CHAPTER 9

I rush forward to touch the wall, running my hands all over the rough surface. But Rev’s right, there’s nothing else here. A solid dead end.

“We turn back,” I say. “We still have time.”

I turn to walk, but the rope grows taut and stops me.

“Malco,” Rev says again. “I don’t think we can.

We stand, looking at each other. The mere fact that we can see each other, not just as shadows among shadows, sends a shiver down my spine. Fear passes over Rev’s face, but is quickly replaced by a setting of the jaw and a steeling of the posture. She grips Medrein’s sword harder.

“Get behind me,” she says, her voice determined.

“No. We can’t just…” I grab the potion from my pocket and hold it up. I can see the ruby liquid twinkling in the flask. “I’ll drink this. Maybe it will… do something. It’s precious, so maybe it’s powerful.”

“We’ll use it to bargain,” Rev says. It’s an order, not a suggestion.

My hand moves to the cork, and Rev tugs the rope hard. I lose my balance. The sleek glass vial slips from my hands and I hear the tinkle of glass on the rock, but no splitting, no sudden breath-catching smash. I curse and bend double, searching with my hands, feeling the uneven stone under my fingers and palms.

“Get up,” Rev hisses. “If I have to fight, I can’t do it with you like that, get up.”

The light isn’t increasing, but there is a low rhythmic murmur, language being used just on the edge of hearing. The Godtouched must have hesitated on some side tunnel we missed.

“Get up!”

But I don’t, not as much as she pulls. I almost lie down, looking into every nook and cranny, searching for any hint of ruby-red.

“Malco!”

And then I see it. It’s not ruby, it isn’t glass. It’s salvation.

“Light,” I whisper.

My face is almost resting on the floor. From here, I can see into a shadow cast by a knee-high overhang. Where it seems there is nothing, just one slice of darkness among many, I can now see a tiny source of light. At first, it seems very small, a gem in the rock, but I quickly realize it’s distance that makes it faint. I reach for space under the overhang and find only air. It’s not a tunnel. I wouldn’t bet any amount of coin that I can pass under it. But just as my hand retracts, I feel a gentle breeze caressing my face.

I look up at Rev. The voices have grown sharper, clearer. I can distinguish words. She nods.

“Go!”

I don’t argue. If there’s nothing on the other side, just an endless drop, I’d rather go first and make sure.

Resting on my chest, I edge forward, pressing against the floor with my elbows. I bang my head against the top of the rock and turn it sideways. My ears scrape against the floor and ceiling of the passage, but I grit my teeth and push. I feel my head stick. My heart stops as I become sure that the passage is too tight, an illusion of safety only, that as much as I push, I’ll only get more firmly trapped. The next instant, I come free, my head breaks past the tight squeeze and the airhole widens just a little. It’s enough. I drag myself through. My shoulders give a little trouble, and I have to exhale all the air in my lungs to make space for my chest. The humid rock is jagged and places, tearing at my skin, making the passage slick with blood. Rev pushes my legs and I make inch-by-inch

I ignore the claustrophobia and the fear of getting stuck for as long as I can. But as soon as I feel myself making headway, the urge to escape becomes such that I become frantic. When I catch myself, it’s already too late. My hands slip into thin air and I fall in, unable to get a grip on the slippery rock, and tumble past the edge of the opening to the other side. I hit the floor with my hands an instant later, roll, and come to rest on my back.

My ears are burning. There is a cut across my cheek. But I’m alive.

“Mal? Malco!” I feel the rope draw taut against my waist.

I jump up and find that I can even stand. From this side, the airhole is at chest level. I can see the walls on the far side, sharply defined by the encroaching torchlight.

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“Come on!”

The next moment I feel something being pressed against my hand. I clutch at it, thinking it’s my sister’s arm, and find it too hard and stiff. A hilt.

“You come on, you idiot!” I whisper with urgency as I pull Medrein’s sword through.

Rev doesn’t rise to the insult, which only speaks to the seriousness of the situation. She blocks the light as she rests against the floor. I hear the scraping of her clothes as she edges forward and finds exactly the same resistance as I did.

“Push!”

“I’m stuck,” she hisses.

“Turn your head. Just push. Ignore the pain.”

There is a little muttered cursed as I reach in and grab her head. Rev’s hair sticks to my wet and bloody fingers. I twist, pull, ignoring her muted cries of pain. Her head passes through, then her shoulders. The torchlight increases. Full words travel down the tunnel.

“My chest!” Rev says through gritted teeth.

I place my foot against the stone, grab Rev by the arms, and heave. I’m sure I won’t make it. They’ll see her, and all I can hope for is a head start as the Godtouched chase us to the very depths of hell. And then, all at once, resistance gives, and Rev’s body slips through the opening. She twists, tumbles, and falls on top of me.

