the mountain. How the rock had started to sound wrong under their hammers. How whispers had crept up from cracks that should have been silent.
They’d sealed it after the third man died.
“Tools went missing,” Grandfather had said once, voice low. “Then people. Then pieces. We blocked it up with stone and warded the outside and told pups never to play near it. Some things you don’t dig out.”
Now Juno stood at the edge of the warded barrier and watched as Corin and two witches unraveled it.
The entrance was a jagged mouth in the mountainside, half-choked with boulders and old timber supports. Frost limned the edges of rocks. A faint, cold air breathed out — not enough to stir her hair. Just enough to send a whisper of damp stone and old dust into her lungs.
Riven stood beside her, jaw tight, eyes on the dark opening.
Mira shifted nervously from foot to foot, adjusting the straps on her pack of herbs and first aid supplies. Kellan bounced on the balls of his feet, trying to look casual and mostly failing. Ivo leaned against a tree, spear resting on his shoulder, more serious than usual.
Bram’s nephew — a broad-shouldered wolf named Torik — scowled at the entrance like he planned to punch it.
The Silver Peak cave specialist — a wiry woman called Nyra with short-cropped hair and a collection of tattoos that curled up her neck like vines — watched the ward-unraveling with avid interest.
“Whoever drew those lines knew what they were doing,” she said, nodding appreciatively at Irena’s work. “We don’t see sigils like that in the east. Too...careful.”
“Careful is good,” Corin muttered, coaxing a final rune to untangle from the rock. “Careful means we’re not about to get a face full of angry ghosts.”
Torik snorted. “If there are ghosts in there, I’ll wrestle them,” he said.
Nyra snorted. “You can’t wrestle something without a spine, pup,” she said. “You’ll just flail and look stupid.”
Torik bristled. “I’m not a pup,” he snapped. “I’ve seen more winters than—”
“Than your hairline suggests?” Nyra interrupted sweetly.
Juno hid a smile.
Riven’s lips twitched.
He caught her eye.
The bond hummed with shared amusement.
“Alright,” Irena said finally, stepping back. The last of the ward-lines faded from the stones. “It’s open. For now. We’ll have to redo the seals when you come out. Assuming you come out.”
Mira made a small noise.
Irena smacked her lightly on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine,” she said gruffly. “You’ve got too much chatter to die quietly.”
Mira sniffed, but her smile wobbled.
Lysa, standing slightly uphill, watched them all.
“This is a scouting run,” she said. “First level only. You go in, map, sniff, poke *gently,* and come back. You do not go deeper than the old support markers. You do not split up without good reason. You do not chase whispers. Understood?”
A chorus of assent.
Her gaze lingered on Juno and Riven.
“Last chance to back out,” she said. “No shame.”
Mira’s eyes flicked to Juno.
Juno shook her head. “We’re going,” she said.
Riven nodded once. “The Maw knows this place,” he said quietly. “Or will, if she doesn’t already. I’d rather see it first.”
Lysa’s jaw flexed.
“Then go,” she said. “And come back.”
Nyra hefted her coil of rope. “I’ll lead on the stone,” she said. “You mountain wolves know your ridges. I know caves. Try to keep up.”
Kellan rolled his shoulders. “You fall down a hole, I’m not climbing after you,” he warned. “I’ll just tell Soren you died doing what you loved.”
Nyra snorted. “He’d believe it,” she said.
They moved.
Nyra first, sure-footed on loose scree.
Kellan and Torik beside her, flanking.
Mira and Ivo in the middle.
Juno and Riven at the rear.
The air cooled noticeably as they approached the opening.
It wasn’t just the lack of sun.
It was like the mountain was exhaling a different kind of cold from its lungs.
Juno’s breath steamed in front of her.
She glanced at Riven.
His jaw was tight, but his eyes were clear.
“How’s your head?” she asked under her breath.
He huffed. “No whispers,” he said. “Yet. If I start mumbling, smack me.”
“That was the plan,” she said.
They stepped under the arch of stone.
The light dropped immediately.
Nyra lit the first torch, flame flaring orange against damp rock. The glow pushed back the shadows just enough to show a tunnel sloping gently downward, shored up by old timber beams. The wood was gray with age, beaded with condensation.
