Beyond the Torchlight #3
“Well, if it’s anything like crows, it feels like you already know the person. Like you always have. Like your hearts are connected. Kind of like you share one heart.”
“Do fae mates have this mental connection too?”
“They do. All bonds of the heart link the minds.”
I thought about that for a minute as I rounded another corner. I wasn’t sure I would enjoy having a man in my head. That sounded…exhausting. And imposing. Thankfully, I wouldn’t ever have to feel that, being mortal and all.
“You still don’t know why I can talk to you when I have no magic?”
Noxie hesitated before responding. “I’m not sure. You and I aren’t bonded since bonds are made of magic, but we still have the mental connection. It doesn’t make sense. Trust me, I wish I knew.”
I contemplated that for a while as I walked in silence. It was odd, and I had a nagging feeling like there was something I was missing. Something just out of my grasp that could explain this.
For at least another hour, I searched, passing the time chatting with Noxie about this and that, before I looked down at the map I’d drawn and realized that, despite how far I had walked, I hadn’t ventured all that far from my starting point.
With all the dead ends and backtracking, it felt like a massive maze.
I was growing increasingly worried that I would need to head back to my room before I found any sign of where the new corridor was, and it wasn’t much later when Noxie suggested it was time to be done for the night, and as disappointed as I was, I agreed. My feet hurt, and I was exhausted.
Tomorrow night, I would start on the left instead of the right.
* * *
I must have only had a couple of hours of sleep before Miss Melda was strolling through the room, waking us all up. Nella looked over at me as soon as she opened her eyes, her look questioning.
When I shook my head, my disappointment reflected in her face.
We waited until the room was empty, save for the two of us, and I showed her what I had drawn the night before.
“Wow, there are a lot of passages down there. How does anyone know where they’re going?”
“Not sure. I wondered the same thing.”
I rolled up the map, stowing it safely in my bedside drawer, and we headed for breakfast.
And so, the next two days and nights passed in the same way. Laundry by day, sneaking around the empty underground corridors by night, always coming up empty.
I had found a few storage rooms here and there, thinking these must be the rooms Ott and Geoff snuck off to. The thought made me wrinkle my nose.
After three nights of mapping, the web of passages on my map was becoming a jumbled mess. The previous night revealed a new room I hadn’t yet seen. I thought if Ott had been in one of these rooms when the fae came, the new area must be near one of them.
Tonight I would focus my search around the new room.
Since every night thus far had come and gone without incident, I agreed to let Nella come with me this time. She had practically bounced with excitement when I said yes.
When the hour was late enough, I looked over to Nella, whose smile grew wide when I motioned it was time.
She had the same fear and doubt etched on her face that I had felt when I pulled her first through do-not-enter door and then through the massive fire. At least she’d gotten a heads up from me.
“There hasn’t been a sound down here so far, but let’s keep our talking to a minimum. We need to hear if anyone’s coming,” I said as we descended the steps. My whisper in the underground’s utter silence felt too loud.
Nella nodded, and we went left.
I pointed on the map to the room I wanted to go towards to start our search of the area, and she nodded again.
It didn’t take long to get there since we took a direct route, unlike the night I discovered it.
Stopping in front of the storage room door, I looked around to assess the options from there.
According to my map, I had already explored the adjacent hallway and two of the four doors branching off the main hallway.
So I pointed to one door I hadn’t yet been through, and Nella followed my lead.
This one led to a corridor with much higher ceilings than the rest but otherwise looked no different. After trying each door in this area, we found ourselves back by the storage room where we started.
Which left only one more door.
I was losing hope that we would find the dungeons. Or maybe this had been a wild goose chase from the start. Maybe they weren’t down here at all.
We went through the last door and were immediately met with a blast of colder air. Ott had said the new area was colder and darker… The hope in my heart was welling up once more.
It was indeed darker here. It was nearly pitch-black, so my one eye struggled to focus. The only light came from a single torch lit a ways down the hallway. Even though the stone was still gray, the drop in temperature and the lack of light told me we might be on the right track.
Once we made it to the lone torch, I could see only a little further down the corridor.
Black stone.
We’d found it. But what was beyond the radius of light we stood in, waiting in the darkness, I had no clue.