Chapter 6 #2
I come to a circular door cast in iron. It stretches at least three meters tall, the imprint of a dragon twisted and turned in on itself to form the symbol of the infinite molded into its massive surface.
I slam against the door. Ridges of metal slice my palms and cheek.
Every fiber of my being fights to press through.
I scream, and my plea is met with a rumbling roar that shakes the corridor.
Just when I feel like I might be torn apart under the weight of the crushing pressure, a cool torrent rips me away, turning my vision black.
The heat and the door and the dragon are gone.
“Oliviana—”
I crack open an eye to find Caius’ face obstructing my view. The weight of his oversized body pins me to the ground, shielding me from the rearing dragon bellowing an inferno into the sky. Caius drags me to my feet.
“Run!” he yells, still clutching my hand as he drags me behind him, deeper into the woods and away from the safety of The Below.
“Caius.” I yank on his hand, but he drags me forward. “Caius, the canyon is behind us.”
“There are two more blocking the canyon,” he says, still dragging me behind him, but at his words, I stop fighting him.
The sound of breaking boughs and felled trees chases us as we sprint through the forest.
“I need you to trust me,” Caius grips my hand tighter.
“What?” I gasp for air, my legs burning from the effort.
“We’re going to jump.”
“What are you talking about—”
Caius uses his grip on me to pull me closer.
Looping an arm around my waist, he throws us over the ravine.
An ear-piercing scream rips from my lungs before we plunge into the pool at the base of a roaring waterfall.
Caius keeps his grip on me as he kicks into the tumult of the raging water overhead.
I bash my fists against his arms. The weight of the water slows my motions to harmless patters.
I buck and kick and try to break free, but Caius is much stronger than I am and I wonder if this is how I die.
I should never have trusted him. I should have known he would be my undoing—I gasp for breath as Caius pulls me up, pressing me against the rock shelf behind the waterfall.
I pound my fists against his chest. “You asshole—”
“Shhh.” He holds a finger to my lips, then presses closer to me until his lips brush against the shell of my ear. “I don’t know how good their hearing is,” he whispers.
An orange glow lights up the sheet of clear water behind Caius.
Inadvertently, I fist my hands in his soaking tunic and pull him closer.
His hands splay out over the rock face above my head as he presses into me.
A deafening roar, louder than that of the waterfall behind us, shakes the stone and time freezes.
How long we stay like that, pressed against slick stone, as we await our doom, I’m not sure.
But as my pulse slows and my senses return, my gaze locks onto a carved wooden pendant hanging from a leather cord around Caius’ neck, set between a pair of dark onyx beads and blinding white sky stones.
The form of a dragon, expertly carved from cedar and finished with beeswax, the quality of the craftsmanship was undeniable.
I remember the piece. I remember all of my work.
I had been on my way to meet with Sett to trade for meat newly arrived from Suade.
Somehow, Caius caught wind of the transaction and confiscated both the pendant and the shipment.
I had fumed over the interaction for a phase, maybe two.
Meat was hard to come by in the sub caverns, and Caius had ruined the deal out of spite. Why was he wearing the pendant?
“I think you can get off me now,” I hiss.
Caius hesitates before pressing back from the wall. Hands planted on either side of my head. “I think you have some explaining to do,” he growls.
When I look up, I find blood trickling down the side of his face from a gash through his eyebrow.
I am about to tell him that I could say the same of him and my pendant, but the look he gives me is sharp enough to cut, and I have the sudden feeling that if I push him, he will gut me.
He pushes off from the stone and edges around me to follow the ledge behind the waterfall.
I let my head fall back against the rock face, working to steady my breath.
“Are you coming?” Caius calls out over his shoulder without looking back.
I roll my eyes, but I follow him all the same. What choice do I have?
It takes me a moment to realize that Caius is leading me further into the waterfall rather than out from behind it, and I consider what my chances are of running back to the canyon and escaping into The Below before he can catch me.
Given the speed of our escape as he pulled me through the forest, I’d say my odds are slim at best.
Just as I have resigned myself to my fate, Caius disappears before me.
I rush up to where he had been just moments before.
A calloused hand wraps around my wrist and pulls me through a tangle of vines.
Caius releases me as he edges around the small room.
Glow moss carpets the ceiling, casting Caius’ sharp features in an ethereal glow as he pulls out a wool blanket from a wax-sealed pack at the back of the room.
