Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lila
“Xavier!” I scream, pounding my fists against the invisible wall between me and the now empty space, but of course it’s futile.
They don’t suddenly reappear, and I slide down the clear surface, slumping at the bottom as a tear trickles down my face.
Why does everything have to be so hard? Why is everything a test?
I’m exhausted, and I’m on my own again, but I guess that’s nothing new.
All my life, I’ve been alone apart from Susie.
Luckily for me, Xavier’s little ball of light was on my side of the wall when it went up.
A sob of frustration leaves my mouth, but I give myself a moment to feel pity before wiping my tears and standing back up.
I can’t go back, so forward is the only way, and everyone is depending on me.
Shit, John’s life literally depends on it.
How could I go back and tell them I failed because I was left on my own?
How will they ever entrust me with the running of the whole circus if I can’t even get this one thing right? I’ve got this.
Sucking in a deep breath, I blow it out and continue on my way, Xavier’s ball of light keeping pace with me.
At least that’s something. It could have remained in place.
As I move farther along, the walls become more and more crowded with the beautiful, opalescent gems. I feel my sandals kick something, and it tinkles as it rolls ahead of me in the tunnel.
I crouch down, trying to see what I kicked.
So far there hasn’t been any debris or rocks littering the completely smooth tunnel. It’s almost like it is regularly swept.
Xavier’s light comes with me, and I find what I disturbed. It’s a perfectly round, perfectly formed opalescent gem. It’s gorgeous, and I pick it up and shove it into the top of my dress, hoping that it will stay safely nestled against my boob.
As I stand back up, I notice there is now a light at the end of the tunnel acting like a beacon, drawing me forward, when before it had only been darkness.
I hurry, eager to see if my friends have been spat out farther up, but when I get there, I look around the cavern in disappointment.
There’s no one. It’s empty except for a perfectly still, shimmery glassy pool of water.
I’m tempted to crouch down and have a drink, but I’m not sure if it’s suitable for drinking or not, not to mention that’s clearly a stupid horror movie cliché, where I would bend down to drink and something would launch itself out of the water at me. Yup, no, I’m choosing to live today.
I scoot around the underground lake, trying to peer inside, but I’m not close enough, and I don’t plan on getting any closer.
Just as I get to the other side, there’s a scream and a shout, and out of the top of the cavern falls two bodies, splashing hard into the lake.
Holy crap, was that Silac and Tirrian? I hurry over, forgetting about the possible lake monster now that one of my friends has fallen in there.
Can they even swim? Did they hit their heads on a rock as they fell in?
I don’t even know how deep it is. For all I know, he was crushed on rocks just below the surface. Do I dive in and try to rescue him?
While all of this is running through my mind, I toe off my sandals and reach up to untie my dress straps behind my neck.
The cave floor is actually warm underfoot, which surprises me, but before I can remove my dress, a giant splash has me stepping back from the edge just as Silac lands on the side of the lake, like he had been tossed there by another creature.
Peering into the looming darkness, I see a ripple on the water as something moves just below the surface.
Something with long, green spines is swimming leisurely around the pool.
It flicks its tail and disappears below the water.
“Holy crap, what was that?” I exclaim, hurrying forward to make sure Silac isn’t missing any chunks, but he’s all in one piece.
Water drips from his emerald green hair, the same color as his hood when he’s in half form.
It’s flopped down over one eye, and he looks thoroughly bedraggled as he flips it back out of his face.
Before I can say anything, Tirrian comes flying out of the water.
He’s in his half form, his wings propelling him into the air so that he’s hovering above the pool.
“Shit, don’t stay there. Didn’t you see the beast in the water?” I hiss at him, gesturing for him to move his ass.
He casually flies over, landing gently beside me, water running in rivulets down his body, but it starts to steam, and the steam wafts up and away from him. I guess central heating comes in handy when you want to dry off quickly.
“What beast? Are you sure? I didn’t see anything down there.” He peers out over the water as Silac starts to shiver, his teeth chattering.
“Oh, you poor thing.” I hurry over and use my hands to try and warm him, briskly rubbing them up and down his arms. “We need to get you warmed up.” I look up at the surly dragon. “Can you help him?” I ask, and he sighs heavily like it’s a big inconvenience but crouches down and holds out his hands.
“You know, with your Elementi powers, you could start a fire and we could all warm up a bit.”
I blink at him in confusion. “But there is nothing to start a fire with.” I look around the big room and notice that there are plants in the rock face all around the cavern.
“Oh, hang on, I guess I could use those.” I go to stand, but Silac grabs me and shakes his head, droplets of water falling off of him as his teeth chatter.
“No, they are rilax berries. The Rilu people harvest those, even if they don’t in this area, but let’s not upset the sentient cavern any further.”
I bite my lip and nod. “That’s actually a good idea.”
“And you don’t actually need anything. You can create fire.