We lie there, barely daring to breathe. I’m staring up, and the torchlight is a golden sheen, penetrating through the little airhole and giving texture to the darkness of this cavern.

“Dead end,” says a voice. I recognize it as Kalos’s. “Again.”

He sounds between disappointed and relieved.

There is quick pacing above, a fist hitting stone.

“Can’t be. I heard them. I know I heard them.”

Rao.

“Maybe you heard something else... Maybe those sprites she mentioned,” says the unnamed third element, nervous. “What if she’s right and this area is too high-level for us? I just got this armor, man…”

“I know I heard them!” Rao insists.

The bickering progresses. Someone is pacing up and down the tunnel, making the torchlight increase and then fade out again.

Rev stands very slowly, taking care not to let the light shine on any part of her body. She puts her back against the wall of this new cave, picking up the sword I left leaning there. She nods at me and I move like she did until we’re each on one side of the hidden airhole. We wait, hearts beating, following the conversation that drifts up and down the tunnel above.

The arguments for staying are slowly and methodically rebuffed. In the end, Kalos and the third Godtouched simply walk away. Rao lingers a moment, huffing, searching, tapping walls, but eventually moves after his friends, defeated. The light dwindles again.

I breathe out. In the fading glimmer, Rev and I smile to each other, then she gives me a nod before walking down the new tunnel, away from the airhole.

Before leaving, I look back the way we came. What little light remains only lets me guess the structure of the tunnel we left, the suggestion of walls and the dark mass of the uneven floor. I catch a spot of oily red, where we left our blood and skin on the walls of the tunnel. But then I frown. I look closer, and I realize: it’s not blood, but the brighter red of the potion. It’s lodged in the airhole, hidden from sight from above.

Gotcha.

My smile grows as I reach inside and grab the vial. And suddenly there is a rasp of movement and then pressure on my hand, force enough that it threatens to crack my bones. I slap my hand over my mouth to kill a scream before it can escape. I know what happened without even looking. Someone, someone heavy, has just stepped on my hand. The pressure increases to the point where I think my bones will break, and then a hand like a vice wraps around my wrist and pulls.

“Got you, you little creep,” says Rao, full of glee. Behind me, I hear Rev turn in alarm.

I pull on my own arm with my right hand, but Rao’s grip is unwavering. He pulls, and I’m slammed and squished against the stone wall. Rev grabs my body, screaming, but not even between us can we equal the strength of a low-level Godtouched. My shoulder is filled with molten pain and for a moment I see stars. My scream fills the caverns and my ears.

“Let him go!” Rev yells. She sounds far away.

“Hmm,” says Rao. “No.”

He yanks again. My head hits the stone with a crack, blinding me. I can taste blood.

My free right arm is flailing inside the narrow passage. I feel it bump against a smooth object. Like I’m gripping at the last glimmer of hope, I grasp it.

“I have your potion!” I yell. My eyes are closed. I can’t keep them open with the nausea. “I’ll break it, I swear to the gods. Let me go and I’ll give it to you.”

There is a moment of pause on Rao’s side. His grasp on my wrist is hard steel, unbreakable. I think I can hear a sound, a thin, quick slither.

“You know what?” Rao says. “You can keep it.”

He grunts, and then there’s silence and a feeling of velocity. The next moment the world becomes fire and pain. I scream so loud I drown out Rev. Another grunt, a splatter. I know what he’s doing. Rao just drove a blade through my hand.

Grunt. He does it again. I slump against the ground, hitting the stone with my closed hand, tears streaming down my eyes. Rev backs up. Somewhere in a peaceful core inside me, I realize this is better. She should go, save herself. I turn, half meaning to pass her the potion, my last stupid mistake.

I almost lose my nose. I dodge right before a long, thick piece of sharp metal runs past my face and into the hole. It sinks into something on the other side. The pain might be too enormous to tell for sure, but it’s possible it missed me entirely.

Rao’s scream confirms it. The pressure on my hand slackens, and I jump back before the Godtouched can realize his mistake. His arm is in the airhole the next moment, trying to recapture me, Rao screaming obscenities. He’s too big to go through the passage, but his arm flails around in a rage, reaching for anything, anyone. The next flash of steel comes as Rev slices down on the arm, splattering the cave with blood, making it recoil inside the hole with a new string of curses.

I’m blind with pain, but Rev has me. She helps me up, then forces me to walk. I hold my hand like it’s Katha’s little owl, all that time ago, and just as weak and feeble.

A crack resounds in the darkness. But it isn’t so dark anymore, I realize. There is a light. Not a flickering torch, but a steady star. And there isn’t just one, but many, spreading across the darkness in an endless sea. I feel like I might tumble, fall into the night sky. With a few more steps, I actually do it.