He shoves the blanket into my hand, and as soon as I have wrapped it around my shoulders, he firmly pushes me down to sit on a woven mat before he folds his legs and sits on a matching mat before me.
“What is this place?”
“What do you think you were doing?” Caius counters, his tone low and gravely, dangerous as a rockslide.
I shrug. I have no answer that will assuage his anger, and so for once, I decide it’s better to hold my tongue.
“Oliviana, now is the time where you tell me everything.”
I fumble for an excuse—anything. “I just needed to get out.”
Caius shakes his head. “Try again.”
I sigh. “I just needed to check on some plants. Dom’s running an experiment, and with you always hovering over my shoulder, I don’t have a lot of opportunities to get topside anymore.” I clasp a palm over my mouth. I’ve said too much.
A grin carves across Caius’ face. “You didn’t really think that I didn’t know you sneak out top, did you?
” he asks with a quirked brow. My shocked expression must be answer enough, because then he says, “Interesting.” He leans back, and the grin falls from his face.
“And what do Dom’s plants have to do with confronting a dragon?
” His words are laced with an anger I don’t understand, but it lights my own.
“I wasn’t confronting a dragon!”
“Then what were you doing?”
I sigh, and my shoulders slump. How could I explain to this insufferable man that I had reached out and touched a dragon because of a recurring dream? I would sound mad. Maybe I am.
“Oliviana.” His voice softens. “You can’t endanger your life like that.”
“What do you care?” I snap.
Hurt flashes in his eyes before they turn hard once again. “Because you are important to Bǎodela. Your work is important.”
“Is that all?”
Caius presses his lips together. I can see a war playing out in his eyes until he comes to some decision. “Something is wrong.”
“What do you mean, something is wrong?”
Caius casts his gaze around as if ensuring we are truly alone. “Things are not working as they should. The crops are failing. Swaths of glow moss are dimming.” He runs his hand through his dark, damp hair. “If we can’t get to the bottom of what’s happening, Bǎodela will fall.”
I’m stunned into silence. I knew there was more at play than I was privy to. But this? I could never have imagined this. “They think it’s the water?”
Caius’ face falls, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I don’t think it’s the water. I think they are looking for a scapegoat.”
“My father…”
Caius nods.
“And now, me?”
Caius grasps my hand, and I flinch, but I don’t pull away. “No.”
“You said they were looking for a scapegoat…Why are you not allowed to help me with my work, Caius?”
His hand tightens around mine. “I won’t let them pin this on you. I made a promise, and I intend to keep it. I will keep you safe.”
I go stock-still; the declaration was more than he should have said, and we both know it.
I watch Caius as he searches for the words to smooth over his mistake. “We need you. If there is something wrong with the system, you are the only one who can fix it.”
“You just said you didn’t think it was the water!” I shout and try to pull my hand back, but Caius holds tighter.
“I don’t know what it is. But what I do know is if we don’t figure it out, thousands of our people will die.”
And just like that, the fight leaves me. Thousands will die if Bǎodela falls. Tens of thousands will be homeless if the glow moss goes out and the crops fail. Where will they go? They could label me a traitor like my father if they wished, but they were my people, and I would not abandon them.
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know yet. But you can’t go getting yourself killed before we figure it out.”
“And after?” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.
His expression turns hard. “We should get back. The woods aren’t safe after dark.”
“How do you know? How do you know about this place?” I eye the well-stocked hideout suspiciously.
He sighs, reaching out to grab something from the pile of supplies.
He presses the canvas bundle into my hands.
“You are not the only one with secrets, Oliviana. Let’s go.
We don’t want to be late for the last meal.
I heard they are serving butter chicken.
I’d hate for them to run out before you get a packet. ”
Heat pricks at the back of my neck at the way he knows me.
But he’s right, I would be angry if I missed butter chicken night.
Before I meet his gaze, I slowly unwrap the canvas bag he placed in my lap.
My breath catches. I run my fingers over the stitched patch on the shoulder strap, the one of a metal bird against a starry sky, the patch my father gave me.
It looked so free and powerful…like I will never be.
When I glance up, Caius is watching me carefully.
“Thank you.” I mumble, and slip past Caius, clutching my bag to my chest. I don’t want to know how he found it.