Eight Will Fall, page 13
When Casseem was gauging the size of the passage, he apparently hadn’t taken breasts into account.
Jacque reached out toward her, blocking the light. Larkin scooted her elbows forward and fumbled for Jacque’s hands, grabbing on to her.
Suddenly, rage seared her abdomen so intensely that Larkin gasped. Brielle’s terror crashed through the heat, and the girl screamed.
“HE’S HERE!”
Larkin cried out as claws sank into her ankle, yanking her backward.
“NO!” Jacque yelled, gripping her hands.
Panic seized Larkin as she frantically kicked at her attacker. “Don’t let me go!” The nails cut deeper and deeper until Larkin thought her leg might be wrenched off.
Her head swam from lack of air, shallow breaths catching up to her. Please, Ilona. She couldn’t die like this. Not trapped and helpless. Muffled shouts came from the chamber in front of her. Grating sounds from behind her.
Jacque’s fingers dug into her wrists. “I won’t let you go!”
“Hang on, Larkin!” shouted Amias. He and Casseem planted themselves around Jacque and anchored her.
“DESTROY IT!” Larkin’s shin slammed into the bottom of the passage as she kicked. She was going to break her own legs.
“I can’t see it!” Jacque dove deeper into the passage, grabbing Larkin’s shoulder.
Larkin kicked free. Jacque yanked her through the passage and Larkin tumbled out, her shoulder slamming into the ground. She rolled onto her back and gasped for air.
“Get back, everyone.” Casseem thrust his torch into the crawl space, searching frantically.
“Do you see it?” cried Larkin.
Casseem shook his head, a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek. “Too dark. Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”
Amias knelt next to Larkin. “Let me see.”
She held her shaking arms out to him, her flesh decorated with cuts. Her tunic was spotted with crimson, and her trousers were torn from whatever had latched on to her. She lifted her shredded pant leg, her skin marred by long gashes. She couldn’t tell if the wounds were from talons or fingernails.
“They’re shallow,” said Amias.
“They hurt like all hells,” she gasped, noticing the alarm that still thrummed inside him.
“But you’re alive. They’ll heal,” he said soothingly, his calm returning. She latched on to it, her body still trembling with adrenaline.
“We need to run. If that thing finds another way to get to us…” Jacque spun toward Brielle, panting. “Who’s he?”
Tears streaked down Brielle’s face. Her lips parted, but words did not escape her.
Casseem held the torch up to Brielle’s face. “You can scream louder than any of us, but now you won’t talk?”
Brielle flinched, and Larkin dizzied with the venom of her shame.
“Leave her alone, Casseem.” Larkin shook away the sensation. “And it doesn’t matter. I know who he is.”
The queen had sent them down here for a reason, and as much as Larkin resisted the thought of a god ruling this underworld, the searing rage had settled in her bones. He’d been watching them. He had done so from the very beginning.
“Kyran,” said Larkin. “He is Kyran.”
SIXTEEN
Larkin’s torch did little to illuminate the forks as she stumbled through them. She listened to Jacque’s footsteps close at her side, and glanced over her shoulder to make sure the others were catching up.
Jacque caught the back of her cuirass. “Careful!”
Larkin stopped short, her foot hovering over a treacherous vertical shaft. “Sweet Ilona.” She stumbled away, wiping the sweat from her upper lip. “Thank you.”
“For saving your hide?” Jacque bent over, catching her breath.
“Twice now,” Larkin uttered. The soldier had fought for Larkin’s life in the crawl space as if Larkin had been her sister. Perhaps Jacque was used to banding with her battalion to stay alive, but Larkin was grateful.
She counted the others as they rounded the corner, searching for Brielle. Amias had her under his arm.
Brielle’s eyes found Larkin. “I’m here,” she said quietly.
“I think we’re safe,” Amias said. “I don’t hear anything behind us.”
“How in Ilona’s bloody name could Kyran be here?” Casseem panted between breaths, wiping locks of hair from his forehead. “Don’t tell me you believe Melay’s lies. Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?”
