Chapter 5 – The Burning Tactics

THALEIA

The silence in the white pumice cavern is absolute, heavy enough to crush bone.

Kaelen, the smuggler captain, stares at me. I can see the frantic calculation working behind his scarred features. He is weighing my divine bluff against the very real, very lethal presence of the Witch-Hunter standing at my side, his fingers laced securely through mine. Damon is a mountain of coiled violence, perfectly still, radiating a dark, uncompromising promise that if a single crossbow bolt flies, the cavern will be painted in blood.

"The ocean," Kaelen repeats, his voice losing its gravelly edge, replaced by a thread of desperate awe.

The smugglers of the Aegean are superstitious men. They navigate by the stars and pray to the dark waters, but they know that the Council’s seers are the true masters of the tides. To have an Oracle—a real, living conduit of fate—offering them safe passage is a temptation too profound to resist.

"The fastest ship you have," I reiterate, my voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling, cold and absolute. "And you do exactly as I say. Every heading, every turn. If you question me, the Vanguard will sink you, and we will watch you drown."

Kaelen lowers his iron sword. He looks at his men, then back at me, giving a sharp, terse nod. "Lower the bows!" he barks at the ridges above. "Get them to the docks!"

The tension in Damon’s arm does not abate, but he slightly adjusts his stance, moving from a position of imminent attack to one of heavily armed escort. He does not let go of my hand.

They lead us deeper into the subterranean network of the island. The air grows thick with the scent of brine, pitch, and decaying sea life. The dry pumice gives way to slick, water-carved limestone tunnels until we emerge into a massive, echoing sea cave.

Moored in the dark, churning water is a narrow, black-hulled runner ship. It is small, built entirely for speed rather than warfare, devoid of the heavy bronze rams and towering masts of the Council triremes.

"The Nightshade," Kaelen says, gesturing to the vessel. "She’s fully crewed and ready to run the blockade. But the Vanguard has three warships patrolling the eastern strait. We haven’t been able to slip a single rowboat past them in a week."

"Get us out of the cave," I tell him, stepping onto the wooden gangplank. "I will handle the warships."

We board the ship, the deck swaying violently beneath my feet as the tide surges into the cavern. The crew operates with a silent, frantic efficiency, casting off the mooring lines and manning the oars.

"Take us below deck," Damon murmurs, his voice low, strictly for my ears. "You cannot cast in the open. The wind and the crew will shatter your focus, and if the Vanguard spots the golden light of the magic, they will light the sea on fire to kill us."

Kaelen points us toward a tiny, cramped storage cabin near the stern, right beneath the helm. "Quartermaster’s hold. It’s tight, but you’ll be out of sight."

"Captain," I say, stopping just before I descend the narrow wooden stairs. "Do you carry raw laurel or myrtle in your stores? Unprocessed leaves?"

Kaelen frowns, then nods slowly. "We run black-market herbs from the mainland. There’s a crate of dried laurel in the hold. Why?"

"Bring me two handfuls," I demand. "Immediately."

Ten minutes later, the Nightshade slips out of the concealed sea cave and into the brutal reality of the Aegean night.

Through the small, slatted grate in the ceiling of the cabin, I can hear the roar of the ocean and the panicked shouts of the crew.

"Vanguard warships! Three of them, dead ahead! They’re closing the net!"

I look down at the small pile of dried, brittle laurel leaves Kaelen shoved into my hands. The air in the tiny cabin is suffocatingly dense, smelling of tar and old wood. The floor pitches violently as the runner hits the open swells.

"Damon," I whisper, my hands shaking as I begin to rapidly weave the dried stems together, creating two fragile, makeshift circlets.

"I’m here," he answers, his large frame taking up almost the entire space of the cabin.

I look up at him. The reality of what I am about to do settles over me like a shroud. "I cannot burn another decade. It will kill me. And I cannot give them a long, sustained vision—the laurel is too dry, too brittle. It won’t hold the connection."

"Then what do we do?" he asks, his dark eyes fixed on my face, absolute trust radiating from his posture.

"We do tactical burns," I explain, my pulse hammering against my ribs. "Short, violent jumps into the timeline. Two minutes. Three minutes. Just enough to see the warships’ maneuvers, find the blind spot, and feed the heading to Kaelen." I swallow hard. "But Damon… jumping in and out of the timeline repeatedly is like being repeatedly struck by lightning. The magic will try to rip my consciousness apart. The only way to survive it is if the physical anchor is stronger than the magic."

