Chapter 18
LAIRS GIVE ME THE CREEPS
The tunnel stretched for several minutes without a break or an intersection, and it was wide enough for us to walk side by side.
The crystal threw enough light for us to clearly see seven to eight feet ahead.
Beyond that, the world faded to darkness.
Ravi studied the map as we walked, his brow pinched in concentration.
My boot hit a rock and then crunched over smaller pebbles. He glanced down with a frown. Then up at the roof of the tunnel.
“What is it?”
“I don’t see any erosion or anything to show where the rock debris came from.
The ground is hard-packed earth, so it’s just…
odd.” He turned his attention back to the map in hand.
“The junction will be up ahead. Two paths. The left will take us to the quickest route. But you see, there are several smaller tunnels connecting to it.” He stopped and showed me the map, tracing the path he was referring to with his finger.
“The route to the right is longer and more winding, but it only has two intersections along the way.”
“What do you think, then? We take the longer route?”
“My gut says so, but…”
“What?”
“Never mind. Let’s just see when we get there.”
We reached the intersection a moment later, but there was only one route open: the path to the left. The one on the right was blocked off with rocks and boulders.
“What the fuck?” I stared at the barricade, my stomach clenching. But Ravi didn’t look too surprised.
“This isn’t a natural phenomenon,” he said. “But it explains the rocks we saw on the way and the wheelbarrow grooves that someone attempted to cover up.”
Realization hit me in the gut. “The Authority did this. Which means they must have had a map and knew that the longest route was the safest.”
Ravi’s jaw ticked. “Yeah, but they didn’t know you’d have me beside you. We can do this, Leela. We can do this.” He gently gripped my shoulders. “We move fast. We move silently. And we can make it without alerting anything to our presence.”
I nodded. “Okay, let’s do it.”
He crossed to the left path, the shortest and most dangerous route if the Authority’s actions were anything to go on, and sniffed the air, nose wrinkling. “If they hadn’t barricaded the longer route, I still would have known which to take by the stench of death coming from this one.”
“Great. Thanks for that.”
He grinned at me. “Always ready to please, Leela. Shall we creep our way to Vasuki?”
I swept an arm out. “After you.”
He held out his hand. “How about we go together.”
I arched a brow. “Oh, is the big bad rakshasa scared?”
“No,” he said with half a smile. “I just like holding your hand.”
My throat pinched, nostalgia swelling in my chest. “I missed this. Us. Our banter and friendship.”
His expression sobered. “I missed you too, Leela. Now let’s go get that gem.”
The stench of death that Ravi had picked up on outside of the tunnel didn’t hit me until we were a few minutes along the route, and after that, it only grew stronger. If that wasn’t enough of a clue that this route was cursed, the appearance of piles of bones soon after gave the game away.
“Not human bones,” Ravi said. “Animal…but it still indicates that this is not the safe route.”
Something had killed and eaten these creatures, stripping the meat off their bones so cleanly there was no sinew or tendon left clinging to them.
What creature could do that? Not the ashwing or heatstalkers, surely. This was something else.
We continued in silence, the crystal illuminating our path, Ravi’s hand wrapped tightly around mine.
“Intersection up ahead,” he whispered.
It was the first of many. A slender tunnel leading off to the right. Ravi sniffed the air, his eyes narrowing as we approached. He held a finger to his lips, and I nodded in acknowledgment. We walked past quickly. Silently. And it wasn’t until we were several yards away from it that Ravi spoke.
“I smelled sulfurous residue.”
“Ashwing?”
“I believe so. That slender tunnel was probably an opening into a larger cavern that houses them.”
“Thank goodness we have a map.”
“Indeed.”
We continued past several more tunnels leading off from our route. Some were wide and inviting, others narrow, jagged, and forbidding. My stomach knotted, pulse humming as I remained alert to any sound or smell that might signal attack.
But we were almost halfway to our destination, and there’d been nothing. Had Ravi and the Authority been wrong about this being the dangerous route?
Ravi slowed his pace, his grip on my hand flexing and his nostrils flaring as he read the air around us.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. But I want to get past it, and fast.”
We picked up the pace, and after a few seconds, the light ahead turned a strange green hue.
Ravi brought us to a sharp halt. “The air is tainted.” He looked down at the map.
