Chapter 10
Alette
Ashton is pressed against my back, breath loud in my ear, arms so tight around my waist I feel like he’s trying to protect me with his body alone.
His heart pounds against my ribs, a wild animal beating itself bloody against the bars.
I want to tell him it’s okay, that we’ll make it out, but the words don’t come. Besides, they’d be lies.
I clutch my sword handle, but I can barely keep it from shaking. The blade is too bright, throwing shadows up the tunnel wall that look like monsters, or maybe just like the memory of monsters.
Ashton whispers, “Can you dim it?”
I don’t know, but I stare at it, willing it to dim, and somehow I force the light down until it’s just a ghost of itself.
There’s a flash of pale, wet flesh. It glides nearer, body pulsing in and out, each ring of muscle lined with spines and hair like a centipede scaled up by a god with a sick sense of humor.
The head is all mouth, a ring of teeth like chipped glass, and the feelers whip the tunnel, smashing stone and snapping back when they hit something soft.
I try to breathe so shallow my chest doesn’t move, but my lungs betray me with a tremble.
The nearest feeler quivers, then jabs at a piece of wood it’d thrown from the cabin.
I bite down on my own tongue to keep from screaming.
It’s so close I can see the eggshell texture on its skin. Ashton’s arm tightens across my gut, and I realize he’s shaking, too.
The worm lingers, snuffling at the debris, a sound like a dog rooting for a buried bone.
Then, its head snaps in our direction, and it just freezes for a long moment.
I think it’s found us, that my body is about to be peeled open like a grape, but then it rears up, makes a wet, angry noise, and slams what’s left of the ruined cottage with its head.
The whole world lurches sideways. Ashton’s hand covers my mouth.
I’m crying now, silent but messy, tears hot and sticky against my cheeks.
After a minute, the worm slithers on. The vibrations fade, replaced by a distant, echoing shriek. I hope it’s just the worm, and not something else waiting deeper down.
We stay motionless, waiting for it to come back. Time goes flat. Every second is like a drop of water on my forehead.
Finally, Ashton lets go of my mouth. His voice is a thread. “We’re not safe.”
No shit, I want to say, but it comes out as a cough.
He nudges me and points with his chin at the ceiling. Far above us, a ragged circle of sky is visible, pale and unreachable, the hole where we were dropped. It looks close, but I know it’s a trick. Nothing in the maze is ever as close as it seems.
“We could try climbing,” he whispers. “Or wait it out.”
“Is it even possible to climb?”
There’s a crunch from deeper in the tunnel. A reminder that time is running out.
“We have to move,” he says, grabbing my arm and hauling the direction of the tunnel away from the worm.
We crawl through the ruined furniture, dodging splinters and shattered glass, my sword brightening to show the way. The tunnel splits. One way is absolute darkness, the other is streaked with faint, greenish light, as if the roots themselves are leaking some kind of poison. We go for the light.
We drag ourselves down the slope, my feet slipping every step in the mud. The tunnel narrows, the ceiling dropping until I’m crawling on elbows and knees. My sword makes it harder, but I’d rather die following its light than die in the dark.
Behind us, the worm’s shriek echoes, followed by a crash and the sound of earth being torn apart. I smell dirt and rot.
We crawl, and crawl, and crawl, until I think my arms will give out.
Finally, the tunnel opens into a pocket, maybe the size of a root cellar. We huddle in the farthest corner, behind a tangle of moss and stone. I keep the sword tight against my chest, as if it can shield my heart from being eaten.
Ashton is panting, face gray. “We can’t just—wait here. It’ll find us.”
I nod, but there’s nowhere else to go.
He buries his face in his hands, elbows on knees. I stare at the sword, willing it to grow into a spear, a bomb, anything that might kill a creature that size. But it just hums, cold and useless, as if the goddess is embarrassed for me.
The next time the worm moves, I can tell it's closer, probably in the last tunnel it was big enough to fit through. I hold my breath until my head goes light, then release it, wondering if the worm could reach us, or if it’d just bring the whole tunnel down trying to get us.
It’s quiet for a minute. Just our breath, ragged and shallow.
I force myself to speak. “We need a plan.”
Ashton glances at his hands. “We have a plan. The plan is easy. Don’t die.”
I jab him with my elbow. “We can’t stay here. It’ll just dig us out eventually.”
