CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX #2
“I—” she squeaked. Panic bloomed in Brennen’s wide eyes, but Destonne surveyed her with assuredness she didn’t deserve. Her cheeks burned, and she blurted, “I don’t know.”
Her heart raced with the ticking as it sped, each a kick to her gut hard enough to send her sprawling to the floor. Her body threatened to fold. To become small and hide. And she had to answer now, now, now—
Warm fingers brushed her palm, and a hand slid into hers. Her mind quieted. She met Destonne’s calm stare as he gave her the briefest of nods, hopefully too small for the Guardian to see. She shook her head with returned subtlety.
His thumb traced circles across their rose pactum, as if to remind her of their bargain, but with each pass of his thumb, her brows scrunched.
Because each sweep wasn’t the same, though they slowed her racing pulse.
Her attention darted back to the Guardian.
She needed to give them an answer now. But her mind was racing, running, springing, falling, and—
Destonne gave a soft tug on her hand and blinked at her slowly. As if to repeat her sentiment to him, Eyes on me. I want all of your attention.
So she focussed on his touch. Let it ground her.
Until it dawned on her.
Those weren’t circles.
Letters. Those were letters he was drawing into her palm.
Emmery’s eyes widened and she memorized each drag of his finger. As he saw the recognition in her eyes, his thumb slowly traced a—
D.
Her cheeks reddened as she stared up at him incredulously. Was he spelling his name? How arrogant and fitting. But he wanted to get out of this damn place as much as she did.
“You must answer,” the Guardian bellowed. “I will count down from ten.”
He drew an R. Alright, so not his name.
“Ten. Nine. Eight.”
Emmery involuntarily shivered as the letter E tingled across her skin. Destonne shut his eyes and trembled as if it worked through him too, and when he opened them again, they held his promise: I will never let you drown.
“Seven. Six. Five.”
Her blood rushed, hot and thick, like she was dying, bleeding out, and nothing could staunch the flow. The panicked ring in her ears stifled her hearing, and everything blurred in her vision.
“Four.”
Everything except Destonne.
He was the only thing in the room that kept her knees from giving out. And he did what he said. He held her above water and didn’t let the tide sweep her away. Because Destonne kept his promises.
“Three.”
Her brows drew together as he traced the next letter.
A.
The word struck her like a shove to her chest. Emmery opened her mouth, and her answer croaked out, “Dream.” She cleared her throat and summoned all her confidence, every stubborn, stiff, defiant thing inside her. She turned to the Guardian, and said, her voice steady, “It’s a dream.”
An impossibly heavy silence blanketed the room. Because maybe she guessed wrong. Maybe Destonne had too. The sound of her ragged breaths and the crackling flames wove together as the fiery basins flared back to life.
The Guardian bared its teeth in a snarl, but ambled aside like a lumbering beast. “You may pass.”
A wave of relief nearly knocked Emmery to the floor. Destonne squeezed her hand and released her. In her gaze, she willed a silent, thank you. He seemed to catch the words and nodded.
Behind the Guardian, a stone door ground open in the same way the entrance to the labyrinth had.
A path filled with the same darkness lay ahead.
As if the floor would give out and plummet them to their deaths, they silently tiptoed past the Guardian, not willing to meet its eyes, though Emmery could feel them boring into her, hungry for her failure. Ravenous, really.
As they crossed the threshold, out of earshot from the Guardian, Brennen said, “That was too easy.”
Emmery’s cheeks still burned with shame. “Speak for yourself.”
“It gave you the hardest one, angel,” Destonne murmured. His gaze darted around the shadowed hallway, his breath disjointed once more. “Don’t beat yourself up over it.”
But she certainly would. She’d needed Destonne to come to her rescue yet again and she didn’t love the feeling. The last thing she wanted was to need his help. To need him.
Brennen said, “Keep on your toes. I fear the next game won’t be so simple.”
The door slammed at their heels and the darkness swallowed them once more.
Emmery summoned her khaos flame and illuminated Destonne and Brennen’s fatigued expressions, as she was sure hers was, too.
Destonne clutched the crystal around his neck like it would ward off the terrors in this dank, narrow hallway. His breaths thinned further.
As they walked on, their echoing footsteps mixed with guttural growls coming from behind either side of the wall. Emmery recognized those sounds as they rattled her bones.
Hollowhounds.
The ground crunched under their feet, and pebbles made the ground increasingly unsteady. Her foot slid out from beneath her, and she only just caught herself on the wall. She blamed her unsteadiness on hunger, but then the stone rumbled beneath her fingers.
It quaked.
Shifted.
The blood leached from her face and icy claws gripped her stomach. Her flame, cupped in her palm, died. She tried to summon it, call it back, but whatever magic lingered here severed it.
The ground shook and the bricks warped beneath their feet.
They all stumbled, Emmery to one side and Brennen and Destonne to the other and as a barrier rose from the ground, it sent her sprawling and the back of her head collided with the unforgiving stone.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the bright flare of pain. Stars burst across her vision.
“Emmery!” Destonne hollered her name, threw it like a rope he prayed she could reach. That he could pull her back. “No, no—Emmery!”
But she knew it was too late.
Her eyes flew open, and as her vision focused the wall rose to meet the ceiling, and swallowed Destonne’s voice behind it.
All at once, the rumbling stopped. Darkness surrounded her.
Although her head swam and pounded, she shoved to her feet and threw herself forward.
Her eyes strained as she sought the wall with blind hands in the blackness.
“Destonne? Brennen?” she hollered.
Nothing.
She yelled their names again, but silence filled the air. She searched her head for any sign of Brennen’s voice, but not even her flame answered when she called. Her magic was numb. Iced over. Distant.
Emmery skirted the wall, running her fingers along it in the darkness but she found no hand holds, divots, or anything.
And the damn seeping quiet needled into her.
The stone walls encased her like a bird in a cage, a rat in a trap, smog drowning the sun.
Suffocating. Her heart rose in her throat and she couldn't catch her damn breath.
Once again, like all those years trapped on the wrong side of the gate, she was alone, encased in the impenetrable darkness, sentenced to only the company of her own thoughts.