The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 288

Chapter 288: Thank You For Your Concern, Gav

Serena turned to look at the platforms she could see. Fin’s face was drawn, searching his memory, coming up empty.

"I don’t know," Aeron said. It visibly pained him to say it. Serena appreciated the vulnerability.

Hyran’s platform was angled so she could see only the edge of his shoulder. She couldn’t read him. Maelor was facing away entirely.

The two people most likely to know this answer couldn’t speak, and the people who could speak couldn’t tell if they knew it.

The heat beneath them pulsed. A reminder. The voice didn’t repeat questions and it didn’t wait forever.

Serena made the calculation. Her platform had two correct answers already. It was turned inward, locked, stable.

"Think my name," she called. "I’ll take it."

Dex’s head turned towards her. His eyes said everything his mouth didn’t need to: are you sure?

She did not return the look, and kept her gaze forward.

She wasn’t. She had fragments. The Fourth Accord was a period she’d studied tangentially through Frostborne texts.

"The chosen may answer."

"The expedition was led by Talwyn Greymarch," she answered. "The classification system was the Greymarch Index, a seven-tier framework based on aetheric resonance signatures." She paused. Her confidence was thinning. "The seal was authorized under Article Thirty-One of the Fourth Accord’s Supplementary Provisions."

The chamber held its breath.

"Incorrect."

Then the stone slab beneath her and Dex’s feet cracked. The sound echoed off the stone walls.

The slab lurched, tilting two degrees, and Dex grabbed her arm to keep her from sliding off. The voice offered no correction. No explanation. Just the verdict and the damage.

Serena stared at the crack. The lava beneath it churned, visible now, alive, and the heat coming through it was enough to make her eyes water. One more wrong answer from either of them and the slab would break. Both of them would fall.

She looked at Dex. He looked at her.

No words were needed. The matebond was carrying everything: her frustration at being wrong, his refusal to blame her for it, the shared understanding that their margin for error had just been cut to zero.

His hand was still on her arm from catching her. He didn’t let go.

"Well," he said, his voice carrying the specific lightness of a man staring at lava through a crack in his floor and choosing to be amused about it. "Let’s avoid doing that again."

From across the chamber, Gav called, "Serena missed one, if anyone didn’t hear. There was cracking."

"We’re okay," Dex replied. "Thank you for your concern."

"Define okay."

"We’re standing on a platform with a crack in it over lava and we have zero room for error. That kind of fine."

"Sounds about right."

Maelor was vibrating in fury. He knew that answer and Serena would be getting an earful as soon as he could speak.

The voice returned, and this time it addressed the group.

"Name the three elemental substrates required for stable aetheric crystallization, and identify the temperature variance that destabilizes the lattice in each."

Gav glanced sideways at Hyran. The mage’s entire body had gone rigid with what Gav could only describe as joy. Pure, uncut, academic joy. The kind of expression a man makes when he has been waiting his entire life for exactly this question.

"Think Hyran," Gav called. "Everyone."

"The chosen may answer."

Hyran answered so fast the words nearly overlapped with the voice’s permission. "Calcium aetherate, iron-bonded silicate, and refined void ash. Six degrees, eleven degrees, and four percent ambient humidity, respectively." He paused. "Every failed crystallization experiment in recorded history took place in a coastal laboratory. I have been saying this for fifteen years."

"Correct."

"I would also like to add that Nightspire’s published crystallization tables contain a rounding error in the silicate column that I submitted a correction for in 4018 and never received a response."

"What is the maximum number of simultaneous ward layers a single caster can maintain before cognitive fracture, and which theorem governs the decay rate between layers seven and twelve?"

"The chosen may answer."

"Correct."

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