Chapter 37 #3
“I don’t want to. Just let it be.”
He doesn’t say anything.
When I think we’re nearing the beginning of the split in the cave, I pick up my pace even more. I finally enter the clearing where the cave splits into three tunnels, and I instantly sense we’re alone. Dread washes over me.
No one has returned yet.
I check my fire orb and it’s just below the third line, past when we all agreed to be back here.
“Fuck!” I curse.
“It’s okay,” Daegan says calmly. “They’ll be back.”
I begin to pace the clearing, nervous something’s happened to them. All of them. There were burned skeletons back in our tunnel. Something like that could happen to my friends.
Eventually, Daegan grabs onto my shoulders.
I don’t look at him.
He shakes me.
“Elysande, look at me.”
I do, finally.
And I’m reminded of the calming, reassuring effect he has on me. “It’s going to be okay.”
I nod.
“Should we go in after them?”
He shakes his head. “Give them a little more time. Besides, which one would we choose? We can’t do both. And we’re not splitting up.”
“Damn it.”
Screaming echoes from one of the tunnels and I whip my head that way. I immediately know who it is.
Without thinking, I run toward it.
“Elle!” Daegan shouts.
I sprint faster than I ever have. I don’t have time to check if he followed.
Meela needs me.
She’s in trouble, and I’m running straight into danger without a second thought. All I know is I have to try to help.
Her scream echoes through the tunnel again, much closer this time.
I begin to see a bright light up ahead, and two silhouettes in front of it.
They’re…
Oh.
They’re running toward us, and a flame that fills the tunnel is chasing them.
“Elle, run!” Her face widens in panic as she sees me sprinting toward her. I stop, throwing out as much water as I can manage, and it pushes the flames back significantly.
I guess the vines down here don’t react to an elf’s fire like it does a dragon’s. This fire is wild and unpredictable.
I throw more out as she and Rhydra get closer, giving them a lot more distance. And then a hand is pulling me back, and I turn and run. They’ve caught up now. We might just make it.
Daegan runs ahead of me, pulling me by the hand. I let Rhydra and Meela pass us, turning back to shoot more water at the flames that look angry and hungry. It helps.
“I have an idea!” I shout ahead at him. He looks back at me, slowing a little. I’ve bought us a little time.
We make it into the cavern, still no sign of Gaethri and Raef, and everyone lets me pass them as I direct them quickly.
“Down their middle tunnel!”
“The vines in there will catch too!” Meela yells.
“Just trust me!” I say in a rush. The flames from the other tunnel are getting closer. “If we run for the exit, we’re leaving them both to die down there.”
They follow me with no further questions into the narrower tunnel that Raef and Gaethri should still be down.
I stop just inside of it, motioning them behind me with haste.
I face the opening to their tunnel and throw up a swirling wall of water that completely seals the entrance.
I can only hope this holds the flames back, and that it passes to the cave exit and fizzles out.
I hear a gasp behind me as I watch the blurry lights of the fire fill the cavern on the other side of my water wall.
I suck in a breath, sending all of my concentration into maintaining it.
As the orange lights on the other side grow bigger and more intense, the silence on this side seems eerie, like we’re inside of a dream.
The flames touch my water wall, nearly penetrating it, so I freeze the wall into solid ice. I can sense the flames still trying to melt it from the other side, so I pour all of my focus and energy into maintaining it.
It’s working.
That’s the first victory. Now we just have to hope the flame passes quickly and fizzles out.
“It’s working,” Rhydra says with awe.
“I don’t know how long I can hold it,” I admit, my voice coming out strained.
“You can do this, Elle.” It’s Daegan’s calming voice. It gives me the boost I need to push through, summoning more power deep within me. “Do it for the wolves. The Skeldaryns. The Dothronites.”
“And the dragons,” Meela adds.
“And the rest of the world,” Rhydra says.
I can sense the heat on the other side of my ice wall fading. If I can just hold on a little longer…
“What the—”
I almost break my concentration as Raef’s voice sends a shock through me. But then I smile, choking on a sob.
“Gaethri too?” I ask, still holding out my hands to keep the ice wall intact.
“Aye.”
I hear a “shh” behind me, but I don’t know who from.
The heat is receding. I can tell it’s almost burned out in the main cavern now, traveling farther toward the entrance. Eventually, we’ll be in the clear to leave. I hope.
Just to be sure, I melt the ice but maintain the water wall so I can see to the other side better. No flames are visible on the other side.
I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I know exactly whose it is. “You can let go.”
So I do.
And then I collapse into darkness.