The roar of the waterfall lessened as Britomart stepped into the cave’s entrance. She found herself in a tunnel so regular that it could have been hewn by human hands, were it not for the swirling ridges in the rock that told of water’s work. The ground felt cold and slimy under her bare feet. She jumped and raised her sword the first time a water droplet plonked onto her shoulder from the condensation above. By the wavering light that filtered into the tunnel’s entrance through the waterfall, she could make out a deep darkness at the tunnel’s end. She felt as if she were entering the gullet of some great creature. She could almost feel its breathing: a slow, many-voiced thing that resounded through the stone.

Britomart hesitated at the end of the tunnel. The light had grown dimmer and dimmer as she went on, and only the slightest glow illuminated the steps that led down into the cavern below. To either side of the steps, stalagmites rose up like dragon’s teeth in the gloom. The sense of standing in a sleeping beast’s maw intensified. Britomart could have sworn that underneath the sound of trickling water she heard the rhythmic breathing of a slumbering creature echoing from the cavern’s walls, echoing and echoing until it seemed to come from many bodies. She steadied herself against the tunnel wall and jerked her hand back as she felt the sliminess of the stone beneath her fingers. Grimacing, she wiped her hand on her damp tunic and squinted into the darkness.

She could see nothing but the strange luminescence that clung in irregular patches to the cavern walls. The walls seemed to stretch back endlessly. The cavern must have been even larger than her father’s throne room. The thought made her square her shoulders. I am a king’s daughter, she told herself, and I am here on a quest. I will not be intimidated by a rock formation. All the same, she wished she had a torch. But the torches had been in the saddlebag that tore against the gates of Rivensfeldt during their flight, depositing its contents by the roadside for eager hands to snatch up during the guards’ distraction.

A sense of vast space enveloped Britomart as she went down the steps. The cavern opened out around her, unfathomable. She ventured on. The faint light from the tunnel’s exit gave way to utter darkness. The sound of slow breathing seemed to engulf her the further into the cavern she went. She whirled to one side and then another, trying to find its source, but she could see nothing more than occasional patches of even more impenetrable darkness that might have been rock formations.

Britomart whirled again at a sound from the tunnel. Footsteps. She crouched and waited, thankful that the odd sounds of that place would mask her own breathing.

She did not have to wait long before a figure appeared at the end of the tunnel: a black silhouette against the wavering light. A small silhouette. A child’s silhouette. She rose from her crouch and strode back into the light, seething.

The figure turned to run.

“Don’t you dare, Smudge,” Britomart whispered fiercely. “You are not getting out of this that easily.” The whisper echoed in soft hisses through the cave.

The figure paused, then cautiously turned back to the cavern.

Britomart saw the tension go out of Smudge’s body as he recognized her. It was replaced by a look of angelic contrition as she got close enough for him to tell how angry she was.

“You didn’t come back,” Smudge said.

“Shhh! You’ll wake the dead.”

“You didn’t come back,” he repeated in a whisper. “I thought you might need help.”

“From an undersized, beetle-brained, malodorous scallywag?” Britomart whispered back. “I think not. I told you to guard my armor.”

Smudge’s chin went out defiantly. “You were only doing that to keep me from coming with you.”

“Well, sort of,” Britomart admitted. “But it wasn’t just that. I need that armor. I don’t fancy stopping a blade with my flesh. Would you?”

“Oh.”

“Yes. ‘Oh.’”

“’Spose you want me to go back, then.”

Britomart internally cringed as thought of Smudge scrambling back along the slick stone ledge behind the waterfall to the banks of the stream. “Can you even swim?”

“Don’t need to. Won’t fall in.”

“You’re staying with me. Stick close and, for Woden’s sake, try to stay out of trouble. We don’t know what’s down here. I don’t want you to get hurt.” She realized just how true those last words were. Smudge might be a malodorous scallywag, but he was her malodorous scallywag.

Britomart had barely taken two steps back into the cavern when she felt Smudge tug at her tunic. “What?” she turned and whispered in exasperation.

