CHAPTER 8

“There’s nothing,” Rev says.

We sit close together in the darkness. Not that we believe the ridiculous children’s stories about ghosts in the tunnels, endless holes from where only screams escape, and all that. Still. Close is better.

We’ve been going through the things we stole from the Godtouched. Our loot consists of enough food for two to starve comfortably over a period of days, which we would certainly do if the lack of water wasn’t likely to kill us first. The thin blanket and the ragged length of rope also somehow fail to make up for the dire straits we find ourselves in. The ruby potion sits on top of the coiled rope in the absolute darkness, cold against our hands.

“Absolutely nothing,” she repeats.

She means light or ways to make it. Nothing. No flint. No oil. Nothing to use as tinder except the blanket or our clothes. We’ve been bumping our heads and knees on hard rock for what feels like hours, though it can’t have been that long. We followed the breeze at first, but eventually lost it. Our progress has been negligible. Other than hoping the twists and turns of the cavern will lead them astray, we’re completely at the mercy of any Godtouched with a torch.

“That’s all they need,” Rev says. “One torch, one hour of serious searching, and they’ll find us.” We’re sitting against the humid rock, sharing the blanket.

“Don’t be so gloomy,” I answer. “Maybe the creep worms will get us first.”

“I swear to the gods, Malco…”

“Or the shadow sprites,” I say. “Though it’s not night yet, so it’s unlikely—"

Rev thumps me over the head and ignores my protests.

“At least you have Medrein’s sword to protect us with.”

My sister makes a little uncommitting sound, half-pleased and half-ashamed. I think I can understand her, if only because the same thought, stealing the damn thing, crossed my mind before leaving Reach. I’ve used the sword in practice before; Medrein was never too jealous of his blade. Rather, he respected it as an effective tool for a distasteful – but necessary – purpose, and encouraged us to use it in practice, to get accustomed to the feel of the blade. The difference between me and Rev’s practice and mine was that in my hands the sword was an overheavy lump of metal that I swung about like a club. But in Rev’s, it was a coiled snake, art in motion.

“I’m glad you took it. He doesn’t want it. It belongs to you.”

Rev mutters something in the way of agreement or thanks. Clearly, the emotions behind the theft are complicated. She and Medrein were always close, agreeing in everything except matters related to the Challenge. To not only run but to take his sword… Well. It must bug her.

“You don’t regret not saying goodbye to your mom?”

I swallow a sudden lump in my throat.

“Look. I know it’s a touchy subject,” I say slowly. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose a mother. But what she did…”

“She did because she had to. They all did.”

“All?” My voice echoes in the tunnel, suddenly indignant. “What do you mean, all? One of them got sacrificed. Thrown into a hole to die so that the rest of us could keep living our stupid meaningless lives in stupid, meaningless Reach.”

“Do you even hear yourself? You don’t think that those stupid lives might be worth something to someone like Katha? That she wouldn’t be perfectly happy to sacrifice herself for them?”

The notion stings more than it should. It’s a possibility I’ve refused to entertain. That I refuse to entertain.

“They gave her away. They forced her to go and didn’t give her any choice, it’s the only way—”

“Really, Malco?” Rev says. She doesn’t cut in. The question is gentle, almost pleading. “I can see father getting that sort of notion in his mind. But Dala would have raised hell and more. I’m not so sure that father would rather face her fury over the Godtouched’s.”

Despite myself, a smile cracks through the pain. Harmless Dala could be a forced to be reckoned with when sufficiently angered.

We sit in silence for a while.

“It can’t be that,” I say finally. “Katha wouldn’t have volunteered, or if she had, she would have told me. She would have said something.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“And what would you have done?”

I don’t answer. I don’t have to. If Katha had told me she was volunteering for the Challenge I would have joined her in a heartbeat. If she’d refused, I…

I…

I would have made my way to certain death in a dank tunnel, trapped between the horrors of the darkness and wrathful Godtouched, that’s what I would have done. In less than a week, too.

“Maybe the potion,” I begin instead, changing the subject, but immediately I feel Rev shake her head to my side.

“We should save it. To bargain if they find us, or for an emergency.”

“This doesn’t seem an emergency to you?” I ask.

Rev lets a little strangled laugh escape her throat.

“What, being trapped in the bowels of the Barrows in complete darkness while being hunted by bloodthirsty Godtouched?”

“Don’t forget the lack of food and water.”

“Whoops.”

Sudden laughter echoes in the tunnels before I can cover my mouth to stop it. We wait, ears perked up, straining our hint for the smallest hint of activity. But there is nothing. The tunnel is deathly silent. Eventually, we relax.

“I never thanked you for coming with me,” I say.

Rev snorts.

“Don’t,” she says. “I’m not doing this for Katha.” She ponders this for a while before adding, “Not just for Katha, at least. You know I love her.”