“These lines aren’t intersections.” He indicated a bunch of slender lines that merged with the tunnel we were on.
“I think these are holes in the rock. I think that’s where the gas is coming from.
We can get past it in a couple of minutes. ”
Yes, that made sense. “Can you hold your breath?”
He nodded. “For several minutes.”
“Are you a diver?”
He shook his head.
“Then how do you know how long you can hold your breath?”
He looked down at me with a smile that bordered on smug. “Let’s just say when I became a man and entered the realm of carnal liaisons, I learned that it was a useful skill to have.”
It took a moment to click, and when it did, I said, “Ewww,” and punched him lightly on the arm.
He chuckled softly. “Come on. Let’s see who can hold their breath the longest.”
I took several breaths, exhaled completely, drew a full one, and held it.
I squeezed Ravi’s hand, and together we walked into the green mist. Into the thick of it, where it stung my eyes and made my skin itch.
We walked quickly until the holes in the tunnel were behind us and the mist began to clear, until there was no green left, and still we walked, holding our breath for another minute before Ravi squeezed my hand and released the breath that he was holding.
“I think we’re safe now,” he said.
I relaxed and exhaled. “We’re almost there.” My vision blurred, and when I blinked to clear it, Ravi gasped and stepped away from me.
“Ravi?” I reached for him, but his face shifted and morphed, his green eyes blooming to topaz, mouth widening slightly… “What the fuck?” He had Araz’s face.
“Shit.” Ravi shook his head. “No…”
“What are you seeing?”
“Devi…” he said. “I see Devi…” His voice cracked. “I assume you see Araz?”
I nodded. “The gas?”
“Must be. But I didn’t inhale it.”
“Maybe we don’t need to inhale it for it to work.” Gods, this was strange. Talking to Ravi who had Araz’s face was fucking weird and wrong, and gods it made my heart hurt. “It’s okay. We know what’s real. We just have to wait for it to wear off.”
He nodded and approached. “Yes. We wait.”
The timbre of his voice had changed. “You sound like him now.”
He nodded. “You sound like Devi. You look like her.” His throat bobbed. “Fuck.” He reached out to lightly graze my cheek. “I never had the chance to tell her how I felt. To say goodbye.” His eyes filled with tears. Araz’s face. Araz’s eyes.
My throat throbbed dully. “Neither did I. Araz was just…He was gone. I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.”
“Then maybe we do it now. We say goodbye. You’re not her, and I’m not him, but…we can pretend. Just for a moment.”
The pulse of longing in his voice echoed inside me. We needed this.
I nodded. “Yes. Let’s…say goodbye. You first.”
He set the light crystal on the ground and stepped closer, the heat of his body kissing mine as he gently cupped my face.
I blinked, and his face shimmered, Araz’s visage melting away to leave me looking into Ravi’s emerald eyes.
The effects of the gas were gone. I opened my mouth to say something, but his thumb brushed my bottom lip, the contact silencing me.
He leaned in, his voice soft and intimate.
“From the moment I saw you, I knew I’d fall.
I should have spoken sooner.” My stomach fluttered, and I reminded myself that he was still seeing Devi.
I wouldn’t ruin this for him. “I should have told you what was in my heart, but I was afraid. Afraid that you’d reject me.
But I need to say it now. I need to tell you that I love you.
I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me the most. I’m so fucking sorry.
” He touched his forehead to mine, his breath warm on my lips.
“I can’t change the past, so it’s time to let it go. May I kiss you goodbye?”
He’d never gotten to tell Devi how he felt, never had a kiss goodbye. At least I’d gotten that, even though I hadn’t realized it at the time. It was something that I could hold in my heart forever. If I could give Ravi the same, then I’d do it gladly.
I nodded, and his lips found mine in a kiss that resonated with the ache of promises never made and things unsaid.
His hand slid to my nape, anchoring me to him as he deepened the kiss, his woodland scent filling my senses with a longing of my own.
Heat pooled low in my belly, and I slid my hand up his neck to cup his jaw and kissed him back.
He groaned into my mouth, awakening something in me I thought long dead.
Desire. Connection. Want. He no longer wore Araz’s face, but in that moment, I allowed myself to forget that and imagine it was Araz that I was kissing.
Araz who had me pinned to the tunnel wall.
Araz’s thigh between mine.