Damon understands immediately. The physical intimacy required to sync our heartbeats and generate the magical kinetic energy cannot be passive. It has to be overwhelming. It has to be an absolute, sensory overload to keep my mind tethered to my body while I look into the void.

He doesn’t hesitate. He reaches up and pulls his heavy tunic over his head, casting it into the corner of the cabin.

"Anchor," he says, the single word a dark, rumbling vow. "I won’t let you drown, Thaleia."

DAMON

The cabin is barely large enough for me to stand, let alone orchestrate the profound, staggering intimacy the magic requires. I sit on the edge of a heavy wooden crate bolted to the floor, my knees spread wide to brace against the violent pitching of the ship.

Above us, Kaelen is shouting desperately. "They’re lighting the Greek fire! Evasive maneuvers!"

"Thaleia, now," I urge, my voice tight.

She steps between my knees. She is wearing only the thin, white linen under-tunic, the fabric practically translucent in the dim light of the single oil lantern swinging wildly from the ceiling. She holds the two fragile laurel crowns in her hands.

"We need heat," she whispers, her golden eyes wide, dilated with the terrifying anticipation of the magic. "We need a massive surge of adrenaline and friction to spark the connection fast."

I grip her waist, my calloused hands spanning the delicate curve of her hips. "Take the tunic off."

She gasps, a soft, fractured sound, but she obeys instantly. She pulls the linen over her head, letting it fall to the wooden floorboards.

The sight of her—completely bare, her pale skin glowing in the amber light, the frantic, erratic rise and fall of her chest—hits me like a physical blow to the sternum. Every instinct I possess roars to life, a primal, consuming hunger that I have to forcefully reign in. She is not offering herself for my pleasure; she is offering herself as a sacrifice to the timeline, and I am the altar.

I guide her down. She straddles my lap, her bare thighs sliding heavily over the rough fabric of my trousers, her knees bracing against the crate.

The moment her bare skin makes full contact with the searing heat of my chest, a violent shudder rips through both of us. The physical collision is staggering. I wrap my arms around her back, crushing her flush against me, maximizing the surface area, feeling the frantic, terrified bird-flutter of her heart against my own heavy, drumming pulse.

She reaches up, her hands trembling violently, and presses one of the dried laurel crowns onto my dark hair. She places the other on her own head.

"Make me feel it, Damon," she begs, her voice breaking, her hands tangling desperately in my hair. "Don’t let me forget where I am."

I do not need to be told twice.

I slide my hands up the long, beautiful line of her back, my palms pressing firmly into her skin, anchoring her weight entirely against mine. I tilt my head and capture her mouth.

The kiss is an absolute explosion of heat. There is no slow buildup, no gentle exploration. I devour her, my mouth rough and demanding, entirely possessive. The ship pitches violently, throwing her heavier against me, creating an agonizing, exquisite friction that makes a deep, guttural groan tear from my throat.

I trace the line of her spine, my thumbs digging heavily into the muscles of her lower back, pulling her hips impossibly flush against mine. The physical reality of my arousal is a heavy, unyielding pressure between us, acting as a massive, grounding gravity well. I bite gently at her lower lip, tasting salt and the sweet, dark essence of her, before my mouth leaves hers to drag scorching, open-mouthed kisses down her jaw and the long, arched column of her throat.

"Yes," she gasps, her head falling back, her fingernails biting into the heavy muscles of my shoulders. "Yes, right there. Hold me right there."

Our heartbeats synchronize, a heavy, frantic, dual rhythm echoing in the tiny cabin. The heat between us hits a critical mass, a localized inferno of raw, unadulterated need.

The dry laurel crowns begin to hum with a blinding, golden light.

The magic catches.

THALEIA

The timeline rips open.

The sensation is violently disorienting. One second I am consumed by the searing, grounding heat of Damon’s mouth against my neck, the agonizingly perfect pressure of his hands on my hips, and the next, my consciousness is violently ejected from my body, soaring up through the wooden planks of the deck and into the night sky.

But I feel him. Even as my mind expands over the ocean, I feel the heavy, iron-clad grip of his arms holding my physical form in place, a lifeline tethering me to reality.

I am looking three minutes into the future.

I see the Nightshade cresting a massive wave. I see the three Vanguard warships arranged in a crescent formation, blocking the strait.

Two minutes into the future: The warship on the port side unleashes a massive volley of flaming arrows, raining fire down on the water. If Kaelen maintains his current heading, the Nightshade will sail directly into the inferno.

I need to break the connection.

I send a mental shockwave down the tether, a desperate signal to my anchor.