He looks at me, eyes black and hollow. “Where do you want to go?”
I think, but no plan sounds good. “I guess… back up the tunnel. Maybe there’s another branch in that direction that goes to the surface. Or…” I don’t finish. Or what? We run in circles until the worm gets bored? We keep going until we die of thirst?
He leans against me, forehead to my shoulder. His hair smells like the earth and something pleasant that’s all him. I want to say something comforting, but my mind is empty.
Instead, I listen to the tunnel, counting the seconds between each pass of the worm. It’s a pattern, I realize. It’s a loop. It’s patrolling. It’s not smart, but it’s relentless.
I grit my teeth, my mind working, wondering how we can possibly survive this. “We should time it. When it’s farthest away, we run and look for another exit.”
Ashton nods, then pulls back. There’s dirt on his cheek, but something solid is in his gaze. “You know I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”
My answer comes easily. “I know.”
We wait, counting the seconds. The next time the worm passes, it’s moving slower, as if tired or just savoring the chase. I wonder if it gets bored, if it even remembers why it’s hunting us.
As soon as the sound fades, I grab Ashton’s hand and crawl, sword clamped in one hand. The mud sucks at my knees, the tunnel tilts down, and the ceiling is so low I feel it scraping my back. Ashton is right behind me, never getting far from me.
The tunnel splits again, this time three ways. One is back the way we came. The second is where the worm is currently patrolling. The third is narrow but clean, the walls scraped smooth, as if something smaller than the worm uses it.
I hesitate, but Ashton nudges me toward the third. “We haven’t got any other options,” he whispers.
We squeeze into the side tunnel, barely wide enough for my shoulders. The sword is a pain in the ass, but I continue carrying it, the tip scraping the wall. Ashton crawls behind, his breath ragged.
We creep forward. The air changes, less rotten, more like wet leaves. My head buzzes from the strain, but I keep going.
We lose track of time. Maybe an hour, maybe five minutes. Every so often, I hear the worm in the main tunnel, thrashing, shrieking. But it never comes down this way.
Not that it could. Could it?
Eventually, the tunnel opens, just a little, into a space filled with glowing fungus. It’s not bright, but it’s something. I sag to the ground, every muscle shaking.
Ashton collapses next to me. “Okay, this is something” he says, voice so low I barely hear it.
I want to say it’s not over, that we’re still trapped here, with very little water, and very little food in our packs, being hunted by a giant worm, but for a moment, I just let myself breathe.
We rest, back to back, eyes on the flickering glow.
The worm is still out there. I know it. But for now, we’re alive.
I don’t know how long we sit there, breathing fungus air and waiting for the next disaster.
My brain keeps running over everything I’ve been through since entering that cottage like a looped nightmare: the sound of the worm smashing the cottage, the dark rushing in, Ashton’s hand crushing mine until I thought my bones would snap.
I want to ask him if he’s okay, but the words lodge in my throat and rot there.
Finally, Ashton speaks. “There’s no way out in this direction, and the worm is carefully guarding the other direction…”
I want to yell at him for stating the obvious, but he’s not looking at me. He’s staring up at the ceiling, looking lost in thought.
“Unless,” he says, voice so low I barely hear him, “Do you trust me?”
That gets my attention. “What do you mean?”
He swallows, jaw working. “There’s a trick I can do. Wind fae only, well, maybe not even most of them. My father taught me before…” He trails off. “I haven’t mastered it. No one has mastered it. I’ve only done it a few times before, and that was when I was a kid.”
“What?” I have no idea where he could be taking this.
“I could use the air and… lift us out.”
“Fly us out of here?” I ask in shock.
He shakes his head. “Not fly. Just… lift. If I can catch the updraft, we might make it to the top.”
I remember the hole, remember how far away it was. “It’s a hundred feet, minimum. And that’s if the worm doesn’t just eat us like fish on a line.”
He gives a miserable laugh. “Exactly. So if we do this, you have to trust me. No matter what. You have to stay calm and quiet, so we don’t attract the worm’s attention.”
I look at the sword, then at my hands. “What if it doesn’t work?”
He doesn’t answer right away, before finally giving a humorless laugh. “Then I guess we die together.”
I hate this plan, but I hate sitting here more. “Fine. I trust you.”
He looks at me, really looks, and something in his face softens. “You do?”
My cheeks heat. “Don’t make me say it again.”