“Then we move tonight,” Lion-O replied. His voice was not the boastful cry of the lord who’d once challenged the Ancient Spirits of Evil. It was the rasp of a leader who’d watched his family starve.
Not deep. Just enough. Blood welled up, black in the false light, and ran down the blade. And as it touched the dead Eye, the Eye began to glow. Not gold. Not green. A soft, warm amber—the color of a hearth fire on a cold night.
“I won’t,” he lied.
Behind them, Cheetara shifted. Her staff leaned against the wall, but she hadn’t used it in weeks—superspeed required fuel her body no longer had. Snarf slept in a ball of matted fur, and WilyKit and WilyKat sharpened a single arrow between them. Only Bengali, the newcomer from Thundera’s lost colony, remained restless, pacing the cave’s perimeter.
“Then we don’t reach it.” Lion-O turned to Cheetara. “You remember the old tunnels. The ones the First Ones carved under the desert.” thundercats
And the Sword of Omens, resting across his knees, pulsed once—warm, alive, and utterly content.
“Don’t look at the walls,” Cheetara hissed. “Look only at my feet.” “Then we move tonight,” Lion-O replied
“You stabbed yourself,” she said finally.
A painful silence. Lynx-O, their blind seer, had given his remaining eye—the prosthetic one—to power their life-support. He sat now in the deepest corner, seeing nothing, saying less. Not deep