“Do I?” Of course Larkin realized how ridiculous she sounded. If Garran could only hear her now. Gods, or her mother.
Tamsyn yanked on his cuirass, setting it straight after their run. His face was bright red. “You said you weren’t religious.”
“I’m not,” Larkin snapped. She sagged against the wall. Their constant anxiety was exhausting her. “But I don’t know what else to think. We’re being followed. I sensed rage that didn’t belong to one of us. So did Brielle and Amias.”
“Oh.” Elf paused in tying her hair up, her eyes widening. “I sensed it, too. I just thought one of us was mad. I thought it was you.”
“Me?” Hells, was she really that angry all the time? “It’s coming from something surrounding us. Someone who is everywhere.”
“If it’s Kyran, then what are the creatures?” Casseem paced to the edge of the light. He turned back toward them. “Tamsyn?”
The scholar clutched his scroll case, his face crumpled as he thought. A bead of sweat dripped past his eyebrow. “We’ve seen only one creature so far. The soldier’s corpse was evidence of another, but we still don’t know what attacked Larkin.”
Larkin lifted up her pant leg. The red gashes looked too shallow for talons, but then again, she’d never been attacked by something with talons before.
“There could be many creatures. And all of them could be angry.” Casseem walked toward Larkin and plucked the torch from her hand.
“No.” Amias glanced up, frowning as he waited. Larkin knew that he was trying to sift the rage’s smolder from the rest of their emotions. “I know the difference between a mob and a person.”
“Do you know the difference between a god and a person?” asked Larkin. “A god you don’t believe in?”
“I’m not religious,” Amias corrected. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the possibility of gods.”
“You said Melay sent us down here because she believed Kyran wouldn’t hurt his own kind. We could get closer to him,” Larkin said.
Amias finished her thought. “He’s watching us.”
Brielle’s agony suddenly began suffocating Larkin like blackdamp. Larkin turned to her and gasped as blood bloomed through the sleeve of Brielle’s tunic. No, not just one sleeve. Both of them.
“Brielle, what…” Larkin charged forward as Brielle stumbled away from Amias, catching her hand. Larkin pulled up one of her sleeves as Amias raised the other. The skin had peeled from both of Brielle’s arms, leaving raw, seeping gashes. “How did this happen?”
“She has been with me the entire time,” said Amias, horrified. “I promise you.”
Elf called for clean linen.
“He wants my flesh,” Brielle whimpered, her eyes glassy and distant. “He told me he knows where my sister is.” Even through the agony, her blossom of hope caught Larkin off guard. Brielle extended her arms, as though she were offering them. “All I need to do is give him what he wants.”
Larkin knew it was nonsense. But she also had a strong feeling that Brielle was lucid, which made her words that much more frightening.
“What in all hells.” Casseem tossed Elf a tunic. Elf glided her finger down the center, splitting it in two.
“Who?” Larkin took the pieces from Elf and began to hastily wrap them around Brielle’s arms. “I need you to tell us, Brielle!”
“Kyran,” she finally cried.
Larkin swore. She didn’t know if Brielle was just regurgitating Larkin’s theories, or if Kyran was communicating with her, but someone was hurting her. Right in front of them.
Larkin took Brielle beneath her arm, guiding her toward the group. “We need time to figure out what we’re going to do.”
Jacque tossed a new torch to Casseem. “And we need water. We need to get out of this labyrinth.”
Casseem lit the new torch, tossing the stub of the old one to the ground. “Tamsyn?”
Tamsyn tightened his fist around the map, crumpling it. “This has been useless from the beginning.”
Larkin pushed Brielle in front of her, hovering over her protectively. “Then we keep walking.”
The winding gut of the labyrinth remained the same—coiled tunnels broken by even darker recesses. At every fork, Casseem would hold his torch before both paths in search of a draft. If his flame wavered, they would choose that path, though Larkin was never certain whether it was simply their imagination playing tricks on them.