“I do. You really want to take the Challenge?”

Rev sits silently for a moment before breathing out in a heavy sigh.

“Yes. I know it’s something everyone talks about. Levels, power. But I want it. I want it more than anything else. If father hadn’t stopped me each time, I would have volunteered a long time ago.”

“And probably died along with everyone else.”

“Not everyone else,” Rev says pointedly. “People do win. We just don’t hear about it in the end of the world.”

“You mean people who survive the Funnel…”

“I mean people who not only survive the Funnel but crush every other obstacle in their way. People that grow to be so strong that even Godtouched fear them.”

I think about this. Of course there are Champions. Normal people, like me and Rev, who against all odds managed to overcome the Challenge and come out victors.

But where are they?

What people whisper about the Godtouched, what people fear – the wild and shadow side of them that the guilds are supposed to keep in check – since Katha that has been my default mode of seeing them. Would they welcome someone different from them and yet just as powerful?

“What would you pick?” I ask. “If you won? What would you become?”

Rev doesn’t hesitate. “Warrior. Easy.”

“Magic doesn’t appeal to you?”

“Maybe I could learn magic later,” she concedes. “But I want… Strength. I want to be able to stand against the world. To look anyone in the eye and never, ever have to be afraid of them.”

“You’re already the strongest person I know, Rev. Aren’t you…”

“Yes?” she prods.

“Aren’t you… afraid? To become like them?”

She dismisses me with a shake of the shoulder. “The difference between them and us is that they were never weak. They don’t even have to grow up, they just… appear. And that’s why we’d never be like them, levels or no levels. Right now, I’m not strong enough to face the weakest Godtouched.”

“Do you hate them?”

“No,” she says, equally certain. “After all, it’s through them that we normals can gain levels, right? If they hadn’t figured it out, who knows.”

I nod at that, waiting for the question that comes after, that always follows.

“And you? You’d still pick Mage?”

“Yep.

“Do you even know what magic is?”

I shrug.

“Snapping your fingers and changing the world?” I’m only half-joking.

A little intake of breath tells me Rev’s getting ready to give me her own glib answer, but a loud crack interrupts her, resounding in the tunnel. We stand, alert, barely noticing as we hold each other by the arm.

The sound snakes through the tunnels, flying from wall to wall like a trapped bird, obscuring its origin.

“We should move,” Rev whispers.

I nod. There is no light. We assume the Godtouched will be using torches, but it stands to reason that anything else that might be down here will be at ease in the darkness. Creep worms, whatever they might be, roll around in my mind. I feel my palms grow sweaty.

“Wait,” I say. “Tie this around you.” I pocket the potion and uncoil the rope. With a few wraps it becomes a lifeline, holding us together.

We move deeper into the tunnel. Rev keeps one hand on the wall, guiding us, and Medrein’s sword pointing ahead, sometimes giving off little scraping noises when it touches rock. For whole minutes as we slowly advance, tapping and touching, taking safe little steps and letting the curves of the walls guide us, no other cracking sound follows after the first. For a moment, the tunnel feels almost safe, the darkness enveloping us like a blanket, making us invisible.

And then it repeats, louder. A third crack follows, then a fourth. Little avalanches in the distance. Silence. We stand quiet as stones. I try to listen for footsteps, either human or the skittering of some hellish beast, but every sound is obliterated by the constant, repetitive sound of my galloping heart.

“We’re moving towards it. The banging,” Rev whispers. The rope slackens as she steps closer to me.

I turn, resting my own hand against the wall of the tunnel, before I see the world behind me has changed. What used to be complete and opaque darkness is now tinged with a flicker of light, a dancing texture on rock and nook. It’s growing brighter. Suddenly, new sounds manifest: indistinct, far away, but it’s unmistakable that there’s a conversation taking place back the way we came from.

Without a word, we turn back again to the darkness, towards the cracks and the avalanches, and do our best to move quickly. Almost running, no longer being careful. Medrein’s sword pings against stone, sending disgustingly loud metallic sounds out into the darkness. I’m sure the Godtouched can hear us, that every click of metal on rock spurs them on and every moment brings them and their torchlight closer. And they can run, whereas we can only stumble and trip our way through the tunnel.

Suddenly, the blade drags against the rock wall, but instead of bouncing off with a little ding, it scrapes along it, drawing such a needle-like screech that I feel it in my teeth.

“Gods, can’t you just put that away? It’s not doing us any good and they’ll—”

“Malco.”

“—they’ll know we’re here if they don’t know already—”

“Malco!”

I stop.

“This is it. The tunnel ends here.” Rev turns to me, and I realize, with a start, that I can see the contour of her face, and behind it the vague, looming shape of a solid, imposing, and definitely impassable wall. The torchlight is close, only a few twists of the tunnel away. “We’re trapped.”