They waited for a while longer in hopes that voices would be heard on the other side of the blocked tunnel, but the cavern stayed filled only with heavy silence and the occasional rustle of their bodies spooned against one another. After their clothes had dried with the help of Naomi's aura, she tried again to heal the last of Cassien's wounds.

Golden magic flickered dimly at her fingertips as she leaned down towards him, the last blur of purple withdrawing from his flesh and back to its usual wintery tone. He flexed his leg, gingerly at first, then fully, mobility restored to its original function.

Cassien tilted her chin down and kissed the smooth skin between her brows. "You're magnificent. Did you know that?"

Pink lips quirked upwards. "I did, actually."

Naomi stood and held out her hands. "Let me help you up. Or least pretend that I am."

"Oh, I know you're strong enough to."

Cassien reached up, his hands swallowing hers as he pulled himself up steadily, careful not to yank her down. He tested bearing the weight on his right leg, relieved to find that it felt perfect - brand new, if possible.

"I never knew your legacy's magic had healing properties," Cassien said curiously.

"We don't, at least not to my knowledge. It seemed to have manifested after the shipwreck, but I haven't been able to think of the trigger for it - if there even was one."

Cassien tested a standing jump several feet in the air, frost rocketing from under his body. He tried again and again, each launch higher than the last. Each landing was immaculate with not even a stumble or a wince of pain.

"Well, whatever triggered it," Cassien dusted the frost off the front of his armour and pulled the flat of her hand to him, kissing it. "You are a lifesaver. You are amazing."

Pride soared in Naomi's heart, and for the first time, she felt that she truly helped Cassien in the same way that he had done for her countless times. An inkling of her mother's voice tried to force its way through to her insecurities, but it couldn't defeat her anymore.

Naomi was not worthless, undisciplined, or a burden like she had always been said to be - she was powerful, brilliant, and deserving of such recognition.

The difference was that Cassien made her believe it, too.

She rose to the tips of her toes and kissed him softly. "I love you."

"And I love you," he murmured, lowering himself slightly to accommodate her height. "Let's go ahead, shall we?"

They walked hand in hand towards where the tunnel had appeared to have collapsed in on itself, rock and rubble obstructing the passage. Cassien scanned the dark cavern above, searching for a ledge or flattened spot that he could potentially leap to, but the environment was swallowed whole by darkness.

Before he could speak, Naomi harnessed an orb of bright light in her hands, and released it upwards. It expanded in size as it floated upwards, a soft illumination revealing every crevice, ledge, and open threshold of space above. They hadn't noticed until now that there were dozens of open tunnel mouths along the walls, each presumably leading to yet another twist in the maze of the canyon's underground caves.

It was to be expected - they had been warned that Lore's Grotto was long lost, and the journey to find it was that of a complex puzzle filled with obscurity.

"How to figure out which is the right entrance to take…?" Cassien mumbled to himself.

"Radriel was going by bloody fingerprints, but now that we know it was a marker to alert him to our presence, it's probably a good idea to deliberately avoid those," Naomi said thoughtfully.

Cassien nodded. "We don't know if it leads to the grotto or a separate ambush point. Either way - I don't trust anything that has to do with them."

Naomi pursed her lips. "We just have to figure out which path is going to run us in circles, or lead to progress…"

The orb of light soon floated away, leaving back in the dank darkness of the pit. Naomi pushed and prodded around the rubble of the collapsed entrance, loosening a stone just enough to reveal a small crack. It was smaller than her fist, and the inside was filled with more loose stone, but if it had even the slightest opening…

She forced her hand into the opening as she turned her head back, looking upwards at the open tunnels. "Cassien, watch the tunnels. I'm going to try sending up some light."

She urged her magic forward like a stream of pure light through her enclosed hand, visualizing a ribbon of gold pushing out as far as possible. Naomi couldn't see it - but if her hunch was correct, the light would be visible from above.

Cassien kept his eyes glued above in the pitch black, waiting to understand her intentions - until he saw it. The tiniest trickle of golden light seeped through like a fishing line through multiple entrances. He held out his hand, and at the entrance of each light, shot out a hardened dagger of ice with precision.

A loud thunk rumbled in echoes down the cavern, chipping a hole at each entrance as a makeshift marker.

He turned to her. "Smart. Now we know which path would be redundant. This will save us some time."

Cassien came closer and lowered his back to her, hands curled upward at his lower back. She climbed on, arms wrapped loosely around his shoulders, legs straddled against his waist.

She smiled with glee before he even had to warn her - he took off with a roaring launch, her silvered hair whipping from the momentum.

"Looks like your knee is better," she teased in his ear, holding back waves of his hair from obstructing his eyes.