Just put it on one of those rocks.” Tirrian carries a boulder over to us and places it in front of Silac.
“If you had the water ability, you could just draw all the water out, but because you don’t, this will have to do. Try not to go apocalyptic on us.”
“Okay, but I might need blood sooner rather than later,” I warn the surly dragon, who crosses his arms and nods.
“I said we would feed you, and with the warlock nowhere to be seen, that remains the case.”
Worry washes through me as I wonder what happened to Xavier and Zala. Why didn’t they drop into the lake as well?
“Alright then. I need to take my dress off so I don’t lose it in the change.”
Silac averts his eyes, and Tirrian turns his back, much to my surprise, but I appreciate it.
I drop the dress, careful not to lose my little gem.
I allow the picture of my fire Elementi to fill my mind and feel the change wash over me.
Accessing its powers is as easy as breathing now that I’ve practiced with Xavier.
I point my hands at the rock, willing flames to form around it.
Within moments, it’s crackling with warmth, the red and blue flames flickering gently in the wind free cavern.
I change back and put my dress on as Silac holds his hands out and rubs them together.
“Oh, that’s much better, thank you. It won’t take me too long to warm up, and then I’ll move quicker. I’m always so sluggish when I’m cold. It comes from being cold-blooded.”
“What happened to you guys? Where did you all go? Where are the other two?” I fire the questions at Tirrian, since he seems to be coping better than Silac. He stalks around the room, pacing back and forth with nervous energy.
“I don’t know what happened to Zala and Xavier.
I was sliding along a tunnel until I slammed into Silac, and then we both fell into the lake.
It doesn’t seem possible to end up here from where we started, but we did.
This cavern is freaky. No wonder people stay away from it.
” The usually surly, unruffled dragon is agitated.
His wings keep shuddering behind him, and he can’t seem to stand still.
“How are you doing?” I ask the snake, who smiles at me.
“Much better now, thank you.”
“Did you see what threw you out of the lake? Thank goodness it didn’t take a bite out of you.
” I move a little closer to make sure there definitely aren’t any injuries, my eyes roaming over his body.
I can’t see any blood, but his clothes are molded to him, and I can see some very interesting muscles under those tight clothes.
“Ah, um. No, I didn’t,” he stumbles over his words, looking at Tirrian. “Maybe you did?” he asks, his eyes seeming to drill into the dragon.
“Nope. Not me,” the dragon says without even turning to look at us. He’s poking at something on the wall.
“What are you doing?” I get up and wander over to him.
I thought he might be trying to pry a gem out of the wall—you know how dragons are about their hoards—but instead he’s pushing a big, fat slug away from one of the rilax berry bushes.
It seems to become annoyed at him and shoots some thick, pink liquid out of its back end.
“Ew, what is that?” I ask, grossed out but also interested.
“This is a silax worm. They eat the rilax berries, and their secretion” —he points at the slimy stuff— “kills the plants, but they also use it to make achom.”
I feel my stomach roll as I remember drinking the stuff he’s talking about. “Gross, I’m never drinking that again.”
He chuckles, and his smile makes his whole face shine. I’m kind of gobsmacked for a moment while I take in his beauty. “It’s like that with a lot of things in the galaxy. Better not to know the how or why.”
I’m still staring at him in wonder when Silac clears his throat. “We should probably figure out where to go next,” he suggests, breaking the moment between the dragon and me.
Tirrian steps away and runs his finger covetously over a large opalescent gem in the wall.
“You know, I don’t have any of these in my hoard.
I was hoping to maybe find a loose one while we were walking, but I’ve had no luck,” he mutters absently, and I pat the one inside my dress to make sure it’s still there.
“Okay, so what’s the plan, Lila?” he asks, still not looking at me.
“Well, I was heading in that direction when you two dropped out of the ceiling.” I point to the only exit I can see in the whole cavern.
“Well, okay then. Come on, Silac. We need to get moving. Time is winding down, and I don’t know how much of it we lost getting swallowed up. We will have to keep an eye out for Zala and Xavier on the way. Hopefully the cave just sent them back to the start or they are farther on.”
Tirrian is all business now, and he holds out his hand to help Silac to his feet.
He’s relatively dry, since the fire was hot and did a good job, though he does grimace at his feet, which still seem to be wet.
He takes off one and empties it over the fire, which hisses and steams, followed by the other, which puts the rest of the fire out.
“That was good thinking,” I say to him, and he grins.
“Two birds, one stone, so to speak. Now my feet won’t slosh as I walk.”
“Okay, let’s do this.” I lead the way, Xavier’s ball of light keeping pace with me as the two shifters bring up the rear.
I’m not sure how long we walk, but it feels like the tunnel system is endless. We don’t find any more big caverns, but the tunnel widens and shrinks, and at one stage, all three of us were crawling on hands and knees because the tunnel was so small. Thank goodness we could all do that.