Chapter 20 Shit #5
Alina spent the next hour stretching and mobilizing her muscles in a painful, laborious process that left her sweating and trembling.
She needed three attempts to get to her feet, and when she stood, she swayed precariously.
She was totally and utterly battered and drained.
Her muscles were jelly, her joints stiff as wood, her belly was so empty it was hollowed out, her head swam, she had a tremor all over and her vision was still blackening round the edges.
With a strange detachment, she realized that she was going nowhere today, and probably never would. This seemed to be her last stop.
Having come to that understanding, she might as well inspect her final resting place.
Slowly, Alina let her gaze wander along the walls.
The frost that coated them wasn’t smooth, but etched with delicate lines and whorls spread over the surface.
Something was off about them, they looked…
deliberate. Yes, that was it. They were carved with a far too great precision to be the work of wind and water.
She reached out, ran her finger over the nearest pattern, and felt the groove, deep and purposeful.
She stepped back to take in their entirety. And now she could clearly see it: they were runes. She recognized a few from the palace library: warding signs, protection spells, the kind that old alchemists etched into their doors to keep out evil spirits or unwanted memories.
She shoved her pain and exhaustion aside and stepped nearer again.
How strange to find those runes here, in the middle of nowhere, within this tiny cave.
Who had carved them here? Why? And what did they mean?
Curiosity piqued, she pressed her palm flat against one of the larger runes.
The stone seemed warm where she touched it, but surely that was her imagination?
The state her hands—and the rest of her—were in, she couldn’t trust her own senses.
But quickly the heat spread, crawling up her arm and settling in the center of her chest, thawing her core.
The runes glowed a faint, pale blue, the color of dawn through new ice.
She inhaled sharply and snatched her hand away, heart beating loudly.
For a long moment she simply stared at her palm, half expecting a burn or mark where the rune had singed her.
But her skin was unscathed, though it tingled as if she’d been holding a live coal.
The runes themselves dimmed once more, faint as frost and almost shy in their glow.
Maybe it was just the wind shifting behind her, maybe the exhaustion—she was always quick to doubt her senses these days—but the warmth lingered in the stone, calling to her like an echo.
Cautiously, she laid her hand upon the rune again.
This time she left it there, willing herself to ignore the spike of fear in her chest. What more could happen to her?
She was dying here anyway. She might as well make her last hours interesting.
The stone responded, tender and steady, as if recognizing her.
The blue glow grew bolder, casting ghostly shadows across the walls.
She could see her own breath, illuminated in icy azure, curling like smoke as she exhaled.
Nothing else happened, not at first. Alina’s shoulders sagged; disappointment warred with relief.
But then, as her fingers drifted along the etched lines, a subtle vibration tickled her fingertips, so faint she barely noticed it until it began to build.
Distantly, a hum rose in the air, threading through her bones and up her spine.
She traced another rune, smaller but more intricate, and it lit up as if waking from a long sleep. The hum deepened. She found herself smiling, despite the strangeness, despite the aches ravaging her wrecked body. It was as if the cave itself were responding to her, grateful and a little surprised.
She staggered from one rune to the next, willing her hands to carefully trace the patterns carved into walls and ceiling.
Each rune ignited in turn: some flickered, some flared, some gave off a steady, unwavering light.
It was hypnotic, the way the light spread in ripples, each new rune amplifying the previous until the chamber was alive with a soft, living luminance.
At first it was beautiful—a kind of beauty she’d never seen, not even in the palace’s crystal halls.
But as the light grew, so did a sense of unease.
The runes’ glow wasn’t merely illumination; it was presence, sentience, intent.
Alina could feel it pressing up against the edges of her awareness, as if the cave wanted more from her than just her touch.
She withdrew her hand, but the glow persisted, pulsing gently like a heartbeat.
She watched, transfixed, as the blue light braided itself across the ceiling, outlining a map she did not recognize: a maze of tunnels, impossibilities stacked upon impossibilities, but somehow, she could follow the logic of it.
The runes along the wall began to hum in harmony, a sound like voices just out of reach, whispering in a language she almost understood, but not quite.
Alina backed away, but the cave seemed to tighten around her.
The light pressed her forward toward the deepest part of the alcove where the largest rune loomed, carved into the very heart of the wall.
This one was different: a spiral, open at the center, its lines so fine they looked like filigree spun from moonlight.
She hesitated. Her instincts screamed that this was a threshold, a line she could not uncross.
But what was there left for her to lose?
If she stayed here, she would die of hunger, thirst, or cold, whichever took her first. And even if she could continue walking, which the state she was in simply didn’t allow, she still would not survive.
Either way, she had come to an end. Yet here was something, another option.
She was past being scared.
She stretched out her hand, trembling from fatigue and anticipation, and let her fingertips brush the spiral’s center. The stone pulsed under her skin. The humming deepened, and the air in the cave thickened, dense with the memory of storms. She gritted her teeth and pressed down.
The entire chamber shuddered, as if the mountain itself had drawn a sudden, ragged breath.
The spiral’s blue light lanced outward, blinding and fierce, and a grinding sound filled the air.
The wall in front of her cracked, then peeled away in massive slabs, each sliding with impossible grace to reveal a new passage—narrow, steep, and plunging downward into a darkness untouched by the runes’ light.
Alina stared, breathless. The tunnel was dark, but the air that drifted from it was warmer, tinged with the faintest hint of something sweet, like the memory of summer. She had no idea what waited for her at the other end, but something told her this was the correct path.
She gathered her filthy, ragged bag, pausing just long enough to take one last look at the glowing runes, then stepped into the new passage. The walls closed around her, and the light faded behind.
The darkness felt less like a threat and more like a beginning.
She limped deeper and deeper, until even the sound of the storm above was lost.
And she did not look back.