The edge of a sword pressed just hard enough to remind her how thin skin really was. Firelight flickered against polished tal. The last embers of a dying bonfire cast orange shadows along the cave walls.
She inhaled once. Sharp and controlled.
Her gaze traveled upward, unhurried, until she t a pair of eyes so dark they looked carved from the abyss itself. Deep. Still. Cold.
For one brief heartbeat, her pulse kicked. Then discipline returned.
Her eyes shifted, scanning the cave in a single sweep.
Two silhouettes stood rigid in the corner, unbound and safe.
Relief slid through her quietly.
Sunlight filtered faintly through hairline cracks in the cave walls, pale beams slicing through dust and mist. The waterfall outside still roared, steady and indifferent.
Lara’s eyes drifted upward—
—and her breath hitched.
A jagged stalactite hung directly above her, its pointed tip angled toward her forehead like a suspended execution blade.
One tremor, one miscalculated movent, would split her skull open.
A cold shiver crawled down her spine.
The man holding the sword frowned.
Why did the stalactite above earn her fear... but not the blade at her throat?
He followed her gaze and saw it.
Even he stiffened slightly. The rock formation looked like a massive stone drill waiting to descend.
"Who are you?" he asked, voice deep and stern, echoing off stone, "and how did you find this place?"
Lara lowered her eyes back to him.
No fear. No trembling.
Her hazel eyes turned amber, and her gaze mirrored the sa icy calm in his black ones.
"Would you mind removing the sword from my neck?" she said lightly. "I already have a stiff neck. I’m just a helpless girl, after all."
The audacity.
The man’s brows—sharp and straight as drawn blades—lifted slightly. His lips twitched, though whether in irritation or disbelief was unclear.
How dare she!
Still, after a mont, he withdrew the sword. The tip sank lazily into the soft cave floor as he leaned against it, studying her.
Lara rose in one fluid motion.
And then she realized—
She was small.
Her eyes only reached the level of his chest. She was not accustod to looking up at anyone.
The man towered over her, broad-shouldered, solid as carved granite. He appeared to be in his fifties, yet his hair fell straight and white down to his waist, cascading like silver silk. Not gray.
White.
His mustache was thick and severe, his beard full and flowing down to his chest, the strands gleaming with the sa unnatural whiteness.
Against his sun-bronzed skin, it made him look almost mythic.
Ancient. Dangerous.
"We found this place by chance," Lara replied evenly. "I spotted the entrance when I climbed a tree yesterday."
His eyes narrowed.
The cave entrance was nearly invisible from the ground, hidden behind cascading water and rock formations. He had chosen it precisely for that reason.
But from above? He had never considered that angle.
"Who are you?" he demanded again, irritation creeping into his tone, "and what are you doing on this mountain? Do you have any idea how dangerous this place is?"
This cave was his sanctuary. His place of ditation. Of isolation. Of silence.
Lara tilted her head slightly.
"My na is Lara." A faint curve touched her lips. "And you, Sir?"
A pause.
The waterfall roared between them like distant applause.
"My na," he said at last, voice low and controlled, "is Jethru."
The na settled in the cave like a warning.
...
Lara bolted upright.
Air tore into her lungs like she’d surfaced from deep water.
For a split second, she didn’t know where she was. Stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Damp air. The constant thunder of falling water.
Her eyes scanned the cave wildly—like she expected to see soone standing near her.
Soone tall. Soone familiar. Soone old.
But there was no white-haired man. No sword. No burning embers.
Only two small bodies curled beside her.
Shay and Sandro stared up at her with wide, worried eyes.
"Mommy... are you having a nightmare?" Shay asked softly.
Lara lifted the back of her hand and wiped the sweat beading across her forehead. Her pulse was still racing.
"Yes," she said quietly.
It hadn’t felt like a nightmare. It felt like a mory.
Fragnts lingered—two separate dreams, tangled but distinct.
One of the dark caverns that swallowed light.
One of a white-haired man with a blade and cold, deep brown eyes.
Being back in this cave had triggered sothing. A door she didn’t know was still unlocked.
She pressed her palm against the stone floor.
She had been here before. She was sure of it now.
And the old man with the white hair and beard—he wasn’t a stranger.
He belonged to her past.
This cave... was where they first t.
The na rose in her mind like a fog clearing.
Jethru. Her master.
But the other dream—the darker one, the faceless man at the mouth of the cave.
Her father.
Why couldn’t she rember his face?
Not his eyes. Not the sound of his voice. Not even the color of his hair.
It was like soone had smudged him out of her mind.
The harder she tried to grasp it, the more it slipped away.
A dull ache throbbed behind her temples.
She needed answers.
And for the first ti in a long ti, she admitted sothing she hated admitting—
She needed to see that psychiatrist.
"Mommy, can we go outside now?" Shay’s small voice tugged her back. "I’m getting bored."
Lara’s expression sharpened instantly.
"No. It’s dangerous." Her tone was firm but not harsh. "Stay here. I’ll figure out a way to send a distress signal. And I need to find food for dinner."
She checked her gear with chanical precision.
Two pistols strapped securely against her thighs.
Two jungle knives concealed inside her sneakers.
The assault rifle leaned within reach.
She took her backpack and moved toward a narrower exit at the back of the cave—one less obvious than the waterfall entrance. She slipped out like a shadow dissolving into the trees.
Outside, the jungle breathed heavy and alive.
Lara scaled a nearby tree with effortless agility, sneakers gripping bark, hands sure and silent. From the canopy, she scanned the terrain.
No broken branches. No unnatural movent.
Nothing.
Her jaw tightened.
Had Ares not sent a rescue team?
She dropped back down silently.
She wouldn’t risk going far. Just enough to hunt.
A rustle to her left.
There—a fat hare nibbling near a cluster of roots, unaware of the predator watching it.
Lara slid the spear from her back, asured distance with a hunter’s calm, and threw.
The spear flew straight and true. One clean strike and the hare dropped instantly.
"That’ll do," she murmured.
It would be enough for dinner.
She knelt by the stream to clean the animal.
The jungle sounds continued—birds, insects, wind through leaves.
Then—
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