Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Rose
They kept walking through the caverns and winding ribs of the mountain until the wisps began blinking on and off. She noticed Gunnar looking at them a few times before blowing out a breath and turning to her. "Time to sleep."
She stared up at him, unsure that she'd actually heard him correctly. "Sleep?"
He pointed at the wisps. "They only do that when it's almost nighttime. They don't glow all the time, after all. So it's a warning that we need to find a place to rest before they go out for the night."
The idea of being in this cavernous maw made Rose want to scream. She hated the idea of sitting in the dark while listening to the sounds of the cave. Because they were, without a doubt, terrifying. She had been doing her best to ignore them. The wisp light helped.
But now all she could think about was the sound of slithering that had been following them for the better part of an hour.
Not to mention the loud feet that moved to the side whenever they turned a corner.
The scraping sound of talons on the stones was enough to make her grind her teeth in fear.
She was not going to do this. She couldn't do this.
Gunnar reached for her. His hand curled around her own, holding her hard and firm with all the confidence of a man who had survived this before. The feeling of his hand grounded her. She didn’t have to be afraid. He was here with her, and she wasn’t alone.
"We're going to make a small camp," he said. "The stone will be at our back, and I will find you a light. It won't stay lit the whole time we are down here, but if you touch it, then the plant will glow. All right?"
"We really have to sleep down here?" she asked, her eyes a little too wide.
"Yes. If you can." Gunnar stretched his arms over his head, all those twinkling wisps highlighting the muscles of his toned body. "I, for one, am very tired. I think I'll fall asleep as soon as my eyes close."
Her mouth dropped open. "Surely you don't mean that?"
He winked. "I do."
Apparently he wasn't as afraid of the dark as she was, or at the very least, he was used to sleeping in awful conditions.
Gunnar found her a nice place to rest, an interesting carved out space tucked into the stone wall.
A channel, really, more than anything else.
But they could sit there, not quite in the tunnel, but more in their own little space.
The ground was covered with soft, plush moss.
And if she had been in any other situation, she would have maybe been comfortable.
She wasn't, though. She could hear the creatures of this cave moving around. She could sense their eyes on her, she swore. Skin prickling, she sat there without blinking while he looked for one of those bulb plants to set right beside her.
Gunnar did his absolute best. They didn't have a fire, but he patted the moss next to him, and she sat down beside him.
"You don't have to cuddle me," he said with a soft laugh. "But I think we're both a little cold. It's fine if you want to put your back against me like you did... before."
Of course he was trying not to bring up the labyrinth. She didn't want to think about that place either, but might be right. The moment he said the words, she realized how freezing she really was. They had stopped moving, and her body now felt the chill of the cave.
"I..." She swallowed hard.
Because part of her wouldn't mind cuddling with him. She'd liked it when he'd hugged her. That had made her feel safe and comfortable. But the idea of him holding on to her was also terrifying. Or... maybe it made her heart beat harder for a different reason.
It was confusing. She needed to think about it for a little longer before she dove straight into this. Gunnar was her shield. Her protector. He would never hurt her. And maybe, just maybe, the thoughts in her head didn't have anything to do with fear after all.
Taking a deep breath, she nodded. "I'm going to lie down, but if you don't mind going back to back with me..."
Rose was aware that neither of them could control what happened in their sleep. She wondered if she'd wake to one of his arms over her torso, keeping her infinitely warmer than going back to back would be.
As they both lay down, she rolled the thought over in her mind, prodding to see if there was anything about the idea of it that made that ancient fear pop back up again inside of her, but it didn't.
She didn't mind the thought of him holding her.
In fact, the thought was almost calming.
She still didn't like the sound of these caves.
She couldn't tell if that talon scratch was right next to her, or if it was so far away that the echo had brought it down the long chambers.
What if there were more creatures coming for them? What if they weren't safe?
But the idea of him holding her, of his arm around her waist, made her feel like there wasn't anything to fear at all.
She almost rolled over and asked him to do it. It would be so easy. Just a quiet question, just a thought pushed out into the darkness, and she knew he would. Gunnar would do anything for her.
Rose didn't. Her bravery only stretched so far, and that didn't include asking him for something that she didn't know how to ask for.
Yet, at least. So she just listened to the sound of his even breathing rather than the sounds of the cave.
She listened to the calm stillness of his body and felt the heat radiating off him.
And she knew she was safe.
She knew it so deep in her bones that eventually she drifted off into a dreamless sleep as well. Meandering through the realms of dreams in which she was strong enough to ask him to hold her. Strong enough to want the feeling of his body wrapped around hers, and maybe even more.
At least until she snapped awake.
Rose had learned a long time ago that gasping awake only made more bad things happen. She couldn't count the amount of times she had been jolted out of sleep and directly into the worst circumstance of her life. And those circumstances had gotten worse and worse the longer she'd lived.
So she now woke silently, without a single twitch of a muscle or an inhalation of breath that would give away the fact that she was now aware. She didn't know what had woken her, but she'd developed a sixth sense for danger in the many years of her life.
She listened carefully, trying to hear what had snapped her awake.
There it was. A slithering, almost like something heavy was being dragged, and the tiny taps of talon tips against stone.
Whatever creature was here with them, it was trying to move quietly.
She had no idea what it could be, but Gunnar wasn't moving.
Rose was certain he was still asleep and some foolish part of her whispered that she had to do this without him.
She snapped her arm out to the side and reached for the lantern bulb he'd brought her. Bright light illuminated immediately, green as Gunnar's eyes, and she sat up with it brandished like a weapon.
