Seraiah didn’t question Lonan as they took off sprinting down the tunnel.

Instead of turning back toward Metrius, they continued running forward, deeper into the mountain. As they ran, the tunnel opened up until the ceiling was high above their heads and bathed in shadow.

Seraiah tried not to imagine what else could be skulking up there, waiting for the moment they would run by.

More pebbles rained down on them, and Seraiah was sure she could hear a faint clicking sound echoing down the tunnel behind them. She slowed to look over her shoulder but couldn’t see more than a few feet.

There was no question a beetle was chasing them, but was there more than one lurking out there in the dark? Were they being herded?

She didn’t want to find out.

Lonan scrambled ahead of her with the light bobbing up and down in time with his steps, and Seraiah couldn’t help herself from looking back again. She was waiting for the moment she would finally see the thing that was chasing them, but there was still no sign of it.

It was probably better that she couldn’t see it, she reasoned, because if she could—they were as good as dead.

Suddenly, Lonan jerked to a stop in front of her. It was so unexpected she almost tripped over him.

“What is it?” she asked breathlessly, unable to keep the terror out of her voice. She could still hear the noises of the beetle coming from behind them, and this time Kai wasn’t here to save her like he had with the Varanem.

Lonan lifted the lantern higher, revealing the gaping hole in their path where a section of the tunnel floor had fallen away.

“Oh, gods,” Seraiah murmured at the sight. “What are the chances we could jump across that?” She knew even as she asked that there was no way they could clear it in a single jump, and if they could—it wouldn’t stop the beetle from chasing after them.

Lonan mutely shook his head and lowered the lantern again.

There was a skittering sound against the rocks.

“We have a few minutes before the beetle reaches us. With any luck, it will be alone. They rarely hunt in groups.” Lonan sounded surprisingly calm for someone who was about to be eaten by a beetle.

He outlined his plan, and Seraiah, unable to come up with anything better, agreed.

They would use the hole in their path to their advantage and lure the beetle in close—hoping it wouldn’t see the hole until it was too late.

There was a small outcropping of rock high above their heads that Lonan wanted to loop a piece of rope over. He thought they could swing over the hole and land safely on the other side while the beetle would fall to its death below.

It would have to be timed perfectly for the plan to succeed.

Lonan got to work on securing the rope to the rocks while Seraiah held the lantern for him. The clicking of the beetle approaching grew louder with each passing second.

For one beetle, it sure made a lot of noise.

“Are you sure it’s not more than one?” she asked Lonan nervously, casting a look back down the tunnel.

“Almost positive. They don’t like to share their prizes,” Lonan reassured her as he finished tying off the rope. He gave it an experimental tug before declaring it ready.

“Now, then,” he said, taking the lantern back from her. “You lure it closer, and when I give you a signal, we will swing off on this rope.”

Seraiah scowled at once again being relegated to bait. “Why am I the one that has to lure the beetle in?”

“Because it’s you it will want. You are bigger and therefore more food.”

“Fine,” she ground out. “This had better work.”

They took up their positions, and then they waited.

It wasn’t long before the beetle came scurrying out of the gloom, and Seraiah got her first look at it. This was a giant version of the harmless little beetles she was familiar with. Its pincers looked strong enough to snap her in half.

The lantern light glinted off those sharp black claws, which were raised in front of it—ready to grab its prey.

Ready to grab her.

The beetle paused when it saw her standing there, waiting for it, before suddenly darting forward and snapping its pincers.

Seraiah backed up until her foot hit the edge of the hole, and she could go no farther.

The beetle kept coming—closer and closer.

Just when she thought Lonan had given her up, he gave the signal.

At the same moment, the beetle charged forward, ready to take both of them plunging down the hole.

Seraiah reached out to seize the end of the rope as Lonan swung by. She would only have one chance to grab it.

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The end brushed her fingers.

She frantically snatched at the air, trying to grab hold before it was too late.

Finally, her fingers made contact and, using what little upper body strength she possessed, she pulled herself out of reach of the beetle.

Its pincers snapped at the empty air where she’d been standing not moments before as she and Lonan swung across the hole.

The beetle wobbled on the edge.

It tried to scramble back, but it was no use. Its weight pulled it down into the blackness below.

The sound of its hard-shell crunching on the rocks below came moments later, and Seraiah cringed. That had almost been her.

As they swung over the ground on the other side of the hole, Lonan ordered her to let go of the rope.

He landed gracefully on his feet as though he did this sort of thing often, while she landed in a heap. It was worse than the time Kai had made her jump off a moving horse. She would be feeling this for days.

“That worked much better than I had hoped,” Lonan declared.

“What do you mean ‘much better than you had hoped’? Wasn’t that exactly what was supposed to happen?” Seraiah demanded.

“Well, I wasn’t sure the rope would be enough to swing us both over to the other side. I also wasn’t sure we would get the timing right—as it was, you almost missed grabbing the rope.”

“Doesn’t matter now. We made it, and the beetle didn’t, so let’s keep going before some of its friends show up.” Seraiah stood, dusting herself off.

Lonan blinked. “I don’t think the beetles have friends,” he told her, retrieving the lantern and setting off down the tunnel.

And then he was back to telling her stories about mushrooms.

----------------------------------------

The rest of their journey through the mountains proved uneventful.