Larkin kept talking to Brielle, asking her questions and trying to understand how Kyran could have been speaking to her. Brielle said nothing in return, the numbness that Larkin had sensed from her before returning. She steadily bled through her bandages, black circles blossoming beneath her eyes.
Just keep moving, thought Larkin, but as the dehydration cramps set in, she’d never felt so hopeless.
Their hiking had slowed to a crawl, but they didn’t stop until Casseem collapsed.
He rolled onto his back, pressing his hand to his chest. Larkin picked up his torch, the light catching the sheen of Casseem’s skin. He was shaking. “I feel like I’m dying.”
“If we don’t find water—”
“We’re done, Larkin.” Jacque sank to her knees, pulling off her cuirass as she panted. “Maybe after some rest we’ll be able to keep going, but not now.” She ran a shaking palm over her face. “We’re done.”
Larkin’s heart raced, but she gave in, helping Brielle sit and using the last of her energy to search Amias’s bag for her blanket. She wrapped herself in it and slid down the tunnel wall next to Brielle.
The weight of hopelessness was dismal. Amias lowered himself down to her other side, his breathing labored. At Larkin’s feet, Elf curled into a ball within her bedroll.
“There’s no escape.” The words left Elf in a whisper, but Larkin knew she’d be sobbing if she had the energy.
“What did I tell you, Elf?” Larkin licked her chapped lips. Her tongue felt like sand. “When the walls close in, you need to distract yourself.”
Elf peered out from her bedroll. “I don’t have any stories.”
“What about a riddle?” Jacque croaked. The soldier was propped between Casseem and Tamsyn, who both had their eyes shut.
Elf fell silent for such a long time that Larkin thought she’d fallen asleep. Finally, she asked, “What do you call someone who isn’t an Empath?”
Casseem released a groan, his eyes fluttering open. “I don’t know, what?”
Elf paused for drama. “Nonsense.”
Amias choked on his laughter, spiraling into a coughing fit. Jacque’s cracked lips peeled apart in a grin. “That was the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”
“Utterly brilliant,” Tamsyn said, his eyes remaining shut. “Nonsense.”
Brielle hummed in mirth, settling against Larkin’s side. Larkin took Brielle’s hand, hoping the emotion was a good sign, but the girl said nothing. Larkin took a deep breath, then searched for the rage. She exhaled in relief when she couldn’t find it. Another good sign, she hoped.
When the ember of their torch grew dim, Casseem’s coarse voice cracked through the looming darkness. “Soldier…”
Jacque sighed. “Yes?”
“What’s waiting for you when we get home?”
He was trying to lift their spirits by talking as if they would survive this. Larkin wasn’t sure it was going to work.
A few moments passed before Jacque responded. “My betrothed.”
Larkin’s head snapped up in surprise. It had been Jacque in Melay’s dungeons. Jacque who had screamed and sobbed. She’d been so composed since the dungeons, with her orders and rule-following.
Even at a distance, Larkin sensed the deep pang of Jacque’s remorse, and knew that composure meant little. Jacque may have been good at burying her pain, but it wasn’t gone.
If Jacque wasn’t a soldier, Larkin reminded herself, she wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. Still, Larkin couldn’t help but imagine her own mother and father. She’d sensed their love for each other, envying it at times. Jacque had someone waiting for her. If she never came home, her betrothed would never learn the truth of her sacrifices. It wasn’t fair.
“He’s a lucky man,” said Casseem.
“She is.”
This caught Amias’s attention. “Who?”
“Risa.”
“I knew it.” Delight burst from Amias. “You’ve been enamored with her since we were five.”
“I was enamored with you when I was five. With Risa, I was closer to eight.”
Amias chuckled, and Larkin savored his brief and fleeting joy before a small sob escaped Jacque’s throat.
“Everything I’ve done has been for her. Every decision I’ve made … I don’t want the magic I inherited. I don’t want children to pass it down to. I never wanted to take orders from—” Her breath hitched, and she sobbed again. “I’ve only ever wanted her.”
“I’m sorry, Jacque.” Larkin wanted to cry, but it was like she had no water left inside her. I’m sorry, Garran.