In the cabin, Damon feels the shift. He rips the laurel crown from his own head.

The vision shatters like a mirror struck by a hammer.

I am slammed back into my body with the force of a physical blow. A sharp, agonizing spike of pain shoots through my temples, and I sag heavily against Damon’s chest, gasping for air, nausea rolling through my stomach as those three minutes of reality are permanently burned into ash.

"Port!" I scream, my voice tearing from my throat, raw and desperate. I look up at the slatted grate in the ceiling. "Kaelen! Hard port! Ninety degrees, now!"

Through the roar of the ocean, I hear Kaelen roar the command. "Hard port! Heave!"

The Nightshade groans violently, the entire ship tilting at a terrifying angle as the helmsman throws his weight onto the tiller.

Ten seconds later, a massive, deafening hiss echoes through the night as a rain of flaming arrows strikes the ocean exactly where we would have been, the Greek fire burning furiously on the surface of the black water just yards from our starboard hull.

"It worked," Damon breathes, his hands firmly gripping my waist, his dark eyes blazing with a mixture of absolute awe and sheer terror for my safety. "You cleared the first volley."

"There’s more," I gasp, my entire body trembling with the magical backlash. The pain in my head is a vicious, throbbing drumbeat. "The center ship. They will try to ram us. We have to cast again."

Damon’s jaw tightens. He hates this. He hates watching the magic tear at my limits, but he knows it is the only way out.

"Crown," he commands, his voice a low, rough rumble.

I pick up the discarded laurel circlet and press it back onto his head.

"I need more," I whisper, my eyes locking onto his, tears of strain blurring my vision. "The magic is fighting the anchor, Damon. The physical connection has to be stronger this time, or I won’t be able to snap back."

Damon’s expression darkens into something beautifully, terrifyingly primal.

He shifts his weight, pulling me higher onto his lap. His large hands slide from my waist, moving up my ribcage, his calloused palms covering my bare breasts with a heavy, possessive pressure. The sheer, overwhelming intimacy of the touch sends a jolt of pure lightning straight to my core.

I cry out, a sharp, breathless sound, my back arching violently as he leans forward, replacing his hands with his mouth. The heat of his lips against my sensitive skin is an absolute, localized firestorm. He uses a gentle, agonizingly precise pressure, his hands sliding down to grip the soft swell of my hips, pulling me into the hard, unrelenting cradle of his thighs.

The sensory overload is immediate and complete. The pain in my head is entirely drowned out by the consuming, blinding rush of physical pleasure. Every nerve ending in my body is localized entirely on the heat of his mouth, the heavy friction of his legs, the dark, territorial scent of him filling my lungs.

My heart rate explodes. The golden light of the laurel flares with blinding intensity.

I am thrown back into the timeline, riding the crest of an absolute physical high.

Five minutes into the future: The center Vanguard warship drops its oars, the heavy bronze ram at its prow cutting through the water, aimed directly for the midsection of the Nightshade.

But I see the flaw. The warship is turning too wide. There is a gap—a narrow, terrifying seam between the center ship and the starboard patrol.

Break it! I scream down the tether.

Damon tears the crown off.

The reality snap is brutal. I collapse completely against him, a violent sob tearing from my throat as the temporal backlash hits my nervous system. I am burning futures like kindling, and the smoke is choking my soul.

"Hold your heading!" I scream up to the grate, my voice hoarse, my fingers digging desperately into Damon’s shoulders. "Do not turn! Sail straight for the center ship!"

"Are you insane?!" Kaelen’s panicked voice filters down.

"Do it!" Damon roars, his voice vibrating with the absolute, lethal authority of a Vanguard commander.

The Nightshade surges forward. Through the thin hull of the cabin, the terrifying, rhythmic booming of the warship’s oars grows deafeningly loud. We are sailing directly into the jaws of the Council’s military machine.

"Almost," I whisper, my forehead pressed against Damon’s shoulder, my eyes squeezed shut. "Almost…"

The entire ship violently shudders as we scrape past the center warship. The sound of wood splintering and bronze grinding against our hull is horrifying, but we do not stop. We shoot through the narrow gap, the momentum of the heavy warship carrying it past us, entirely unable to correct its wide turn in time.

"We’re through the center!" Kaelen shouts, a manic, disbelieving laugh echoing over the deck. "We cleared the ram!"

"One more," I gasp, my body feeling as though it is filled with crushed glass. The final barrier. The starboard ship. "We have to do it one more time."