His mouth moved from my lips to my throat.
Araz. Araz. “Araz…”
He pulled back, his breath ragged. Eyes bright with emotions I was too dazed to read. “Leela…”
I stared at him, my breath coming fast and shallow, lips throbbing from his kisses. The effects of the gas must have faded for him too now.
I summoned a smile. “It’s okay. I don’t need to say goodbye. I’m okay.”
He looked away and nodded. “Yes. Of course. We should get moving.” He picked up the crystal and then held out his hand to me.
I took it, and we continued on, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted between us.
I’d missed something, and I didn’t know exactly what.
We continued in silence, a strange heavy feeling sitting on my chest. The kiss played on my mind. It had obviously made things awkward. I needed to clear the air between us.
A soft squeal drifted down the tunnel.
Ravi tensed, then pulled me against him as something ran out of the darkness and into the light.
Small, furry, and two feet tall, the creature ground to a halt at the sight of us and let out another squeal.
It had large bat-like ears, a piggish snout, and huge brown eyes that were wide with what I read to be fear.
“A marsupin,” Ravi said. “It must have wandered into the mountain and gotten lost.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“No. It’s a plant eater. Docile unless its young are threatened; in fact, I’m pretty certain this one is a baby.”
It approached my boot and sniffed. “We can’t leave it here.”
“You want to take it as an offering to Vasuki?”
I shot him a glare and then crouched to scoop up the creature. “It’s okay. No one will hurt you. Ravi and I will protect you.” I glanced at Ravi for confirmation to find him watching me with a hazy gaze that made my stomach flutter strangely. “What?”
“Nothing.” He held out his hands. “Let me hold it.”
I passed him the creature, and he tucked it under his arm. “Come on. We’re almost there.”
We continued down the tunnel, light shining a path across hard-packed earth and rock walls.
“There’s only one more intersection left, then it’s an uninterrupted route to Vasuki’s chamber.”
“Great. We’re close to the serpent’s lair.” My tone was light, but I couldn’t hide the nerves that made it tremble a little.
“If he is there, he will not attack us,” Ravi said. “That much I am certain of. Final tunnel coming up.”
The creature let out a soft squeal.
“Stay still,” Ravi said.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s trying to escape.”
It let out a shriek, wriggling to be free.
“Maybe it doesn’t like you. Let me…” I reached for the marsupin just as a soft skittering sound filled the chamber.
Ravi’s head whipped to the left toward the final intersection, a slender aperture that was barely large enough for a person to get through, but…a marsupin might be able to.
The creature let out another squeal, its eyes rolling in its head. Ice crystalized in my belly. The creature was terrified, and I would have bet the object of his fear was in that aperture and headed right toward us.
Ravi and I exchanged glances, my assessment echoed on his face.
The skittering intensified, and I caught a gleam of silver rushing along the rock walls of the gap toward us. It took a moment for my brain to understand what I was seeing, and when it did my skin crawled.
Beetles.
Hundreds of beetles as big as a fist.
“Run!” Ravi grabbed my hand, and we broke into a sprint.
The marsupin continued to squeal.
The swarm of bugs followed us, the skittering, chattering sound of their collective feet on rock getting louder and louder as they gained on us.
“We throw the creature to them,” Ravi huffed out. “They slow down to eat it.”
The bones. The animals that had been picked clean…The beetles had to have done it. “No way.”
“Dammit!”
We were close to the end of the tunnel. So close to Vasuki’s chamber that surely these creatures would give up. Surely there was a boundary they wouldn’t cross.
But what if there wasn’t? What if the rules didn’t apply here?
The marsupin squealed again. Ravi’s idea was sound, but I couldn’t sacrifice an innocent to save my skin. I just couldn’t.
And what about the drohi and all the oppressed? Was a marsupin’s life worth all of theirs? If I died, who would free them?
The thought was mine and yet not mine. I pushed it away. Every life had value. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, sacrifice this one.
The light ahead was swallowed by a dark pulsing maw, ivory pillars curving down from the roof of it.
The beetles swarmed behind us. The maw yawned up ahead.
There was nowhere to go.
“It’s a snake’s mouth!” Ravi called.
My stomach dipped, and a fresh burst of heat rushed through my veins.
There was no time to dwell. No time to consider. No other option but to run into the serpent’s mouth.