Chapter 19
The dark dropped us into more.
My teeth clacked as I met the ground, and a force fell atop me—flattening me and causing my head to smack against stone.
Brey cursed.
Realizing he was squashing me, he pressed his hands beside my head and lifted his upper body. His wide emerald eyes lit the dark. “Are you injured?”
“No,” I grumbled. “I’m quite fine.”
Sensing I’d lied, or wondering why I’d said it like that, he narrowed his gaze.
But as the ache in my head subsided, his nearness became increasingly apparent. His scent smothered, and his face hovered mere inches from mine. I couldn’t decide what I wanted more—to push him off me or pull him closer.
So I drawled, “Comfortable, husband?”
“You don’t want me to answer that, wife.”
“If that were true, I wouldn’t have asked.”
His lips parted as he glared at me.
I smiled.
A hint of a smirk brightened his eyes before he lowered to murmur near my ear, “Comfortable is the very last thing you make me feel.”
Then he pushed back onto his feet and rose carefully, so as not to hit his head on the leaning rocky walls.
Unsure what to make of those words, I remained on the ground. With Brey gone, I saw where we must have entered this cave-like place from—an opening high above. Too high to reach or even see the sky through.
Eyeing our surroundings, I patted the smooth stone beneath me and wondered aloud, “Did it accidentally toss us into a hole?”
Brey turned to peer into the dark on either side of us. “I doubt the chalice does anything accidentally.” I heard him inhale deeply, as if scenting the damp air. When he exhaled, he said, “I think we’re in a mountain.”
“I hope this is like every other assumption you’ve made, and you’re wrong.”
“Rarely am I wrong.”
I refrained from laughing hysterically. With far less grace than Brey, I climbed to my feet. Small rocks tinkled against the ground as I dusted off my britches and shook out my tunic. “Then how do we know where the ward is?”
“Well,” he said, “we don’t.”
“Great.”
A grumbling came from our left, distant and followed by a hiss that caused every hair on my body to rise.
Wide-eyed, I whispered, “What in the darkness was that?”
Speaking just as low, Brey gripped the hilt of a hidden blade at his hip. “We probably don’t want to know. Let’s find this ward.” Jerking his head to our right, he said, “Quietly.”
For a moment, I stared toward where that noise had come from.
Then I hurried after him through the cave.
Though it grew perilously dark, Brey moved with silent ease through the tall yet tight passage of stone and soil. The latter filled my nose, pungently damp. Glimmers soon sparked within portions of massive rock.
Jewels.
As I pondered if anyone would dare mine riches from this isle should people learn they were here, an eerie hiss echoed from up ahead.
Brey stopped. He lifted a hand for me to do the same.
My blood iced. Fear dragged my heartbeat to a halt as I realized there wasn’t just one but likely many nightmarish things in this mountain.
After a minute that felt like a decade, Brey gave me a quick perusal. He then nodded, and we walked on.
My heart labored quietly. My fingers shook until I curled them into my palms, careful not to let my nails draw blood. Whatever dwelled in this darkness was sure to have heightened senses.
The cave rounded, then narrowed and widened.
Brey’s pace slowed. He halted in a chamber and looked left at another cave, scenting what I did—that it appeared to lead to the sea.
The salty tang of the ocean was faint but enough to cause my breath to fracture with longing as Brey continued straight ahead.
I glanced into the dim of the sea-scented passage.
But my longing to leave the mountain and head toward the ocean died as another hiss, softer this time, came from somewhere deep within that cave. It hastened and therefore loudened my steps until Brey turned to me with raised brows.
I winced and mouthed, “Sorry.”
He looked behind me before moving on.
For what had to have been hours, we trekked through the mountain in silence. Slow and torturous silence.
The deeper we ventured, the more cloying the air became. My skin felt slippery, misted in sweat, and I tasted soil upon the roof of my mouth. I could scarcely see Brey’s lustrous hair. There were times when I couldn’t even see his tall form before me.
Then we heard it.
Water.
As we carefully rounded a sharp slice of stone, a puddle of sudden and splendid daylight stilled us.
Brey gazed up at the gaps between the rock and soil—too high and likely too small for us to climb through. We exchanged wary looks, then resumed toward the trickling sound. Around another bend, water rivulets sluiced down the cave walls to pool over the dirt and patches of stone beneath our feet.
We slowed our pace to keep from splashing until rushing water reached our ears. Gradually, color lightened the cave.
A river.
Hoping the ward resided near it, I hurried toward the ledge and promptly stopped.