Cassien pounced off the side of a slope on the ball of one foot before soaring upwards again, a burst of ice shattering beneath him. His grip around her thighs tightened. "Feels like nothing happened at all."

He continued to jump from side to side, sometimes catching a break on a ledge that was large enough to perch on to strategize the next step. Each step left an imprint of crystals behind, seemingly melting back into the canyon's bones. Naomi sent up orb after orb, illuminating the way as much as possible; it had certainly been a far drop, but they were slowly making their way up the abyssal depths.

Cassien leapt again, and Naomi felt one hand leave her thigh to grip onto the ledge of a protruding stone - too small to land on, but with no other surface viable to use. He kept one arm tightly wrapped around her backside, their bodies suspended in the air as he hung on with a single hand.

Her eyes widened at his bulging arm, the bicep visibly flexed even beneath the thick layer of his chained tunic. Still, he looked casual with not a single beat of sweat.

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Naomi cleared her throat. "How in the world do you do that?"

He glanced back at her. "Do what?"

Her arms tightened around him, squeezing. "Have that sort of strength, I guess. Or use your magic to enhance it. Combined, we're… what, over three-hundred pounds? But you're hanging on like we're practically nothing."

"Oh. I never thought about it. Ever since some of my memories returned, it comes naturally. I don't really have to… think, or control it."

As if it suddenly became a demonstration of strength and magical prowess, Cassien swung his lower body back and forth before flattening both feet against the sidewall - and propelling upwards once more in an explosive liftoff. Even with both arms curled around her once more, Naomi let out a squeal of exhilaration at the sudden movement, pressing her face into the crook of his neck.

Naomi lifted her lips to his ears, but she was smiling. "Now you're just showing off."

Eventually, the orbs of light stopped floating up as high before it reached the top ceiling of the cavern. Cassien caught the edge of the first available entrance that didn't have a hardened icicle mark lodged into the wall. Cool air wafted from the black mouth, yet the chill seemed to beckon them forward.

"Best if we start here. We don't know how far or where the others have gone ahead from the original route," Cassien said.

He lowered Naomi to her feet, keeping one hand at the small of her back and another rested on the hilt of his longsword. "Still got that dagger?"

Her hand moved to her right hip, where a steel dagger was sheathed beneath her armored tunic. The touch alone was heavy, burdened. "Yes."

"Let's hope we don't need to use it."

She nodded wordlessly.

Before she took a step forward, Naomi pressed her hand against the stony palm and burned in a radiant print as a starting marker.

They headed into the dark together.

**

The tunnel sloped gently downward, the ceiling arch dipping lower the further they descended. They had to shift to a single file formation, with Naomi at the front and Cassien guarding her from behind. At some point, Cassien's stance hunched over to avoid bumping his head against the stony stalactites, and Naomi constantly felt its tips catching in the fineness of her hair.

The small space felt suffocating, horrifyingly claustrophobic - though they agreed the silver lining was that it would be hard to be attacked.

Every so often, Naomi would flatten her palm against the rocky surface and burn in a print of her hand in the case they needed to backtrack. But whether her magic was waned from exertion, or perhaps the stony walls were resistant to the radiant magic, the prints always seared shallow and faint.

They paced for a while longer before Cassien noticed the same print against the wall. His brows furrowed. "We're going in circles."

"What?" Naomi said incredulously, and craned her neck to see her print. "How is that possible? There's been no split, no fork in the tunnel. We would've been back out into the open before we'd circle back to this point."

Cassien rubbed his chin, a million thoughts running through his mind. "Let's… try something."

Without another word, he pressed his hand flat against the stone, and a block of ice erupted from beneath, planting itself on the wall. Cassien ushered Naomi forward with a gentle touch, and they continued their trek once more.

As with their hunch, the block of ice was found again not long after, though it was nearly more than halved in size. Yet on the ground, there was not a single drop of water or puddle.

"Maybe it's soaking in the ice?" Naomi tried, though even she didn't believe her explanation.

"Or maybe it's soaking in the magic," Cassien said, and pointed to where the outline of her print barely even existed - a whisper of a trace that was almost completely faded.

"I don't understand," Naomi shook her head, and re-seared another print of radiance - though this time, the tip of her pinky finger touched the remaining bit of frost.

Without warning, the rocky wall where she had just touched shuddered, a rainfall of dust pouring onto them. Even hunched, Cassien tugged Naomi to him as closely as he could, using the hunch of his back to shield her from the chips of debris. But as quickly as it started, the event ended, revealing a newly opened threshold.

"Did that just…?" Naomi said in a hushed voice.

"A hidden path."

In its wake, it revealed the sight of an enormous cavern room, its ceiling towering and full. Cassien released Naomi carefully once he deemed the situation had settled; she pushed out an orb of light, illuminating the area as they stepped in. Cassien sighed in relief as he finally stood to his full height, stretching out his sore back.

