Gareth’s POV
The air in the catacombs remained heavy with the lingering stench of damp stone and stale exhaustion. Two days had passed since the traitor Nyx was locked away in the deepest cell, and the ruins of the original Blackwood city felt like a tomb waiting for a resurrection. Finn and the Alpha were long gone, trailing the path toward the northern canopy, leaving us to wait in the suffocating silence of the underworld.
I paced the central dais, my boots scuffing the ancient, soot-stained floor. Elara sat nearby, methodically sharpening a rusted blade, her expression a mask of grim resolve.
"The silence from the surface grows deafening," I murmured, my voice scraping against the stillness. "If the girl failed, we remain buried here until Kaelin decides to flush the tunnels with ac
