Chapter 31
There is no sunshine in Elaerion. When I roll over in the dirt and blink up at the sky, I see only the stark, pale light of the moon.
I turn my head and find Berendir and Cara groaning and pushing themselves up onto their elbows. Behind them, a cliff face rises up to a mountain peak. Moonlight shines over the whole scene, casting it in an eerie white glow.
When I look down, a severed hand lies beside my knee.
“Poor guy,” says Berendir. “How is he supposed to jerk off now?”
“We just stumbled onto a different planet, and the first thing you bring up is jerking off?” Cara rolls her eyes. “Nice.”
I push myself up off the ground. My torso tips sideways, and I lose my balance, taking a step backward to steady myself.
“Whoa, there.” A hand catches my shoulder. Daerios’s voice is right beside my ear, warm and smooth in the night air. “The point of this mission is for you not to die, Kallister.”
“What do you—” I turn around, only to find that Daerios and I stand less than a foot away from a ledge that would send me over a sheer cliff’s face. I take a step back, pushing his hand off my shoulder. “Holy shit.”
The ledge upon which we stand must be three or four thousand feet high.
It juts out of a rocky peak that slopes steeply downward, ending in a forested valley far below.
A river runs through the center of the valley, splitting it in two.
Buried amongst the trees are shadowy hints of the city within: stone spires and columns, boxy shapes that almost look like treehouses.
Overhead, large black birds turn circles in the sky.
The whole thing is cloaked in darkness, but I can imagine that, before the shadows took over, the sight was magnificent.
What should be gorgeous mountain peaks across the valley look craggy and menacing. Branches rustle in the trees below. Rocks skitter down the cliff face upon which we stand, making me jump; I have no idea if it’s just scree or the sound of a beast sneaking up from behind.
“Shouldn’t we be, like, running down this mountain as fast as we can?” Cara asks. “Those guards are just going to open up another portal and grab Quinn.”
“They won’t attempt to come here without backup,” says Daerios. “Not with the land cloaked in shadow and beasts roaming everywhere. In their minds, it would be a death sentence.”
“Yet here we are, two braindead elves and two humans who only started training in combat seven days ago,” I say. “How comforting.”
Ignoring me, Daerios says, “They’ll head back to camp and alert my father.
If I know the king, he’ll want to build out a plan, and only then will they cross over.
” He readjusts his satchel. “But they won’t be able to use the Unity Tower; if anything, we just proved that crossing over at that low of an altitude is extremely unstable.
They’ll have to gather their forces somewhere in the Appalachians.
” He casts his eyes out over the valley. “I’d say we have a day’s lead.”
“A day,” I repeat. “Great. Fabulous. Well. Let’s not waste any more time, then.”
The journey down the mountain should be treacherous.
The jagged steps carved into the rock barely qualify as steps at all.
They’re six inches wide, pocked with gashes, chipped at the edges.
Some have crumbled away entirely. Any normal human would almost certainly slip and tumble over the ridge to their death.
Of course, Daerios and Berendir aren’t normal or human.
They navigate the mountain with extraordinary deftness, toes barely making contact with stone as they leap from step to step.
Though I’m no elf, I manage the staircase just fine, thanking every god in heaven above for my two-year stint on the gymnastics team.
Cara, on the other hand—
I love my best friend, but athletics have never been her strong suit.
She tip-toes down the steps, grabbing the rocks protruding from the mountainside for balance.
Her pace requires that we move painfully slowly.
After an hour, we’re barely a quarter of a way down.
I keep glancing over my shoulder, certain that, at any moment, the king and his army will materialize.
Ten minutes later, Berendir comes to a sudden halt, causing the rest of us to nearly crash into his backside. Cara wobbles dangerously, and my heart rockets up into my throat as I picture her tumbling over the edge. I grab her elbow just in time.
“All right,” Berendir announces, spinning to face us. “That’s enough of this.”
“Enough of what?” I ask.
Before any of us can react, he marches back up the few steps separating him from Cara, gently nudging Daerios and me aside as he walks, grabs Cara by the waist, hoists her up, throws her over his shoulder, turns around, and continues down the mountain.
“What in the—?” Cara hits Berendir’s backside with both her fists. “Put me down this instant!”
“Nope.”
“I’m serious, Ber! I’m not going to let you carry me down this mountain like some damsel in—”
“Respectfully, Cara,” Berendir says, hopping over a gap in the staircase where a step used to be, “you’re slower than a snail in ninety-degree heat. If we have any hope of reaching árrion before the king does, we need to hurry.”
This shuts Cara up. Though it doesn’t stop her from folding her arms over Berendir’s shoulders and pouting for the rest of the way down.
We descend the final three-fourths of the mountain in less time than it took us to do the first quarter.
When we leap onto the ground—the last three stairs have crumbled away entirely—our feet land in soft earth, tall grass tickling our bare ankles.
