Page 72 of The Hyena’s Guardian

Matt noticed Theron staring. “What is it?”

For several seconds, Theron could not answer.

Then he crossed toward the nearest pillar as though something inside him already knew what he would find there.

Dust coated the ancient stone heavily enough that most of the carvings had nearly vanished beneath time, but the moment Theron brushed part of the surface clean, recognition hit him with brutal clarity. The names of the Guardians.

Every one who had chosen to remain beneath the mountain after the prison sealed. Every one who had died here.

The chamber around him seemed to quiet beneath the weight of memory pressing suddenly against his chest. Faces surfaced through the centuries one after another with painful sharpness. Laughter echoing through underground halls that no longer existed. Arguments during patrol rotations. Voices raised around strategy tables while everyone still believed the prison could hold.

People who had trusted him enough to follow him willingly into the dark.

Matt approached more gently this time. “You knew them.”

Theron nodded once.

His hand stopped over one of the names near the center of the pillar. The stone beneath his fingertips felt worn smooth from years of contact. He remembered her voice, so clearly that for a moment he could not draw a full breath around it.

“I told them we could contain it,” Theron said.

Matt remained silent beside him, but the bond shifted with quiet understanding instead of judgment.

Theron traced another carved name carefully with his fingertips before continuing. “When the corruption first spread, some wanted to abandon the prison entirely. Others believed we should destroy the mountain before the First King fully awakened.” His voice lowered. “I convinced them to stay.”

The confession settled heavily between them while distant stone cracked somewhere deeper underground.

Matt looked toward the names covering the walls. “You were trying to save people.”

Theron’s jaw tightened. “I condemned them.”

The answer came too quickly, sharpened by guilt carried far too long.

Matt’s expression shifted at the self-hatred beneath the words. “Theron.”

“They trusted me.” Emotion roughened Theron’s voice hard enough that he barely recognized it himself. His hand tightened against the pillar. “And one by one, I watched them lose themselves.”

Silence followed after that, heavy with the kind of grief that had existed too long to fit cleanly into language anymore.

Matt stepped closer then, close enough that the warmth of the bond pressed gently against the guilt threatening to pull Theron under with it.

“You stayed with them,” Matt said.

Theron looked toward the endless shaft cutting through the center of the chamber. “I survived them.”

“No,” Matt said softly. “You stayed.”

The words landed harder than Theron expected.

Because Matt was looking at him with the same impossible compassion that had been undoing him piece by piece since the moment they met.

It was not pity Theron saw in his expression.

It was understanding.

The bond pulsed warmly between them again, steady enough that the corruption beneath Theron’s skin quieted in response.

For centuries, the mountain had taken from him piece by piece until survival itself became almost indistinguishable from punishment.