What she saw was not anything Rose had ever thought to see in her life.
A massive creature, long as she was tall, with hundreds of legs, had crawled on top of Gunnar.
It didn't have much of a face, just massive pincers that were inches away from his throat.
Countless eyes dotted the top of its head as it leaned ever closer to the man she adored, but the light made it turn to her and let out a mighty hiss.
Spit hung in glistening strands between its open pinchers that somehow moved even wider as it realized she was awake. And then she noticed that there was something buried in Gunnar's stomach. A stinger that had come out of the creature's tail, which was wrapped around his body.
The air was heavy with its scent. Earthy and musky, as only a creature born in the dirt of this world would smell. It let out another hiss that made all the hair on her body stand on end.
Rose let out a shriek that she was certain rivaled the sound of its hiss and pushed the bulb even closer to the creature.
All of its legs moved, trying to rush away from the bright light that it seemed terrified of.
She held it higher, trying to scramble to her feet, but she couldn't with the stone above her head.
Rose nearly knocked herself out trying to stand up and then cursed as she was forced to crouch and watch it slither away.
"Gunnar," she said, planting a hand on his shoulder and giving him a firm, hard shake. "Gunnar, wake up."
He didn't.
She looked down to see that there was white foam bubbling out of his mouth. She'd only seen someone do this once before, and they'd been hit in the head so hard they started seizing. She hadn't known what to do then either, but she rolled him onto his side as a start.
Cursing again, she set the bulb down and willed it to stay lit long enough for her to get a look at him.
Panic swelled. In the past she would have disappeared into that other realm by now. She would have hidden from the fear that made her throat feel tight, but now she didn't want to hide. Rose wanted to be here with him.
And just like that, with the realization that she didn't want to hide anymore, the world seemed to open up.
The glowing deep inside the mountain reacted to her panic.
What she had seen as only a well of power deep underneath this stone woke up.
Hands emerged from the depths. Troll hands that were worn and wrinkled with age pressed down upon hers.
She sucked in a deep breath, looking at the woman who had appeared from the heart of the mountain itself.
A crone with a wrinkled face, her hair laced with the bones of tiny birds. "Press here," she said. "Cut here."
Cut? What was she supposed to cut with?
A rock? She guessed. Rose didn't know why she trusted this apparition, but every fiber of her body did. So she took a rock and cut a slice in the cap of his shoulder, then looked at the troll woman.
"Now your hand."
Rose didn't hesitate. Pain meant nothing to her now.
Once blood welled in her palm, the troll woman pressed her hand over the open wound on Gunnar's shoulder.
Old words bubbled up from her then. Words the old woman was saying with her.
Words in the black tongue that Rose didn't understand, but suddenly she could feel a swelling of magic deep inside herself. Stronger magic.
Older.
The power deep inside the mountain was even brighter than before. She sucked in a breath, mystified at what could be happening. But she couldn't see anything at all because the bulb had gone out.
Without the light, all she could see was the glow of the mountain. That silvery magic was only something she could see, and if she wasn't careful, that creature would come back.
Light bloomed beneath her fingers where she was still holding on to Gunnar’s shoulder. Pretty blue light. And then more, a yellow that was brilliant as the sun, binding together until they were green as the emerald grass above this mountain. Blinking out all too quickly.
Almost as though her thoughts had summoned it, she heard the creature. Many taloned feet tapping toward her, rushing, racing, knowing it only had a small chance and then it could inject her with whatever venom had frozen Gunnar as well.
Rose nearly fainted. She wasn't strong like this, wasn't a fighter.
But then a hand came down on the bulb. A hand that couldn't possibly be there. The creature reared up at the light, showing its armored underbelly and the many legs. That pincher nearly broke through the image of... of...
"Rhydian?" she breathed.
The elf crouched on the ground beside her, his hand on the bulb and somehow, miraculously, touching it. The light grew brighter. Like a beacon in this darkness as it burned through the shadows, going from green to a brilliant, aching white that illuminated everything around them.
More of those strange creatures covered the walls. They were just ten feet from her, not far at all. They all hissed, their pincers and legs flailing as they raced away from the burning light that only an elf could conjure.
"How are you here?" she asked, practically begging him for information but also knowing that more people were joining him. More trolls.
More elves.
Countless people she could now see, and one that she recognized. The troll who had stood with her in the clearing when she had first jumped down into the bridal games. The young, pretty troll who had strolled into the trees as though she had never been there before.
"We were waiting for you to get stronger," Rhydian said. "Now that you are bound to him, you can use his magic as well as your own."
"Bound?" She glanced down at her bloody hand still on his shoulder. "Is that what I did?"
"Rose, now is not the time to worry about that. Your friend is paralyzed, and we need to get him to a safer place than this. These creatures will continue to hunt you, and they are hungry."
She glanced at the edge of the light, seeing a teeming mass of them all gathering. The glinting of their armored bodies looked like a rolling sea in the cavern. "I don't see a way out of this."
"That is why I'm here." Rhydian reached his free hand out for her to take. "To guide you, as I always have."
Her breath came in short, little, uncomfortable pants, but she knew this was the moment for her to take life by the horns. She was stronger than she had ever given herself credit for, and she was not going to hide from this.
So she placed her hand in the elf's outstretched one and felt him. Real and firm and strong, here in the world that was not of her own imagining.
"You said you were dead," she whispered.
He squeezed her fingers in his. "I am, Rose. You still haven't realized that your power is not in disappearing. It's in seeing those who have passed. You see the dead, Rose. And now the dead are here to save you."