Chapter 26
Niveus made to rise, but Cassian held out his hand and shook his head. “Stay as you are. This won’t take long.”
The horse snorted, but returned to his chewing. He showed his displeasure by ripping up a large patch of grass and chewing it hard between his flat teeth.
Cassian guided me deeper into the woods, where the old growth filled the air with an odor of moss and heavy years. Shadows lingered at the roots of the trees that never saw the sun, and the paths of the woodland animals were so old that they sank into the earth.
Cassian’s voice intruded on the solitude of that holy place. “Are you cold?”
We passed under a large tree, and I shivered. “A little.”
“You might remove some of your clothing and wear mine.”
I snorted and wrapped the coat tighter around myself. “I’ll be fine once we get back on the road and into the sun.”
“It’s not far now,” he assured me as he brushed aside a layer of vines that hung from a thick bough.
The drawn curtain revealed a small hollow. The ancient trees stretched their limbs over the grotto, covering everything in a thick layer of darkness and wet ferns.
Everything except the center. The earth was hollow there. We stopped at the edge of the hole, and I peered into the depths. I couldn’t see anything.
Cassian grasped the right side of his coat and dug into the pocket before he drew out a handful of small white crystals. He plucked one from his palm and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. A soft glow of light emanated from the stone and grew stronger the more he rubbed it.
My eyes widened at the growing brilliance. “More magic?”
“Of the simplest kind,” he told me as he held the glowing stone over the hole. “The stone stores heat and turns it into light.”
He opened his fingers, and the stone dropped into the hole. The tiny rock illuminated a large room, the floor of which was ten feet below us. A set of crude stairs carved out of the earth and stone led to the floor.
“Do you think you can make it down there?” he asked me.
I craned my neck and swallowed hard. “I’ll give it a try.”
“Then I’ll go first and help you down,” he offered as he did as promised.
Cassian pressed his back against the earthen wall on one side of the steps and held my hand. He walked sideways down the stairs, never missing a step. We reached the bottom, and he rubbed another stone, which he held out to me.
“Keep rubbing the stone, and it will remain bright,” he instructed me.
I clasped the light between my hands and did as he instructed. My little light shone about ten feet around me and revealed a subterranean world of stalactites and puddles of water. Strange-looking water.
I stepped up to one of the puddles and leaned over the depression. The water was murky and didn’t reflect my light at all. In fact, it didn’t reflect anything, not even my face.
“What is this-”
“Don’t touch it.”
Though Cassian’s voice was calm, there was such a sharpness to his words that I started back. “Why? What is it?”
“A nethral, or the beginnings of one.” Cassian strode up to me with a glowing stone in one hand and one of his scales in the other.
He tossed his scale into the center of the puddle.
The plate caused a ripple, and then the whole puddle began to quiver.
The ‘water’ shriveled to nothing, leaving only the depression and a scale.
Cassian plucked the scale from the floor and held his light aloft to the rest of the small cavern, for that’s where we found ourselves.
The grotto stretched from the stairs twenty yards long and nearly that wide.
The ceiling fluctuated between eight and ten feet high, with small stalactites threatening to knock the senses out of the less wary.
And depressions. Dozens of depressions. Some were as shallow as the one I stood over, while others were larger. They were more like pools than puddles. Not all of them were occupied, but there were a half dozen that held the putrid nethral material.
“What is this place?”
“A nethral pit,” he told me as he rubbed more crystals and tossed them about the room. “I came to see if any had grown back since its cleansing a decade ago. I’m sorry to see it has.”
“Do they grow back this fast?” I asked him.
He tightened his grip on his scale and grimly stared at the puddles. “Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, but they always return.”
Cassian moved from one to the other, dropping his scale into each one until they were all vanished. By the time he plucked his scale from the last empty depression, the plate was blackened like it had been scorched.
I joined him at his last work and nodded at the scale. “Is that the magic of the nethral working against yours?”
“Yes,” he mused as he lifted the scale and studied the scorch marks. “A few more puddles, and this would have been destroyed.”
“Are dragon scales really hard?”
“One of the hardest substances known to the kingdoms,” he told me as he tucked the remains of the scale into his pocket. “And made of very potent magic.”
I looked him over. “Does that mean you can do magic? Like breathing fire and such?”
He chuckled as he plucked one of the dimming rocks from the cold floor. “I have my gifts.”
I puckered my face into a pout. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
He straightened and grinned down at me. “I must keep some mystery around myself, my dear bride, or you may tire of your boring husband.”
One of the glowing stones puffed out completely, plunging a part of the cave into darkness. I shivered and tightened his coat around me. “I’m definitely getting tired of this place.”
“Then we shall leave at once.”
Cassian scooped up the last of the stones and helped me up the stairs.
The sun had continued its journey across the sky and now aimed itself toward the far horizon.
We found Niveus standing among the remains of the grass, his stomach full and his patience waning.
He pawed his good front hoof against the ground.
Cassian cupped his chin in one hand and stroked his nose. “Yes, yes, we’ll be off, and we’ll ride you only across the stream.”
“Will we still make it to the inn tomorrow?” I asked him as he helped me into the saddle.
“With a bit of luck, we’ll see its windows before sunset,” he told me as he dropped in behind me.
We crossed the stream and immediately dismounted, much to Niveus’s relief. He didn’t limp, but even I noticed he avoided putting weight on the injured leg whenever he could manage. We continued on foot back to the road and followed that until the sun dipped below the horizon.
Our luck changed when we came upon a driveway that led to a small farmhouse and a large barn. Cassian stopped us and studied the place. “We should inquire here if they have any rooms for us. Otherwise, we’ll be forced into the open for the night.”
I looked up at the clear, darkening sky and shivered. “I’d take anything at this point.”