Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 244

Chapter 244

Chapter 244

Chapter 244

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The tunnel sloped downward at an angle steep enough that we had to brace ourselves against the walls to avoid sliding. The stone was damp here, moisture seeping through invisible cracks, making every surface slick and treacherous. My injured arm throbbed with each movement, the wolf bite sending sharp pains up to my shoulder whenever I put weight on it.

Aria moved behind me, her breathing steady but I could hear the slight hitch in it that suggested her wound was bothering her more than she wanted to admit. The crystal she’d retrieved from the first trial was secured in a pouch at her belt, still pulsing faintly with that moonlight glow even through the fabric.

The tunnel finally leveled out and opened into the second trial chamber.

I stopped at the entrance, taking in the space with tactical assessment that had become instinctive after years of field work. Massive. The chamber was easily the size of multiple football fields, the horizontal space so vast that the bioluminescent fungi growing on the distant walls looked like stars rather than nearby light sources.

But the ceiling was low. Uncomfortably low. Maybe seven feet high at its tallest points, lower in places where stone formations descended like melting wax. It created a sense of oppression despite all that horizontal space, made me feel like the stone above might collapse at any moment and crush us beneath its weight..

The floor was a maze. Not walls creating passages-trenches. Deep crevasses cut into the stone, creating a labyrinth where the paths were the raised sections between gaps rather than enclosed corridors. Some trenches were narrow enough that I could have jumped across them easily. Others were wide enough that crossing would require significant run-up and perfect timing.

And the entire system was shifting.

I watched, cataloging the movement with growing unease. The trenches were widening. Slowly but visibly, the gaps between safe ground were expanding, making previously easy jumps progressively more difficult. Simultaneously, the bridges of stone connecting different sections were narrowing, their edges crumbling away bit by bit like they were being eroded by invisible water.

The maze was reconfiguring itself. Making itself harder. Increasing difficulty over time to ensure that dawdling or careful planning would be punished while speed was rewarded.

“Earth manipulation trial,” I said, confirming what Aria had identified from the symbols in

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Chapter 244

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the first chamber. “Navigate the maze, reach the center where another crystal fragment presumably waits, return before the shifting earth makes passage impossible.”

“Time pressure combined with increasing difficulty,” Aria added, her eyes tracking the same movements I was observing. “How long do we have before it becomes impassable?”

I calculated based on the rate of change I was seeing. “Thirty minutes, maybe. Forty at the outside. After that, the gaps will be too wide to cross and the bridges will have collapsed completely. We’ll be stranded wherever we are when that happens.”

“Then we move fast,” Aria said, her voice carrying determination that I was starting to recognize as characteristic. She was injured, exhausted, facing a trial that would test her physical capabilities more than mental ones—and she was still ready to push forward rather than admit defeat.

I checked her wound before we started, pulling aside the makeshift bandaging I’d applied earlier to examine the stitches. They’d held through the water trial-testament to how well I’d sewn them despite the primitive conditions-but the skin around them was inflamed. Red and slightly swollen, showing early signs of infection that I’d been afraid would develop.

“How bad?” I asked, meeting her eyes directly.

“Manageable,” Aria said, though I could hear the lie in her voice. Could see the way she was holding herself, the subtle tension that suggested the wound was causing more pain than she wanted to admit. “I can move. I can jump. Let’s just finish this before it gets worse.”

Not a denial of the infection. Just an acknowledgment that we had no choice but to push through it. The Hunt didn’t pause for medical complications. We either continued with what we had or we failed.

I re-secured the bandaging and stood, preparing to enter the maze. “I’ll take point,” I said. “I have more experience with this kind of terrain navigation. Follow my path exactly—I’ll choose the safest routes, avoid the bridges that look too unstable to hold weight.”

“Understood,” Aria confirmed.

We entered the maze together, my boots finding purchase on stone that was solid for now but might not be in ten minutes. The first section was relatively easy-trenches narrow enough to step across without breaking stride, bridges wide enough that I could walk confidently without worrying about balance.

But I could feel the difficulty escalating with eac section we passed. The trenches were widening incrementally, the bridges narrowing by fractions of inches. Changes that seemed insignificant individually but would compound rapidly over time.

Ten minutes in, we’d made good progress toward the center. I could see the glowing pedestal now, positioned at what appeared to be the exact middle of the chamber. Same design as the

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Chapter 244

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first trial-carved stone supporting a crystal formation. This one looked different from Aria’s crescent moon fragment. More angular, geometric rather than curved.

But between us and that pedestal were sections of the maze that had become genuinely challenging.

The trenches here were too wide to jump across without significant run-up. The bridges were barely a foot wide, their edges crumbling visibly as we approached them, clearly unstable. And when I looked down into the trenches, I couldn’t see the bottom. Just darkness that went down and down, suggesting depths that would kill you from the fall alone before whatever might be waiting at the bottom got its chance.

“The walls are smooth,” Aria observed, studying the trench edges. “No handholds. No way to climb out if you fall.”

She was right. The stone had been cut or shaped with precision that left no natural grips, no cracks or protrusions that could be used for climbing. Fall into one of these trenches and you’d slide straight down into whatever darkness waited below.

“We need to move faster,” Aria said, pointing back the way we’d come. I followed her gesture and saw what she’d noticed—the bridges we’d crossed minutes ago were visibly narrower now. Some had disappeared entirely, the stone crumbling away until there was just gap and nothing connecting the sections we’d traversed.

The maze was closing. Not at the steady rate I’d calculated earlier but accelerating, the earth manipulation speeding up like it was responding to our presence or our progress. We had maybe twenty minutes now, not thirty. Maybe less.

“Run-jump the wide trenches,” I decided, making tactical choices on the fly. “Build up speed, commit fully to the jump, don’t hesitate at the edge. The narrow bridges we’ll cross carefully -falling there is worse than being slow.”

We executed the plan with as much precision as exhaustion and injuries allowed. I ran toward a wide trench, built up momentum, launched myself across the gap. Landed hard on the opposite side, my injured arm screaming in protest but holding. Turned to watch Aria make the same jump.

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