Raven
Despite Aoes’s access to the underground labyrinth, he professed to have never bothered with drafting a map. A questionable story.
Nevertheless, he helped us on our quest by verbally passing along what he knew. His information would get us so far, then we would need to depend upon our own wits and instincts.
Winter insisted on playing the part of the gentleman, and after grabbing something in the stockroom that he stuffed in his pocket, he held a fire torch high to light the way and led the descent into the lower tunnels.
A lot more than gentlemanly behavior would be required to earn my forgiveness over withholding information, but for Chace’s sake, I would temporarily table my frustrations.
How many days had he been missing? Had he been trapped in a cage the entire time?
At the base of the stairs, Winter grabbed an unlit torch from the wall, ignited the flame, and handed it to me. He presented his hand, palm up, indicating the direction we intended to travel.
Because a left turn at the base of the stairs would lead to the citadel’s outer wall, we made a right and worked our way deeper into the underbelly of the city.
A faint odor akin to death and decay accompanied the dark passages. The scent filled my nostrils and rankled my senses. I could only imagine what surprises waited for us in the blackened spaces. The rotted flesh of vermin, for one.
Even as I had the thought, a rat scurried past.
A gentle breeze, weighted with heat, slid across my skin and extracted sweat from my glands.
I pushed my hair back from my face. “Unusually warm for underground tunnels, don’t you think?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Winter’s voice sounded soft and low, as if he meant to keep our conversation a secret from the no one around us.
We reached a junction—offering a choice—and Winter shined the torchlight down each tunnel in turn.
Neither option provided much evidence as to what we might expect to find beyond the limited illumination.
And according to Aoes, both continued onward to nowhere.
I noted a few side chambers, but nothing to get excited about.
I considered my memory of the dream: Watcher, Camilla’s child, the cavern connected to the tunnels.
Nothing I could recall indicated where under the citadel I might have dream walked.
I chewed on my lower lip and studied the options.
No clear path became evident. We might as well toss a coin to decide our continued direction.
Winter pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket and marked the wall with an arrow. A sign to help us find our way back to the pub.
I opened my mouth to ask him if he always carried chalk with him when he glanced over his shoulder at me.
“Stockroom procurement.” He waved the stick of chalk. “Now, remind me what we’re looking for again?”
“A location matching Myla’s drawing. I think…pray…that’s where we’ll find Chace.”
And quite possibly the mad female sucking life and whatever else from young girls. Hopefully Watcher didn’t do the same to Chace.
I wasn’t yet sure if I really wanted to find Watcher, but if I stayed in the citadel long enough to complete my reaper’s assignment—which was beginning to look like a forever-long task—I would eventually need to deal with that problem.
Winter sighed through his nose and turned his ear toward the passage at our left. Listened. I did the same. A soft click and scuttle echoed off the walls, the likely travels of an unseen rodent.
“And you’re basing this search of yours on Myla’s scribbled art?” he asked.
What would he think if I told him about my “perceived” dream? I grimaced and wiped the sweat from my brow. I didn’t want to lie, but neither did I want to tell the truth.
“Sort of. Not entirely.”
“Am I allowed to ask what falls into the larger realm behind this push you’re pursuing?”
I shook my head and extended my torch-holding hand as if to brighten the tunnel. He would get nothing more from me. I had already crossed one of my lines allowing him to accompany me…despite my temporary urge to scythe him. And the urge was temporary.
He wasn’t privy to what I was or what I had to do. Nor should he be. Filling him in on my fever-induced dreams or the Killian was not ideal. It might even be dangerous for him, given the mad female Watcher and the state of his citadel.
The light of the flickering flame cast a collection of long shadows and bright streaks across his face, making him appear angry.
“I might be able to help you better if you shared more information,” he pushed.
“Are you familiar with this tunnel system? The catacombs?”
His shoulders slumped. “I already told you I wasn’t.”
“Then there’s no point.” I stepped past him, chose a direction, and took the tunnel on the right.
Aoes had suggested the tunnel on the left likely continued along the perimeter, so I hoped the right path would take us closer to the center.
Only…was the center of the system what I truly wanted?
It felt correct in my gut, but the only thing that could possibly affirm that sensation would be to find Chace.