"Well, now we know this cave system isn't really just a cave," Naomi muttered.

The air was noticeably cooler, with an earthy yet almost barely-there floral scent. There were shallow discs of stone that held old, stagnant water that dripped from the stalactites above, and the ground was covered in a thick, green-yellow moss and long-wilted baby's breath. Though the formation of the area was still much like the cave, the stone itself appeared whiter, more pure - like a strange mix of quartz and limestone.

But the most notable piece of the room was the dominating stone mural that sat at the far end, impossible to miss even with the thick layer of dust and dried ivy that covered it.

Carved into it was a depiction of two beings - beautiful and regal even in stone - one with flowing hair and crowned with a crescent moon reaching out. Motifs of starlight and moons swirled around the womanly figure, and even the physical form was sculpted to be larger, more magnificent. At the edges of her side of the mural, there were what seemed to be a sea of hands reaching towards her.

The other person had equally long hair, though they lacked any sort of monarchical features or intricate details. This side of the depiction lacked the same thoughtfulness, the same crowd of hands - a state of blankness.

Between them, just the tips of their fingers touched.

Naomi felt a shudder run through her, deep and chilling. She felt like they were trespassing, intruding on something forbidden and ancient - but she didn't feel as if there was any imminent danger.

It was clear Cassien didn't feel the same way; he grasped her hand, eyes alert and ready to defend her at any moment.

Naomi slowly walked towards the mural and gently tugged Cassien along with her. Her fingertips brushed over the stone mural, and she swore the wall hummed beneath her hand.

Her eyes scanned over the crescent mooned figure repeatedly. "This has to be Lunare."

His eyes flickered to the depiction. "That would make sense. But who's the other figure?"

"Lore?" Naomi guessed, passing over the uncrowned figure. "But he looks… normal. Human. I thought he was Lunare's consort."

"Consort doesn't necessarily mean another god," Cassien murmured, deep in thought. "Usually it means they're the source of the god's power, or an aspect of their divinity."

"Maybe it's not so complicated," Naomi added quietly. "Maybe it's nothing more than two people who fell in love."

Cassien chuckled, though it wasn't mocking. "A goddess and a human. Forbidden love. Does that ring a bell?"

The corners of Naomi's lips tilted upwards. "I can think of an example."

An idea popped into her mind. "Cassien, what if we need to use our magic again? Just like in the tunnels?"

He considered it before nodding slowly. "Maybe we'll get some answers. That's a good idea."

Naomi traced Lunare's supposed figure with a golden seam from the tips of her fingers, and looked at Cassien with patient eyes. He reached out and pressed his hand atop Naomi's, the barest trickle of frost flickering out.

Something sharp, hot, and energetic hissed beneath the ancient slab, but neither felt the urge to pull away. The stone seemed to quiver without physically moving, and the greyness shimmered so faintly that Naomi blinked twice to confirm what she was seeing.

Then, with their hands pressed against the stone - their bodies suddenly phased through, falling through the mural.

The physical disappearance was sudden, and Cassien caught Naomi in time as they tumbled down, arms wrapped around her in a shielding embrace. But the drop was not treacherous nor a pit of unfathomable horror - together, they spilled onto lush, padded ground. Naomi's nose filled with the scent of fresh dew and floral that felt intimate, sacred - her skin hugged by blankets of delicacy.

Most of all, her vision was nearly blinded by the impossible sunlight that spilled throughout the cavern, with seemingly no source for the rays.

The cave was no longer only a cave - it was a breathing meadow, the hardened ground now a blanket of lush greenery, marigolds and moon flowers. There were several thin trees with silvered bark, its white deciduous flowers hanging low like a secretive shade, petals scattered abundantly like a bride's church aisle.

Its serene beauty was completely untouched by the outside world, uniquely preserved in quiet tenderness and a long forgotten love.

Quiet, hopeful, hidden.

They untangled from one another, lost in the disbelief of where they were. Naomi didn't dare tarnish the sanctuary; she removed her boots carefully, instead allowing her bare feet to sink into the soft earth.

"No answers as of yet," Cassien wondered aloud, and his eyes glinted with a quiet awe. "But questions, definitely. A lot of questions."

"The air here is different, like it's watching us."

"Powerful."

Naomi wandered beneath the largest weeping tree where two shallow impressions were molded into the earth. The grass grew much thinner than any other section, and Naomi realized the outlines were akin to two bodies lying side by side.

She knelt, hand hovering over the preserved hollowness. "Is this…?"

Cassien crouched beside Naomi, scooping back a wave of silver hair from her shoulders. "I think… this was their meadow."

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