Larkin wanted to rebel against her fatigue, but her body was succumbing to the dehydration. She drifted to sleep.
At one point, she woke to Brielle snoring softly against her shoulder. Their second-to-last torch lay burning on the ground near Elf.
Larkin tilted her head back, and beyond the dim light a network of eyes glittered along the ceiling. Hands of the dead twisted along the tops of the tunnel walls, sinew braided together.
She was losing her mind.
Larkin rolled her head to the side. Amias was awake, watching the ceiling along with her. “He’s here.”
Here?
Larkin shot up as terror prickled down her spine. The torch was half burned; the others were slumped over, asleep.
She patted the vacant wall next to her. Brielle was gone.
Terror struck again, more violent, demanding her attention.
Larkin stood and almost lost her balance; she stepped over Elf and picked up the torch, rekindling it.
“Larkin?”
She’d woken Casseem.
“Brielle’s gone, but I sense her. She’s in trouble.” She’d let them decide to follow her or not, but she wouldn’t waste any more time.
Larkin’s legs cramped as she rounded a bend in the tunnel, but she pushed forward, reaching another fork. Brielle’s emotion was consistent now, like nails against slate. She quickened her pace, weaving through portals and crystals as large as she was. She batted away a glowing string of larvae as Brielle’s terror crescendoed into an emotional shriek.
The tunnel mouth opened to darkness. As Larkin stepped into the abyss, her torch snuffed out.
So did Brielle.
Larkin screamed Brielle’s name, holding her breath and waiting for a response. Tell me you’re here, Larkin silently pleaded. Please, tell me you’re here.
When she was met with silence, Larkin swore and searched her pockets for flint and a knife. The air reeked of something rotting, and she gagged. Kneeling, she scraped her flint over the torch head until it lit again. She picked it up, finding nothing before the flame extinguished again.
Her only hope was the group she’d left behind.
“Help!” she screamed.
She lit it a third and a fourth time. The same luck followed her. Pressing her hand to the torch’s crown, Larkin found it cold. She tossed it to the ground and struck her flint over and over again.
A figure holding a torch emerged from the tunnel’s mouth. Amias. His flame choked and died. She cried out to him, and they found each other in the darkness.
“This room.” She tightened her grip on his arms. “I can’t keep my torch lit.”
“Where is Brielle?”
“I lost her.”
“That stench…”
Footsteps beat against stone as the others arrived. Larkin counted four; they were all here. As Casseem reached Larkin and Amias, he tried lighting Amias’s torch. The flame erupted, and Larkin spotted a rope on the ground in front of them before the light died. She hurried to it and dropped to her knees.
“This is destruction magic,” cried Tamsyn. “Something is eating away the tops of the torches.”
There was someone in the room with them, putting out their flame.
“We need to turn back, now,” Jacque commanded, drawing her sword.
“We can’t leave Brielle.” Larkin found the end of the rope, as thick around as her fist. Beneath the stench of the room, she smelled sulfur. She held her flint over the rope and struck it with her knife. Flame erupted, traveling down the wound fiber.
Larkin followed the rope, unable to keep up as the flame roared across the ground, forking and illuminating enormous basalt pillars. At the back of the hall, the fire climbed, zigzagging over a strange formation of rock before plummeting back toward the ground, creating an arch.
As Larkin neared, the rock grew more defined until she realized it wasn’t rock at all.
Rock didn’t have skin that peeled from bones, nor bent and broken limbs. Hundreds of figures, swords threading their rib cages, pinning them together. Shields with the crest of Demura garnished the arch of corpses.
Vibrations of terror grated her flesh.
“The missing soldiers,” Jacque said. “Gods, no.”
Something was different about the lower left side of the arch: an imprint of blood and open wounds. Larkin released a scream and sank to her knees.
Brielle’s eye sockets were empty, her ribs flared open to reveal her stolen heart.
Jacque yanked Larkin up by the back of her armor and spun her around. “Don’t look at her.”
Larkin, clinging to the soldier, met Jacque’s frightened eyes. They were both crying.