“Heard something. Sounds like…”

“Breathing. I thought I was imagining it.”

There was just enough light for Britomart to see Smudge’s face scrunch up in thought. “It’s more like with the Sisters of Frigga, where they stick you in a dorm-tory with all the other boys.”

“And they make you wash behind your ears, I know. Sounds horrible.”

“You’re missing the point,” Smudge said in a long-suffering whisper. “The dorm-tory had this big arched ceiling, and it echoes loud as anything, and you can hardly sleep at night for the sound of all the breathing. And that’s not even mentioning the snoring. And the farting.”

But Britomart was no longer listening to Smudge. Now that she was listening for it, she could hear the slight asynchrony in the ghostly inhales and exhales that echoed around them. Not the sound of one creature’s breathing, but of multiple creatures–or, perhaps, people? It had been human breathing that the sound reminded Smudge of. There were old tales of enchanted slumber, but surely those were only tales… She remembered telling Smudge that if the old tales were true anywhere, they were true here. She wondered if she had been more right than she knew.

If only they had light. She scanned the cavern for what felt like the hundredth time, willing herself to see past the darkness. All she could see was the hint of deeper darkness from the rock formations. That, and the luminescent patches along the cavern’s walls. “Got it,” she whispered. “Smudge, keep hold of my tunic.”

Several stubbed toes later, Britomart reached the nearest patch of luminescence, Smudge following on her heels. Up close, the light was a green so bright that it looked almost white in the pitch black. The glow was coming from a bulbous fungus growing on the cave wall. Britomart scraped it away from the wall with her sword, then broke it in two and handed half to Smudge. She grinned at the expression of awe on his face–not simply because of his awe, but because she could see it spreading across his features, illuminated by the green glow in his hands.

After that, they went from one patch of luminescence to another, collecting the softly glowing fungus from the cavern wall. Britomart took off her tunic and fashioned it into a makeshift sack. Her skin felt clammy in her linen chemise. She could feel her arms break out in goosebumps, as much from the feeling of being so exposed to an enemy’s sword as from the chill of the cave. But she needed light far more than an extra layer. A tunic would not stop a blade anyways. They went on until Britomart’s makeshift sack was full and Smudge’s arms were bulging with as much of the glowing fungus as he could carry, piled almost up to his chin.

“Ready?” Britomart whispered.

Smudge nodded precariously, trying not to unbalance his armload. The green light around him wavered up and down with his nod.

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Britomart closed her eyes against Smudge’s glow and poured every bit of her senses into listening, trying to pinpoint one of the sources of the breathing. She turned to face where she thought the sound was coming from before opening her eyes. There? She nodded her head in that direction. Smudge nodded in turn, then scowled as a chunk of fungus fell from his pile.

Britomart sheathed her sword and gestured to Smudge to step behind her. She drew a handful of crumbled fungus from her makeshift sack and scattered it in front of her. A dimly glowing constellation appeared before her on the cavern floor. Britomart grinned. The glow was faint, but it was enough. Enough to be sure of their footing. Enough to make a path. She took three steps, then scattered another glowing handful.

It took on the rhythm of a dance.

Ten steps. Was the sound of breathing getting stronger?

Fifteen. It was, she was sure it was.

Twenty. Was that a deeper darkness in the dark?

Twenty-five. The breathing was close now. Definitely something there.

One more step. Scatter. A constellation of light on the cavern floor. A constellation that came to rest against the base of one of the rock formations. Britomart stopped and stared. She heard the scuff of Smudge’s feet as he came to an abrupt halt behind her. The rock formation was remarkably regular: a rectangular slab roughly the size of the stone sarcophagi in her family’s vault. Britomart set down her sack beside her and drew her sword as quietly as she could. The slightest slither of steel cut the cavern’s echoes. She stood stone-still waiting for any change in the rhythm of the breathing. It continued as slow and rhythmic as ever. She turned to Smudge and beckoned him forwards beside her. His luminescence spread over the stone slab, revealing the statue of a recumbent woman atop it. The statue had been carved to a perfect likeness of life, right down to the slightly crooked nose.

