43. Excursion #2
Aeden took a deep breath and took a slow step backwards, and then another, the whites of his knuckles showing as he gripped the rope tightly. It groaned under the strain as he continued to lower himself down the embankment.
It didn’t take long for Harrison’s rope to come hurtling down the hill, and he followed Aeden. He was unsteady, slipping a couple of times and cursing when he did.
“I’m just out of practice,” he said. There was a high-pitched break in his voice.
“Just be careful,” Serene said, peering over the top of the steep embankment, her face a picture of worry.
“See, I told you she cares about me,” Harrison said to Aeden, keeping his voice lowered.
Aeden couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re still going with that?”
“A man can dream. One day, that woman will be my wife.” Harrison slipped again but regained his composure, choosing this time to act like nothing had happened .
Neither of them noticed as they descended into the fog until they looked up and couldn’t see the others. It was thick, a wetness clinging to it. They would have been forgiven for believing it was smoke, it was so thick.
“I don’t like this,” Harrison said.
“Me neither.” Visibility was getting worse, with Aeden only just able to see Harrison, who was only a few feet away from him.
They kept going until Aeden reached the ground first. “I’m at the bottom, just a few more steps and you’ll be there.
” His hands were reddened and rope-burned, a raised callus forming on the inside of his hand.
“We’re at the bottom!” Aeden called up. “Visibility is pretty shit down here.”
“Just what we need when we’re looking for a cave,” Harrison muttered, less than impressed. “Like this wasn’t hard enough already.”
“What do you think we should do?” Aeden shouted.
“It would be risky for all four of us to go down if the mist is that thick,” Vivienne called down to them.
“I think we should stay up here. At least that way you’ll be able to call out to us if you get lost. Logically that’s the safest decision.
Apart from climbing back up and us trying again later.
We could wait to see if the fog lifts.” Her voice echoed, booming down at them both.
“I don’t like the waiting plan,” Aeden said. “This fog could take hours to lift. You two stay up there. Like you said, the last thing we want is to not be able to get back up. Besides, the cave wasn’t that far from where I woke up.”
“Meaning you’re not too sure where you landed,” Harrison huffed again, “great. ”
“We’ll shout you if we need you.” Aeden waved at Harrison. “You ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Be careful, you two!” Serene’s hollow voice reached them. “I don’t like this splitting up.”
The two of them edged carefully forward.
When Aeden had woken up from the fall, he’d gathered his bearings and staggered in the general direction of where he led them both.
The mist was more discombobulating than Aeden had realised it would be, and it didn’t take long until they couldn’t see the embankment at all.
Aeden scanned the ground, looking for any sign that they were close to the cave, but none came.
“Over there,” Harrison said, pointing.
He was right. There was a dark void ahead of them, which, when they moved closer, Aeden recognised as the cave where he had found Nyra.
“That’s it,” Aeden said. “Let’s hurry the fuck up, get what we came for, and get out of here.
” His skin itched, he felt that uncomfortable.
He had the unshakeable feeling that the two of them were being watched, but surely that was just his mind playing tricks.
There was no evidence of anything else in their vicinity.
They stepped into the cave and the mist lifted straight away, oddly so. Aeden spun back around to be greeted by a wall of mist, which had stopped perfectly and neatly at the precise entry of the cave.
“Well, that seems unnatural,” Harrison said, staring into the fog as though looking into a mirror.
Aeden did the same. Running his hands through the mist, he reached his hand out, and a tingling sensation prickled his fingers, then his wrist and forearm.
It did the same again when he pulled his hand back.
He couldn’t remember feeling anything like that when he’d walked into the cave the first time, but he did have a newly broken ankle to contend with at the time.
Aeden reached out to Nyra through the Weave. “ Nyra, I’m just going to try something. I want you to tell me if you can feel it too .” He reached a hand into the mist wall again.
“ Ooh, I felt that ,” she said. “ Have you reached the cave? I felt something similar when we were there .”
“ We have. I’ll reach out soon, when we’re on our way back .”
“ Stay safe, Aeden .”
“Are your hand and arm tingling when you reach into the mist?” Aeden asked Harrison, who stood dumbfounded. He shook his head.
Aeden examined the mist wall again. “I think it’s magic. Nyra can sense it, too. Must be some kind of barrier spell. That would explain why the mist isn’t entering the cave.”
“But why would there be a barrier spell?”
As much as Aeden wanted to investigate this, they were pressed for time. Just who exactly had created this barrier spell, and how long had it been there?
“That’s something for us to figure out another time. Come on,” he said. “Nyra hatched just over here.” He spun around to see Nyra’s broken shell on the edge of the shadows where the natural light faded.
Except most of the eggshell was gone.