The walls glistened where water had seeped through over the years and frozen, then thawed, leaving strange patterns.
The air smelled...
Old.
Not rotten.
Not yet.
Just...forgotten.
Juno’s wolf lifted her nose, tasting the scents layered in the stone.
Dust. Old sweat. Rust. A faint trace of magic from the long-faded wards.
No fresh rot.
No Maw.
Not at this level.
Her shoulders loosened a fraction.
Nyra moved with the ease of someone who’d walked into dark mouths like this her whole life. She ducked under low beams, toes testing each patch of ground before committing her weight.
“Watch your head,” she called back. “Supports look sturdy, but don’t trust them with your skulls.”
Torik cracked his head on the very next beam.
The dull thunk echoed.
“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing the spot.
Nyra didn’t even look back. “Called it,” she said.
Mira snickered nervously.
They descended.
The tunnel angled gently, then leveled out.
Old pick marks scarred the walls.
Juno ran her fingertips lightly over one as she passed, feeling the grooves.
Men had chipped these.
Men who’d breathed and cursed and sung in this space, long before she’d been born.
Men who’d run when the stone started whispering.
She shivered.
“How deep did they go?” Riven murmured.
“Farther than we’re going today,” Juno replied. “They hit a seam of silver and chased it down. Then the rock started...sounding wrong.”
He glanced at her. “Sounding wrong?”
“Grandfather always said you could...hear...when stone was about to turn on you,” she said. “Different echo. Different ring. He could tell when to stop digging just by listening to his hammer.”
“You get that?” he asked. “The...sense.”
She tilted her head, listening.
The tunnel’s silence pressed against her eardrums.
She stamped lightly.
The vibration came back dull and solid.
“No,” she said. “Not like him. I can tell when a ledge is about to crumble under my feet, but that’s just...practice.”
He nodded slowly.
They reached the first set of old mine markings — faded chalk Xs on the walls, a rusted lantern hook.
“First marker,” Nyra called. “We’re at the boundary Lysa set. We can push a little past, but I’m not going beyond the next curve without a rope back to here.”
Kellan tied off one end of Nyra’s rope to a sturdy timber post. “You really don’t trust ceilings, do you?” he said.
“I trust gravity,” she replied. “To be an asshole.”
Torik snorted.
They pushed on.
The air grew damper.
A faint drip-drip echoed from somewhere ahead.
The tunnel widened, then opened into a small chamber.
Broken mine carts lay half-buried in rubble. Old rails glinted faintly under a film of dust.
A narrow shaft descended in the middle of the chamber, ringed by a low stone wall. The old winch that had once lowered carts into it had collapsed, its wooden frame rotted through.
Nyra knelt by the shaft, peering down, torch held high.
“Drop,” she murmured. “Steep. But I see a ledge about ten feet down. Then another. Classic spiral descent. Someone carved switchbacks into this shaft. They didn’t just drop carts. They walked.”
Mira hugged her arms around herself. “Why does that sound like a terrible idea?” she whispered.
“Because it was,” Riven said quietly.
He felt it.
Faint.
A tickle at the edge of his awareness.
Not a voice.
Not words.
A...pull.
Down.
He stiffened.
Juno felt it through the bond — a subtle shift, like a current tugging at his feet.
Her hand went to his forearm without thinking.
His muscles jumped under her fingers.
“You feel it?” she murmured.
He nodded once, tightly.
“Like...a fingernail on a tooth,” he said. “Not...deep. Just...testing.”
Her stomach twisted.
“Back out?” Kellan asked immediately, catching the tension. “We can mark this and return with more reinforcement.”
“No,” Riven said, too quickly.
All eyes turned to him.
He inhaled, forcing himself to speak more evenly.
“If we leave now, she knows this is a sore spot,” he said. “She’ll...poke. When we’re not looking. Better to see what she can do while we’re here with wards and witches and rope than when a pup comes exploring for fun.”
Nyra nodded slowly. “He’s right,” she said. “This shaft is a natural conduit. You can feel it even without his...history. It’s a...vein. If we don’t map it now, it’ll map itself into us later.”
Torik frowned. “You two talk about caves like they’re alive,” he muttered.
“They are,” Nyra and Riven said together.
They glanced at each other.
A flicker of mutual respect passed between them.