And then the statue breathed. Britomart heard Smudge’s stifled squeak over the sound of her own sharply indrawn breath. They had found their sleeper.

The woman could not have been much older than Britomart. She had a petite slimness that made Britomart think of a bird. Not a showy bird, but the sort of gently wild bird that perched in your garden one morning and then never came back, no matter how much birdseed you left out. She would have been beautiful in precisely the way the court ladies approved of had it not been for her crooked nose and a certain determination about the chin. Her hair was braided into elaborate coils over each ear, held in place with what looked like golden mesh. Ramshorn, Britomart remembered the hairstyle was called. She had asked her mother about it as a child when she couldn’t figure out why the heads of the ladies in the palace tapestries looked so misshapen.

Britomart’s brow puckered as she studied the rest of the sleeper: the fur-lined mantle that lay in thick folds around her, fastened with a wide jeweled brooch at her throat; the richly embroidered tunic that ending just below the knees; the fine wool dress beneath it; the elaborately worked gold cuffs that braceleted both wrist; the gold signet ring that looked almost comically large on the woman’s small hand. It all belonged in one of the palace tapestries, not just the woman’s outdated hairstyle. Nobody had dressed like that in centuries. There ought to be a unicorn lying with its head in her lap, Britomart thought. There were always unicorns in the tapestries.

And that ring… Britomart craned in closer, trying to puzzle out the crest in the odd green light. It looked remarkably like an eagle with a sheaf of wheat in its talons. She tilted her head to the side as if the image would change. It remained resolutely the same. An eagle with a sheaf of wheat in its talons: the royal crest of Galbrica. The ring was the twin to the one that Britomart had shown Smudge a week earlier to prove her identity. Nobody but a member of the royal family or a truly extraordinary thief would own such a thing.

Britomart racked her brain for an aunt or uncle who had disappeared. Her father’s only sibling, the dowager Duchess of Drakelmire, was most definitely accounted for, being one of the court ladies most apt to cast disapproving looks at Britomart’s less than feminine appearance at court balls. The sleeping woman was far too young to be an aunt or uncle anyways, Britomart chided herself. But she could not be a cousin; the Duchess of Drakelmire had only sons.

Could the woman be a thief, then? But if she were, why dress in such old-fashioned clothing? Surely that would only draw attention to her.

That left only one option, as far as Britomart could see. Magic.

Either the woman was some sort of eldritch fabrication, or she had been asleep for a very, very long time. Britomart swallowed. Tightening her grip on her sword, she looked at Smudge, then reached out with her free hand, laying it carefully on the woman’s shoulder. The woman did not move. Britomart grasped her shoulder more firmly and gently shook her. There was not even the slightest variation in the steady rhythm of the sleeper’s breathing. Britomart gave the sleeper’s face a pat. A harder pat. A light smack. A harder smack. Nothing. She remembered trying to wake Smudge from his daze when they entered the Shadowed Wood. If only she had a waterskin.

Britomart looked to Smudge for ideas. He shrugged, making the luminesce bob. Then, he closed his eyes and puckered up his lips. He opened his eyes and shrugged again.

Britomart felt a flush creeping up her neck. She should have thought of it. It was, after all, how it worked in the old stories. In the stories, though, the rescuer was always a dashing young man betrothed to the lady he was rescuing. Still, it might work. Resolutely ignoring Smudge, Britomart bent towards the woman. Her braid fell over her shoulder to trail across the stone as she leaned in, and she impatiently tucked it back. Surely her heart shouldn’t be beating so hard. Britomart could feel the woman’s breath against her skin. She closed her eyes and closed the distance. Her lips brushed softly, quickly, over the woman’s. She had a fleeting impression of softness and warmth. Then she darted back, blushing furiously. Smudge nimbly scooted aside to avoid being stepped on.

They both stared at the woman. Not so much as the flutter of an eyelid. Britomart suddenly felt very foolish. She turned back to Smudge. He made a more prolonged kissing motion. Britomart rolled her eyes at him and gestured further into the cave. Smudge nodded reluctantly, his eyes flicking almost imperceptibly back to the large gold brooch that fastened the woman’s mantle.

