POV: Aphrodite
Every prison has a warden. This one wears a crown.
The howl pulled us all awake and none of us went back to sleep after it. We broke camp in the dark and moved by the time the sky started to lighten, putting more distance between us and whatever direction that sound came from, and then when we had enough ground under our feet and the morning was bright enough to see by, we stopped.
And we went back to the ruins.
Not all the way in. Not into the collapsing sections. But the final chamber — the sealed one that opened for my blood — is still accessible from the exterior, a different entry point that Kai found marked on the partial map we copied before everything went sideways. He led us there without hesitation, because of course he did, and now we're standing inside it and what the walls are showing us has changed.
Or maybe it hasn't changed. Maybe we just hadn't been here long enough before to see all of it.