Juno’s fingers tightened on Riven’s arm.
“Not without precautions,” she said. “We anchor. We set a hard line. We *stick* to it.”
Kellan nodded. “We tie off here,” he said, touching the shaft rim. “We descend in pairs. One witch per pair. Riven goes not-first and not-last. Mira stays above at first to monitor the wards. If anything feels wrong, we get the fuck out.”
“Agreed,” Nyra said.
Ivo grinned, a little too brightly. “Adventure,” he said. “My favorite terrible idea.”
Mira smacked his arm. “Respectfully, shut up,” she said.
They moved into position.
Nyra tied the rope around her waist in a practiced harness, then did the same for Juno.
“Me?” Juno asked, surprised.
Nyra’s gaze was steady. “You know him,” she said, flicking her eyes toward Riven. “You feel the tugs. I want you where you can see his face when the stone whispers. And you move like a mountain goat. You’ll stick the ledges.”
Juno swallowed. “Okay,” she said.
Riven grunted. “Flattering,” he muttered.
“You’re next pair,” Nyra told him. “With Ivo. Torik and Kellan after. Witch brings up the rear.”
Mira huffed. “I’m staying up here first,” she grumbled. “I better get to go down after or I’m filing a formal complaint.”
“You can file it with Lysa after you’re alive,” Corin’s voice floated faintly down the tunnel — she’d stationed herself at the last bend, out of immediate danger but close enough to step in if needed.
Mira stuck her tongue out in that direction, then knelt by the shaft, closing her eyes.
Juno felt a faint shimmer in the air as Mira sent her senses outward along the wards like fingers.
“Line’s...thin,” Mira murmured. “But not...pierced. Yet.”
“Yet,” Juno repeated under her breath.
Nyra swung her legs over the shaft edge and began to descend, boots finding narrow, carved steps in the rock. The rope paid out slowly.
Juno followed.
The shaft walls closed in around her.
The air cooled further.
Her palms slid over the rope, rough fibers biting her skin.
She placed her feet carefully where Nyra called back markers — “Step right. Small ledge. Duck on the left. Watch that bump.”
Her heart thudded against her ribs.
She made the first ledge — a narrow shelf carved into the rock, barely wide enough for two to stand side by side. Nyra moved off it almost immediately, continuing down.
Juno swallowed and followed.
Ten feet.
Fifteen.
Another ledge.
She tried not to think about the drop beneath her.
About how the shaft seemed to swallow sound.
Nyra’s torch cast weird shadows.
At the third ledge, Nyra stopped.
“Hold,” she called. “Ledge opens out. There’s a side tunnel here. Not going further until we have everyone at least to this point.”
Juno braced herself, feet planted, back against the rock, breathing slow.
She glanced up.
Riven’s head and shoulders appeared over the rim above, then vanished as he swung himself into the shaft.
For a second, seeing him descend into a narrow, dark hole made something in her clench.
*Pit,* her mind whispered.
She shook it off.
He made the first ledge with ease.
Paused.
His gaze flicked down to her.
Their eyes met.
Even in the dim, she saw the tension around his mouth.
“You okay?” she called softly.
He snorted. “Define—”
She glared.
He huffed. “Fine,” he amended. “Feels like...old times. But without the smell of rot. Yet.”
“Stop saying ‘yet’ like it’s a challenge,” she muttered.
He smiled faintly.
Ivo descended behind him, humming under his breath.
“Remind me why we volunteered?” he asked.
“Because you can’t resist a good story,” Juno said.
He grinned. “You know me so well.”
By the time Torik and Kellan reached the second ledge, Juno’s arms ached from bracing.
She tried not to imagine what would happen if one of the old steps crumbled.
Or if something grabbed the rope from below.
Mira’s voice floated faintly from above. “Wards are...rippling,” she said, concentration thick in her tone. “But holding. It’s like...something’s brushing them. Not...pushing. Yet.”
*Stop saying yet,* Juno and Riven thought at the same time.
The faint sense of a not-quite-laugh brushed the bond.
They reached Nyra’s chosen stopping point.
The shaft wall here had been carved back more, creating a small alcove. To the right, a narrow tunnel led off into the darkness, sloping gently away from the shaft.
