CHAPTER 31 #2
Her scream echoed through the cavern as the knife fell from her nerveless fingers. Stumbling back, she screamed again when she collided with something. A pair of arms wrapped around her waist. She struggled, but she’d never boasted much physical strength.
“Whoa, Princess! What’s wrong?”
Keenan’s voice had never been so welcome.
When his grip loosened, Sakura spun, throwing her arms around his neck and holding back a sob by a massive force of will.
The guard hadn’t borne any obvious sign of harm, but she couldn’t shake the image of Daichi’s lifeless brown eyes staring up at her from the cavern floor.
“I—” She was moments away from falling to pieces.
But when his hand drifted hesitantly up her back to gently cradle her head against his chest, she wasn’t positive that was a bad thing.
She was mad for thinking it, but his large hands imparted a feeling of safety, of security.
It felt like he was trying to hold her together as his familiar scent of wood smoke and pine wrapped around her, and she let him.
If stained glass was beautiful, maybe she could accept the cracks and allow a little color to shine through.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her hair. “I know it’s a little spooky down here, but I thought Oliver or Mori would be next, so I decided to explore while I waited.”
She took a deep breath, soaking in his solid strength. “You were exploring in the dark?”
“No.” She could hear the frown in his voice. “I fished another candle out of the packs. Didn’t you see it? I thought that’s why you left the entrance.”
A trickle of unease tickled Sakura’s spine. Leaning back, she checked his face for a sign that he had chosen a poor moment to resume teasing her. But his concerned blue eyes were perfectly serious.
“I heard someone groan. I thought you might be hurt,” she said uncertainly. The horror from before returned, threatening to choke her as she remembered the motionless form. “I found that guard instead, and—I know him, Keenan! But how did he get here?”
Keenan’s eyebrows pulled together. “What guard? I haven’t seen anyone else down here.”
“The one in a crumpled heap over—”
Sakura’s words cut off when she saw nothing but empty stone. Spinning wildly, she searched for his body, but her fallen candle and kitchen knife clearly marked where he had been.
“Did you see where he went?” she asked, barely restraining her panic. “How could he—Dead men don’t just get up and walk off!”
“Maybe we should send you back to the surface, Princess,” Keenan said quietly. The hand he set on her shoulder was light but unyielding. “Oliver and I can search by ourselves. It’s all right to be afraid of being so far underground.”
“I am not afraid, weapon-smith!” she gasped. He raised an eyebrow. “Of being underground,” she amended with a huff. “But I challenge you to stumble across the body of a friend who died over a year ago and maintain your equilibrium!”
His hand twitched on her shoulder before falling away.
“Yes, Keenan, I was friends with a guard,” she said with a bitter laugh, averting her eyes.
They fell on the bare patch where she’d seen Daichi.
She summoned up an image of him from a happier time so she could continue.
“Hari rarely went anywhere without him, so whenever I saw my brother, I saw Daichi.”
She heard the rustle of fabric behind her, but Keenan stayed silent.
“I was so angry the first time Hari brought him to my secret tinkering room,” she continued with a little smile, remembering her contained fury when she found her brother’s best friend standing in her private space.
“But Dai didn’t mock my interests. He never betrayed my secrets.
” Her eyes burned at the memories, and she paused to clear her throat.
“He encouraged my endeavors. And he died because of it.”
“What happened?”
“That cursed prophecy,” she bit out. “Mother claimed she’d already been planning to send him away, but he and Hari had been friends for years.
Hours after it was prophesied that I would marry a common soldier, she reassigned Dai to the navy.
With the storms and sea monsters that have plagued our waters for the last several years, going to sea is the most dangerous employment in Ryuni.
His ship was lost a little over a year ago.
” A tremble in her voice betrayed her. She heard Keenan step closer, but he didn’t touch her.
“Now Kasumi and her parents mourn a son and a brother, and it’s all my fault. ”
“It isn’t.”
She turned to face him. He was mere inches away, half his expression hidden in her shadow. But the bits she could see were intense.
“Did you agree with your mother’s decision?” he demanded when she looked away.
“No, but Mother never would have sent him away if I hadn’t—”
The silence stretched out. “Loved him?” Keenan supplied quietly.
“He was a commoner. A guard.”
His fingertips brushed the back of her hand. “I won’t carry tales, Princess.” He sounded sad. “You can tell me the truth.”
“Does any seventeen-year-old truly know what love is?”
“That’s not an answer.”
She didn’t know the answer. But… “How could I not care?” she whispered. “He knew about my passion for mechanics and didn’t despise me for it.”
“If you shared it more often, I think you’d find that it offends fewer people than you expect.” His large hand settled on her shoulder again. “The same as if you stop trying to be so perfect all the time.”
He gently nudged her forward, and Sakura let him lead her back to where she’d dropped her things. As he stowed the knife, she wondered again why Oliver hadn’t arrived yet. Her unplanned confession had to have taken as long as her trip down the shaft, and she’d been alone for some time before that.
Standing, Keenan held out his elbow. “Shall I escort you to the exit now, ma’am?”
She shuffled back. “I am not leaving, Keenan. And you cannot make me.”
“Princess…” he sighed.
“I mean it.” Drawing her shoulders back, she glared up at him with every bit of royal authority that he usually ignored. “I’m not leaving until you have the tinderbox.”
The amount of magic that Oliver said was protecting it wouldn’t have been applied for something useless.
There might truly be a way for her to marry a commoner and still be queen.
“You’re already hallucinating.” Keenan folded his arms over his chest and glared back. “If there are any more surprises like the one at the tree, I need to know you won’t fight me when I try to get you out of the way.”
“I touched his shoulder. It was not a hallucination.”
“If someone who drowned a year ago is walking around down here, all the more reason for you to go!” Keenan snapped. “It’s harder to fight while protecting someone.”
She felt her face turn to marble as her mask descended. “I have spent my entire life in court. Your insensitivity will not persuade me to flee.”
He stared at her for a moment, then scrunched his eyes closed. “I’m sorry. Thinking before speaking isn’t one of my strengths.”
“Clearly,” she replied icily. “And I will be staying.”
“You’ll both be staying. You can’t leave now that the gate is shut.”
The creaky voice floated down from the cavern ceiling.
Forgetting her frustration, Sakura took a quick step toward Keenan.
He jumped in front of her, his right hand on the hilt of his sword and his head tipped back as he scanned the darkness above them.
“Who said that?” he called out. “Show yourself!”
“Why?” The voice sounded innocently curious. “Is there benefit to that?”
“What did you say about the gate?” Sakura cut in. “What is that?”
“The way you came in.” If she had to guess, the voice’s owner was blinking at them. “It doesn’t stay open forever.”
“But then—” Being underground hadn’t worried her before, but suddenly, the thought of all that dirt and rock between them and the surface was suffocating. “You’re saying that we’re—”
“Stuck here.” The creaky voice hummed. “Welcome to my lair.”