We made slow and steady progress in silence, questions and conversation replaced by intense awareness of our route and surroundings.
I pressed my hand against the tunnel wall, as if to pull strength from the unwavering structure, and listened for every minute sound.
At each junction and turn, Winter marked our path with a chalk arrow on the wall.
Although we descended no stairs, I had the odd sensation that we traveled lower and lower beneath the ground. As if the path we followed had become a shallow ramp. Or, as the gradually warming air might suggest, a slow-rising ventilation system out of Hell.
I scrubbed my arm across my forehead and forced my feet to keep moving.
I didn’t want to admit that a shower and a bed now sounded like the best idea.
My body dampened, my muscles complained, my still-healing wounds ached, and my energy dropped to near depletion.
Nevertheless, I held my shoulders firm, refusing to let my blooming exhaustion show.
Another intersection divided the path, this time the passage splitting three ways. The darkest tunnel, located at the center, tugged me forward.
I twisted toward Winter to verify he would accept my choice without argument but paused, taking in his lack of perspiration.
“Do you not feel the heat as I do?” I asked. “Or are you too pretty to perspire?”
I could only imagine how I looked after all our time traveling in the warm tunnels. My hairline had become more than damp, and sweat trickled down the center of my back and between my breasts.
“You think I’m pretty?” His eyebrows arched, and his eyes heated as his body shifted closer.
Averting my gaze, I hid my emerging scowl. “You know you are.”
“You’re quite stunning yourself.” He hooded his eyes.
“Stop it. I look like a drowned rat.” I waved his compliment away with a flip of my hand. “Just answer the question. Why do I look like this?” I raked my fingers along the length of my body, indicating my moist and sticky condition, then I swung my arm toward him. “And you look like…?”
He tilted his head toward his shoulder with a slight shrug. “My body has always self-cooled.”
Pressing two fingers to his lips, he appeared to consider me. All of me.
A cooling breeze, seemingly from nowhere, swept around me, circling. The elemental stay was short-lived, but oh so appreciated. The chilling kiss and caress against my skin… I closed my eyes and savored the moment.
The tunnel atmosphere returned to as it was prior. I opened my eyes and stared at him, unable to pull my gaze from his pale-blue eyes. They brightened and turned the vivid blue with which I’d become most familiar.
Pale blue and a breeze. Bright blue and no extra cooling. I started to put things together.
“That breeze just now. That was you?”
The edges of his eyes crinkled. “I have a few tricks at my disposal.”
“I thought magic disappeared when your city became cursed?” I brushed wet, clingy strands of hair from my cheeks and forehead.
It would take more than a cooling breeze to sort out the terrible mess of my body. I desperately needed a soapy bath.
He scratched the back of his skull. “That’s not what I said. I said magic changed, not disappeared.”
“Right.”
Magic still existed in the citadel; it merely presented differently than it had before. But different how? If Winter could summon a cool breeze now, what had he been able to do before? And if Kira had sped up my healing, or Myla had seen Chace’s location without having physically been there…
This citadel and its situation contained so many things to consider.
I turned toward the center path and motioned my intentions. Winter responded with a tight nod.
Several strides down the tunnel, the lights of the torches fought with the darkness of our chosen path. Every step felt heavier and hotter. And every step had me wishing for more of Winter’s magical breeze.
“Raven,” Winter said, sounding distant.
I turned, expecting to find him a foot away. Instead, he stood several yards back, his gaze unfocused as he appeared to search for something.
“What’s wrong?” I swung the torchlight in his direction and searched for what might have caused him to stop but noted nothing.
The path appeared unblocked and empty.
He pressed his hand to the air before him as his gaze swung past me. “Where are you?”
I sucked in a breath. Was unseen magic at work? Had something struck him blind?
The muscles in my jaw tightened, and I took a tentative step toward him. “Right in front of you. Keep walking.”
“How can you be in front of me? There’s a wall blocking the path. I can’t move forward.”
I swallowed hard and spun in a circle, taking in the crowding darkness. No wall stood between us. The space appeared open and clear.
I marched to his side, stopping within inches of his face. In his proximity, the air around me cooled, if only marginally.