Nyra crouched at its mouth, torch extended.
“Feel that?” she murmured as Juno squeezed onto the ledge beside her.
Juno inhaled.
The air in the tunnel had a different...quality.
Not colder.
Not warmer.
Just...thicker.
Like a held breath.
Her skin prickled.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I feel it.”
Riven’s boots thudded lightly onto the ledge behind them.
He sucked in a breath.
“This is a vein,” he whispered. “Like the one under my mountain. Like the one she...slithered through.”
Juno’s hand found his wrist without thinking.
His pulse fluttered under her fingers.
The bond thrummed with old terror and new defiance.
Torik wedged himself onto the ledge, nearly elbowing Ivo in the ribs.
Kellan pressed in last, the space suddenly crowded and hot.
“Okay,” Nyra said. “We’re not all going in there at once. Tunnel’s too narrow. Two at a time. Rest stay here, anchor point.”
“Who goes?” Kellan asked.
Nyra’s gaze slid between Juno and Riven.
“Obvious answer,” she said.
Juno’s stomach dropped.
“Together?” she asked.
Riven’s jaw clenched. “Together,” he said.
Kellan grimaced. “You sure that’s smart?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we...spread the crazy?”
Nyra shook her head. “No,” she said. “They’re the ones she wants. The ones she sees. Better to put them in front where we can pull them back than behind where we can’t see what’s tugging.”
Mira’s faint voice drifted down again. “Wards are...humming,” she said. “Like...like when you hold a note too long. They’re getting...tired.”
Juno exhaled.
“Okay,” she said. “We go. We look. We don’t linger. We come back.”
Riven nodded once.
“Okay,” he echoed.
Nyra handed Juno the torch. “You take this,” she said. “You move quieter. He needs his hands free for punching shadows.”
Riven snorted. “Accurate,” he said.
She squeezed his wrist once, then let go.
They ducked into the side tunnel.
It was narrow enough that their shoulders brushed the walls.
The ceiling brushed the top of Riven’s head in a few places, making him hunch.
The torchlight splashed over rough stone.
Carved steps here, too, but less careful.
Miners had hacked their way into this vein in a hurry.
The air thickened further.
Juno’s ears rang faintly.
She licked her lips.
The tunnel curved.
Then opened into a small chamber.
Juno stopped dead.
The torch flame flickered.
The room wasn’t big — maybe ten wolf-lengths across. The ceiling dipped in places, with jagged stalactites hanging like stone teeth. The floor was uneven, pitted.
In the center, a pool filled a shallow depression.
Its surface was perfectly still.
Too still.
The water — if it was water — was black.
Not reflective.
Not absorbing.
Just...flat.
Her hackles rose.
Riven inhaled sharply.
The tug in his chest yanked harder.
The bond flared.
*No,* Juno thought immediately, shoving back. *Not yours. Not hers. Ours.*
He sucked in a breath, hand flying to his sternum.
“It’s like the pit,” he whispered. “Smaller. But...same taste.”
Juno’s stomach flipped.
“Don’t go closer,” she said.
He laughed, short and rough. “I have exactly zero desire to swim,” he said. “I learned that lesson.”
Something rippled just under the black surface.
She tensed.
The torch flame guttered, then steadied.
Whispers slid along the walls.
At first, she thought they were in her head.
Then she realized she could hear them with her *ears* — faint, rustling, like leaves.
Words.
Not all in a language she knew.
Some old tongue.
Some...not words at all.
Sounds shaped like screams.
Riven flinched.
Juno moved instinctively, stepping between him and the pool.
Her fist clenched around the torch.
“Back,” she snarled, not sure if she was speaking to him or the thing in the water.
The whispers rose fractionally.
Then—like a hand testing a door and finding it bolted—they...ebbed.
Riven’s shoulders dropped a fraction.
Juno’s chest heaved.
*You okay?* she sent.
*Define—* he started, then choked on a half-hysterical laugh. *Kidding. Sort of. I’m... here. With you. Not...there.*
She felt the difference.
Before, when the Maw had reached through him, his presence had gone...thin. Stretched, like a thread pulled too tight.
Now he felt...solid.
He pressed back against the tug with her, not as a conduit but as a weight.
The whispers hissed faintly.
Irritated.