There was nothing. Nothing but a river too wide to leap across, blocking our path forward.
Brey touched my arm and pointed downstream. It took me some moments to understand what he was pointing at.
Plants.
Shrubs and small trees dotted the ravine’s rocky ledges.
Frowning, I looked at Brey, tempted to ask if we should let the river take us out of the mountain.
He made the actions of swimming, waving his hands and sucking in his cheeks.
I pinched my lips between my teeth to trap a laugh and nodded. Not a moment later, he stood at the edge of the river. With his arms at his sides, he dropped into the water like a pin with nary a splash.
Sighing, I stepped onto the sharp ledge. Then I closed my eyes, tried to keep my legs and arms straight, and jumped into the cool water.
When I surfaced, Brey was already downstream, hanging onto overhanging branches on the other side of the river. Pushing my arms through the water that was determined to carry me away, I kicked toward him.
He held his hand out.
I snatched it, and he pulled me to him. Lips twitching, he said, “You fell into the water like a stone.”
Of course, he looked just as beautiful with his wet hair flattened to his head. Meanwhile, I probably resembled a blood-soaked mop. Shoving crimson tendrils from my face, I peered over at the cave we’d left.
Nothing waited there, so I looked back at Brey and grumbled, “That’s because I have an ass.”
Smirking now, he asked, “May I touch it?”
I blinked. “Why?”
He jerked his head at the rocky bank above us.
Oh.
I nodded, and then I was in the air—grabbing the sharp ledge and swinging my legs until I found purchase on a tree branch. I used it to push myself up onto the shallow bank, then turned to help Brey.
Only to find him already there, his face right before mine.
Shocked, I reared back.
Smirking once more, he climbed onto the ledge, and I moved to give him more room.
We kept to the stone wall, careful when it arched steeply over the river, until we reached the passage it had interrupted.
This one seemed darker than the last, however that was possible.
But such darkness made it easy to spot the silver-scaled eggs, larger than my hand, tucked within pockets of rock and soil. Twigs and small stones and shimmering blue lay beneath the eggs. Unable to determine what the blue was and unwilling to linger, I quietly hurried to catch up to Brey.
We walked by thin caves with goddess knew what within.
Curiously, there were no remains.
Perhaps whatever lurked in this mountain wasn’t fond of meat, as hours after leaving the river, we had yet to encounter even one bone. The rock and soil had been so smoothed, likely due to something continuously moving over them, that I would have noticed.
I wished I could talk—ask Brey what he was thinking. Where this ward could be, and what if it resided in a cave we’d passed.
My clothing stuck to my skin like sodden parchment, worsened by the humidity. I plucked at my tunic. The quiet yet incessant squelch from our boots had me wondering if we should take them off when Brey stopped.
Before him was a pile of that shimmering blue I’d glimpsed in those nests. Peering around him for a better look, I swallowed a curse when I realized what it was.
Shed skin.
Barely loud enough to hear, Brey whispered, “Snagorns.”
Giant serpents with dragonfly-like wings. The same nocturnal monsters that dwelled in the Midland Mountains of Saltblood Isle. It was daytime, which meant they were likely in this mountain.
Ice-cold dread sluiced down my spine.
“What do we do?”
He just said, “We keep going.”
Though it was only skin, Brey stepped around it. I assumed it might have rustled, so I did the same, and flinched when a hiss came from somewhere far behind us. I didn’t sense anything advancing. Too frightened by the mere sound, I didn’t look back.
The tunnel soon forked like a serpentine tongue.
After a moment of deliberation, Brey chose the cave on the right.
I stared into the one on the left. Frowning at the impenetrable black swathing the stone, I surmised it led somewhere deep.
Somewhere my very bones warned not to roam.
I followed Brey into the other cave. But no matter how much distance we put between us and the one we’d avoided, I was unable to rid the icelike fingers tapping at my nape.
Brey rounded a sharp curve and stopped so suddenly that I walked straight into his back and startled.
My gasp became an echo, bouncing through the passage and into the others. Tense, I slowly peered behind me. But the threat wasn’t there.
It slept before Brey, and stirred with a grumbled hiss.
“Turn around,” he breathed. “And run.”
I was running before he could finish speaking.
My heart mimicked the rapid pounding of our boots as we hurried back through the cave. A loud and long hiss stalked us—different from those I’d heard thus far.
Angrier.
“Which way?” I asked when the fork loomed ahead, uncaring of the noise. We’d already woken a beast.
Maybe many beasts.
“Can’t go back,” Brey said. “The river is hours away.”