Britomart sheathed her sword and reached for her sack, listening for the breathing in the dark. There. She scattered the luminescent particles and stepped onto the lengthening path. It stretched out behind them like a comet’s tale as they ventured further into the cavern’s dark.

They found the next sleeper on a nearly identical slab. A fighter this time. There was something about the shape of his face that reminded her of the sleeping woman. A half-helm with a crest of gold knotwork lay beside his head. Britomart had seen a helm like it only once. It rested on a plinth in the back of the royal armory, carefully oiled to preserve it from rust. The royal historian would swear himself blind that it was the helm of King Aethelwulf, who had restored Galbrica to order after Viscount Osmont paid Corsirian assassins to murder King Sigfried and his children. Aethelwulf had been King Sigfried’s half-brother, and his revenge had been so terrible that there had never again been a plot against a Galbrican king. That had been nearly three hundred years ago. Britomart shivered. If Alfrick was here, how long might he sleep if she could not save him? Already, they had lingered too long.

They came to one slab after another, one sleeper after another. Three more warriors with knotwork on their helms, though none so elaborate as the first. A woman whose furs and ice-blonde paleness marked her as a Hjalderlonder. A man with a blacksmith's shoulders and a beard so thick that it obscured his face nearly up to his eyes. A lithe young man with his dark hair fastened into a short queue at the nape of his neck. Two children, little older than Smudge, clearly siblings. A weather-beaten man in a trapper’s leathers. An elderly woman with a chin so pointy that it seemed to curve upwards. A plump young woman with softly curling hair and a rosebud mouth. A youth with a round, hopeful sort of face. Two men dressed in the plain, respectable tunics of Galbrican artisans: the first with small eyes and a weak chin; the second with cadaverous cheeks and a pointy, black goatee. Britomart paused when she came to the second of the two men. She studied him more closely. She could have sworn she had seen the two men before, though their clothing could not have been more different. They had been in the Prince of Osterlond’s retinue when he came to Boemapolis to formalize his betrothal to Goneril. What in Woden's name were two Osterlander nobles doing in the middle of the Shadowed Wood dressed as Galbricans? Britomart shook her head to clear it. That problem would have to wait until another day. She had more pressing problems.

Britomart’s hand scraped the bottom of her makeshift sack when she reached for a handful of luminescent fungus to mark their path as they moved on. She grimaced, then turned to Smudge. The luminescence in his arms lessened as Britomart transferred nearly a third of it to her sack.

When they came to the next sleeper, even the dimmed light was enough for Britomart to recognize the surcoat of a Svernhold guard. Her heart leapt. Her pace quickened. Her hand scraped the bottom of her sack. She transferred more of Smudge’s pile to her sack. The luminescence shrank. Darkness huddled in.

Another slab. Another sleeper. Smudge had to stand on his tiptoes to lean in as far enough over the slab for the glow from what remained of his armful of fungus to reach the sleeper’s face. The luminescence glinted dull green on the steel of a gorget. Smudge shifted further up. The luminescence spread over ruddy cheeks and an attempt at a mustache. Sir Rolf. Britomart could have hugged Rolf. I’ll come back for you, she silently promised him. She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. She took two more handfuls of luminescence from Smudge’s pile. The glowing particles had hardly hit the cave floor before she was stepping over them, Smudge trotting in her wake.

So resolutely was she walking–and so dimmed was the light–that she nearly strode into the next slab. She took the remaining fungus from Smudge as he stepped up beside her. There was so little left that she could hold it in her cupped hands. She lowered it until it almost touched the sleeper’s face. A faint greenish light traveled over a chin with the beginnings of stubble, a kind mouth and a straight nose, and hair that stuck up at all the wrong angles. It was a face that Britomart knew well. How could she not have, with all the time that Willa spent gazing at it?

A fierce triumph surged through Britomart. “Got him,” she whispered.