*She feels us,* he thought. *She *hates* that we’re in her seam.*
*Good,* Juno thought savagely.
She forced herself to drag her gaze away from the pool and sweep the chamber.
No other exits.
Just the shaft they’d come through.
The stone around the pool was...wrong.
Softer in some places, slick with some kind of mineral she didn’t recognize.
Veins of dark crystal spiderwebbed out from the depression, twining into the walls.
Nyra would want to see this.
Lysa would want sketches.
Her hand fumbled for the charcoal stick in her pocket.
She realized, belatedly, she’d been holding her breath.
She exhaled slowly.
The whispers dipped.
Followed the rhythm of her lungs.
She scowled.
“You don’t get that,” she said aloud. “Breath is ours.”
The silence that followed that felt...sharp.
Then, faintly, like a retreating tide: *Noted.*
Her skin crawled.
“Okay,” Riven said, voice steadying. “We’ve seen it. We’ve poked it. Time to go.”
“For once, I agree,” she said.
They backed out carefully.
Juno didn’t turn her back on the pool until the tunnel forced her to.
Even then, her shoulder blades itched.
The whispers followed them a few feet, then...stopped.
As if something at the chamber’s edge marked a limit.
Riven inhaled deeply as the air changed back to plain damp rock.
He flexed his fingers. “Still me,” he said. “That’s...better than last time.”
“Yeah,” she said, voice hoarse.
They emerged onto the ledge.
Nyra’s eyes went straight to their faces.
“Well?” she asked.
“Bad,” Juno said. “But not...mouth-open bad. More...tongue-testing-the-tooth-it-broke-on-bad.”
Nyra’s lips twitched. “Poetic,” she said. “And gross.”
Mira’s voice floated down again, slightly strained. “Wards are...tired,” she said. “Like...stretched dough. We need to...wrap this up.”
Kellan frowned. “We’ve seen enough,” he said. “We mark it. Seal it. Come back with more runes and maybe a priest and a flamethrower.”
Torik made a face. “We can take it,” he muttered.
Nyra arched a brow. “You want to jump in?” she asked. “Be my guest. We’ll carve your name on the memorial stone.”
Torik flushed.
Juno sank onto the ledge, back to the shaft wall.
Her legs shook.
Riven sank beside her, not touching, but close.
The bond throbbed.
She could feel his relief and his anger and his...pride.
They’d gone into the vein.
They’d come back out.
Together.
“We go up,” Nyra said. “Slowly. Carefully. We tell the old wolves what we saw. Then we let *them* decide how much more to poke.”
“For once,” Ivo said, “I’m okay letting the elders do the dangerous part.”
They climbed.
The shaft felt tighter going up.
The air felt heavier.
But each ledge they cleared, each old chalk mark they passed, eased the pressure.
When Juno pulled herself over the rim and emerged back into the chamber at the tunnel’s top, the light from Mira’s lantern felt like a punch of clarity.
Mira’s eyes were wide, face pale. Sweat beaded at her temple despite the cold.
“The wards were...screaming,” she said. “Like...like they were biting something and it was trying to pull away.”
Juno winced. “Sorry,” she said.
Mira shook her head. “No,” she said. “Good. They got a mouthful.”
One by one, the others emerged.
Riven came last.
When he stepped fully out of the shaft, he paused and inhaled deeply.
He looked...different.
Not in any obvious way.
Just...more present.
Less shadowed.
Juno’s chest tightened.
Nyra coiled the rope, hands steady.
“We mark it,” she said, chalking symbols on the wall. “We seal it. We tell the story. And we come back with more teeth.”
Juno looked down into the dark.
The whispers, faint now, still brushed the edge of her hearing.
She bared her teeth.
“Next time,” she murmured, too soft for anyone but Riven to hear, “we’re bringing more than torches.”
He smiled, feral.
“Good,” he said.
The vein pulsed under the rock.
Waiting.
They left.
Behind them, Irena and the witches layered new wards over the stone, thicker and sharper than before.
The mountain hummed.
The Maw nursed another bruise.
And Juno’s slow burn gained fuel.
Every step into the dark with Riven at her side wound their threads tighter.
Not a leash.
A rope.
One they both held.
Whatever waited in the deeper veins would have to reckon with that.
Soon.
---