They should have left the Chamber of Bones immediately. Should have fled while the marrow sea was still recoiling from their flame-storm, still wounded from the burning passage they'd carved through its substance. But something held them there a pull that came not from the depths below but from something deeper still, something that existed at a level beneath even the infinite ocean they'd just escaped.
Selena felt it first, a tugging in her chest that had nothing to do with her newly transformed essence. It was a summons, old and patient and inexorable as gravity. She moved toward the cracks in the chamber floor without conscious decision, her feet carrying her to the edge where the marrow sea churned far below.
"Selena?" Dante's hand found her shoulder, and she could feel his concern through their connection—the merger had left them bound in ways that went beyond physical proximity. "What is it?"