The tunnel weaved its way down, deeper into the mountain, before heading back up again. They sporadically heard cave beetles scurrying in the dark, but none approached them.

Sometimes, the tunnel would open up into caverns of glittering stone. It was these caverns where the beetles must have liked to make their homes because several that they passed through were littered with bones.

Seraiah told herself they were animal bones as they stepped over them as best they could. In some places, there were so many that she had no choice but to step on them—cringing as the brittle ones cracked beneath her feet.

She shuddered as she remembered how close she had come to joining the pile herself.

When they would stop to rest, they always made sure to never stop in or near a cavern, no matter how tempting it might be. Even if there were no bones present, it would be harder to fight a beetle if it were to find them. Lonan always preferred to sleep in the tunnel—the narrower the better—and they would take turns watching for any signs of danger.

The tunnel split off several times. Sometimes, they would only have to make a choice between two different paths, but other times, it was as many as four. Seraiah always left the decision of which way to go to Lonan, even though he sometimes chose wrong.

Seraiah wasn’t sure how many days she’d spent underground at this point. She tried her best to gauge the days based on the times they stopped to sleep. They’d slept five times since saying goodbye to Therill, making it approximately eleven days since she’d left Nyrene.

It was after the fifth sleep that Lonan declared they were almost there.

“Can you not smell the fresh air?” He breathed in deeply, his nostrils flaring.

Seraiah stopped walking and took a deep breath as well.

She still couldn’t smell anything or feel the difference he insisted was there. The air felt and smelled the same way it had when they were deep in the mountain—stale and musty, like a room that had been shut up for too long. There was also a bit of the stench she’d come to associate with the beetles.

“We’ll be out of the underground today, and then it’s only a short climb to the cave where the dragon is supposed to reside,” Lonan promised.

Seraiah hoped he was right. She was running out of time. Kai expected them back in Nyrene in three days, if her count was right. As it was, they were already going to be late. She could only hope he’d hold out a few extra days before doing anything rash.

Besides the imminent threat of a possible Elven-fae war, Seraiah missed seeing the sun and the sky. She would never be able to live underground for a long period of time.

When they stopped to eat, Seraiah suddenly knew exactly what Lonan had been talking about earlier. She could smell it—the scent of fresh air, clean with the faintest whiff of pine trees.

She swallowed her food down as quickly as possible and hurried Lonan along, eager to be free of the mountain.

The tunnel ascended sharply now, and her legs burned with the effort, but the smell of the fresh air urged her onward.

Bit by bit, the tunnel grew lighter, and Lonan called for a stop.

“Why are we stopping now? We’re so close.” Seraiah gestured to the end of the tunnel, which she could see up ahead. She could barely make out a little sliver of blue sky beyond.

“You have to be cautious,” he warned. “You don’t know what could be outside waiting for you.”

“I sincerely hope the dragon is out there, waiting for me,” she told him.

Lonan looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know how to put it into words.

Then it dawned on her.

He’d been instructed to take her to the surface and return to Metrius, but he probably wanted to go with her to see the dragon. Perhaps he wasn’t sure if he was welcome to join her and didn’t know how to ask. She couldn’t very well leave him to return to Metrius on his own, especially with the hole in the tunnel.

“I would feel safer if you were with me,” Seraiah hinted.

Lonan’s face relaxed, and he smiled. “Well, I suppose if you truly wanted me to, I could accompany you to see the dragon. No one will miss me back in Metrius.” He sounded sad as he said this last part.

“What do you mean, no one would miss you? What about Therill? There have to be others, too.”

He shook his head dejectedly. “No, not really. Why do you think the clan leaders allowed me to guide you?”

Seraiah bit her lip but didn’t say anything. She was fairly certain by now that they’d sent him because of his memory problem. He was expendable to them.

“Everyone else is important to the function of the city—everyone but me.”

“But don’t you have an important job too?” she asked, trying to cheer him up. “You told me all those stories about finding mushrooms. Isn’t that important?”

Lonan shrugged. “Not anymore. Not since the accident.”

Even though she knew it was impolite to pry, curiosity got the better of her. “What happened?” she asked.

“A lapse in memory. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I occasionally forget things.”

Seraiah nodded.

“Well, this time it cost several good gnomes their lives. The clan leaders immediately banned me from future jobs.”

“Oh.” Seraiah didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t blame the gnomes if a slip in memory was that dangerous.

“I tried to see if they would let me take another job—one that wouldn’t put anyone’s lives at risk, but they refused.”

“So, what do you do all day then?”

“Therill was kind enough to let me accompany him on his job. It was likely Pibble’s doing, but I appreciate it just the same.”

“And what exactly does Therill do?” she asked.

“He checks the tunnels around Metrius for cave-ins. If a collapse has occurred or seems likely to occur, he reports it, and a crew is sent to fix it.”

“So, he finds things like the hole we ran into?”

“Yes, exactly, but closer to the city in the frequently used tunnels.”

“I see. Well, if you don’t want to return to that, then you’re welcome to continue on the journey with me. I would be happy to have you, but I have one request.”

“What’s that?” Lonan asked eagerly.

“No more mushroom stories, please.”

“I think I can do that.”

Seraiah smiled. “Good. Then let’s get on with it. Let’s go meet a dragon.”