Damon looks at me, his face pale beneath his dark stubble. He sees the physical toll the magic is taking. My skin is freezing cold despite the heat of the cabin, my golden eyes blown wide and glassy.

"No," Damon says, his voice fierce, his hands coming up to cradle my face. "You’re bleeding."

I reach up. A thin line of dark blood is trailing from my left nostril, a stark, terrifying indicator of the neurological stress of repeatedly tearing the timeline apart.

"If we don’t," I whisper, my voice slurring slightly, "the starboard ship will use their ballistae. They will shatter the hull. We have to, Damon."

He closes his eyes for a fraction of a second, an expression of profound, agonizing defeat crossing his features. He is the protector, the hunter, and yet he is entirely powerless to shield me from the weapon inside my own mind.

He picks up the laurel crown, his hands shaking slightly, and places it on his head.

"I will pull you back," he vows, his voice a ragged whisper against my lips. "Even if I have to follow you into the dark to do it."

He doesn’t just kiss me this time. He completely consumes my physical reality.

He shifts, standing up in the cramped space, lifting me effortlessly into his arms. He pins my back entirely against the solid wooden wall of the cabin. My legs wrap instinctively around his waist, locking my ankles behind him. The position offers no escape, absolute vulnerability, and maximum physical contact.

He presses his massive body entirely into mine, a wall of pure, heavy heat. His mouth crushes mine, open and desperate, his tongue mimicking the heavy, rhythmic friction of our lower bodies. His hands map every inch of bare skin he can reach, his touch rough, demanding, entirely focused on dragging my consciousness completely into the primal, beating present.

The arousal is a violent, consuming fire. I am lost in the taste of him, the absolute, overwhelming weight of his body pressing me into the wood. The blood in my veins feels like molten gold.

The laurel flashes.

The jump this time is agonizing. The timeline resists, fighting the sheer, kinetic power of the physical anchor.

Three minutes into the future: The starboard warship is rotating, tracking us. I see the massive, tension-loaded arms of the ballistae locking into place. I see the commander raise his sword to signal the launch.

I need the trajectory. I push deeper into the vision, fighting the terrifying, tearing pain in my skull.

The bolts will strike the port stern. They will clip the rudder.

The vision begins to destabilize, the golden light turning a violent, sickening crimson as my mind reaches its absolute limit. I am slipping. The timeline is trying to consume me, offering a false, euphoric vision of the sea turning to glass to keep me trapped.

I can’t send the signal. I am drowning in the crimson light.

Damon.

In the physical world, Damon feels the exact moment my body goes entirely rigid against the wall, the terrifying slackness of my jaw.

He does not wait for the signal. He reaches up and crushes the dry laurel crown on his head into dust.

The severance is an explosion.

I scream, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony, as I am violently ripped from the timeline.

My vision goes entirely black. My muscles give out completely.

If I were standing, I would have collapsed to the floor, but Damon has me pinned. He catches my dead weight, his powerful arms wrapping around me like a vice, absorbing the violent tremors that immediately begin to wrack my frame.

"Starboard!" I manage to choke out, the word barely a whisper, blood dripping steadily from my nose onto his chest. "Cut hard starboard… inside their firing arc…"

Damon turns his head and roars at the ceiling, a sound of pure, feral command that rattles the deck boards. "Turn into them! Hard starboard! Hug their hull!"

The Nightshade violently pivots.

A split second later, the horrifying thwack of the heavy ballistae firing echoes over the water. Massive, iron-tipped bolts the size of tree trunks slice through the space we occupied mere seconds ago, plunging harmlessly into the dark Aegean.

By turning inside their firing arc, we moved faster than their heavy weapons could track.

"We’re clear!" Kaelen’s voice is a hysterical scream of triumph. "We passed the blockade! Open water! Full sail!"

We did it. We survived the impossible.

In the dark of the cabin, Damon slowly slides down the wall, taking me with him until we are both sitting on the floorboards. I am a completely broken thing, limp and bleeding against his chest, but I am alive.

He pulls me entirely into his lap, ignoring the blood, the sweat, and the damp cold of the cabin. He wraps my discarded heavy cloak securely around my shivering, bare body, creating a cocoon of warmth.

"I’ve got you," he whispers, his voice breaking, his large hand burying in my dark hair, holding my head securely against his violently beating heart. He rocks me slightly, a purely instinctual gesture of comfort. "You’re safe. We’re out."

I close my eyes, burying my face in the curve of his neck, breathing in the scent of his skin, the only reality I ever want to know.

I burned the timeline to ashes, but the man holding me in the dark is entirely, unequivocally real.

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