The blades are dark grey, same as the leaves waving about the pitch-black tree trunks.
It’s as if the entire scene has been sucked of color.
The forest is silent. Unsettlingly so. I expected beasts at every turn: serpents in the branches, goblins in the grass, monstrous birds sweeping down from the sky. Instead, we’re met by nothing but the whisper of a soft breeze across our cheeks, the rustling of black leaves in the trees above.
“Stay vigilant,” Daerios says, breaking the silence. “The forest might seem peaceful now, but the Shadow Elves wouldn’t have left árrion unprotected. I’m sure they invited every species of beast from Shadowfell to make camp around here.”
“Splendid,” I grumble.
We start our walk in the direction that Daerios and Berendir claim leads to árrion.
I have no choice but to believe them, because I can see jack-all through the tall black trees surrounding us.
When I ask Daerios how he knows where we’re going, he looks over his shoulder and says, “I lived here for sixty-three years, Kallister. I know where I’m going. ”
Our first few hours of walking are suspiciously uneventful.
Aside from a rustle in the bushes here and a far-off howl there, nothing seems amiss.
Cara keeps close to Berendir, and as much as I don’t want to, I do the same with Daerios.
If we’re going to be attacked by a skria or urrath, I would prefer to have a lightning-fast trained killer at my side.
Even if he’s a bit out of practice on the killing part, given that he spent most of the last century partying in Mykonos or Ibiza or wherever the fuck.
Regardless, we stick close to our elvish companions as we carve a path through the grassy forest. The valley is nothing like I imagined.
There is none of the magic, the shimmer, the pure life that Daerios once described to me.
Dark grey tree trunks twist and gnarl, sporting knobby protrusions that remind me of sores.
Rocks litter the ground, interspersed with streams running with ink-black water.
Every now and then, small, winged creatures flap over our heads.
The boys tell us not to worry about them.
“Skael,” Daerios says, the Lukkarin word for bat.
Other than a few skaelor and a branch that snaps backward and nearly catches Cara in the face, nothing dangerous jumps out to grab us. The walk is easy. Too easy.
We reach a section of the forest where the trees are particularly dense.
Daerios urges us to shimmy through the trees, behind which we find the mouth of a cave.
The elves duck into the cave and drop their backpacks.
“We’ll camp here for the night,” Daerios says.
“Quick dinner with the premade stuff we brought, then rest.”
“Here?” My lips tug backward in a grimace. “But it’s tiny.”
And it is. The cave can’t be more than six or seven feet across, which is hardly enough space for four fully grown bodies.
“It’s tiny, but it’s the only protection we’ll find for miles. And we need to rest if we want to reach árrion by tomorrow.”
“By tomorrow?” I look up at Daerios in surprise. “I didn’t realize the journey would be so quick.”
“It will be,” he says. “If we’re well-rested. Now get inside that cave.”
“Gladly.” Cara drops to her knees and crawls inside. “I’m fucking exhausted.”
“How should we do sleeping arrangements?” Berendir asks Daerios.
“Well, we only have two blankets, so I’m thinking one of us stays with Quinn, the other with Cara.”
“Excuse me?” I round on Daerios. “I’m sharing with Cara.”
“No, you’re not.” He digs in his backpack for the blanket, not even glancing at me. “We need to be able to protect you if something goes wrong in the middle of the night.”
“You can protect us just fine from under a different blanket.”
“It’s fine,” Cara says breezily. She nudges Berendir in the side. “I’m happy to snuggle with bestie.”
“Hey! I thought I was bestie.”
“One can have multiple besties, Q.” Cara grabs the blanket out of Berendir’s hands and starts to get cozy on the left side of the cave. I might imagine it, but as Cara crawls into the cave, I think I see Berendir’s face turn the slightest shade of pink.
“Traitor,” I mumble. Then I stiffen, because I realize there’s only one other elf left.
I glance quickly at Daerios, who is spreading his traveling cloak out on the right side, just over a cluster of black leaves.
His lithe body lengthens and tightens as he smooths out each corner of the cloak, muscles rippling beneath his newly exposed shirt. I look pointedly away.
“I don’t need a blanket,” I announce.
Daerios rolls his eyes, not looking up from the task of creating a pseudo-bed. “Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t. I’ll sleep next to you, but I can use my own cloak as a blanket.”
“Quinn.” Daerios sighs. “Stop being difficult. It’s cold enough with the land covered in shadow, and the human body’s temperature drops when it sleeps. You’re sleeping under the blanket.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. I hate being cold almost as much as I hate the smug twitch of the prince’s mouth as he watches me struggle to come up with another reason why we shouldn’t share a blanket. His rather lush mouth, actually, with full lips and—
What the hell am I doing?
“Fine.” I bend over and crawl into the cave. “But if you touch me with so much as a toe while we’re asleep, I’m cutting that toe off.”