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The three of us look at each other and I see the same horror dawning on their faces that I feel in my chest. Desperate, they both go to work on the walls. Looking for what I’m not sure. A weak spot, a hidden door, all I know is I don’t care what, I just need something. Anything that gets me out of this room.

“Smaller and smaller. What’s next?” Z’leni mutters.

Ryatuv finds the opening almost by accident. A section of the far wall shifts when he leans against it. Not a door. Not even a seam. Just a weak patch of stone that partially gives under the pressure. He punches it and a section crumbles revealing a crevice.

He steps back and uses his tail. The powerful limb slams, loudly smacking over and over. More and more of the wall crumbles with every strike until there is an opening just wide enough for us to pass through single-file. It’s dark. Cramped. But we don’t wait.

This time, Z’leni goes first and I follow while Ryatuv guards the rear.

The walls press in. My shoulders scrape raw. My legs cramp from crouching so low. There’s no room to turn. No room to breathe. Just crawling through black stone and praying the next breath won’t be your last.

“Don’t stop,” Z’leni calls softly.

“Not planning to,” I rasp.

I don’t even realize I’m crying until a tear slides down my cheek and drops onto the stone below. It’s too much.

The pain in my wrist. The memory of that thing grabbing me. I regret ever agreeing to come on this stupid mission. The weight of everything we’ve seen. Everything I’ve lost. What they’ve lost too. The way Ryatuv’s voice shook when he spoke of never seeing the sky. The way Z’leni hides his grief behind a smirk. I can’t keep pretending.

“I’m scared,” I whisper. The words tremble out of me, raw and brittle.

“I know,” Z’leni says, his voice breaking something loose inside me.

“I don’t want to die down here,” I admit, almost choking on the admission.

“You won’t,” Ryatuv says behind me. No hesitation.

“How do you know?”

He doesn’t answer. But I feel his hand against my back. Large. Cool. Steady.

“I’ll carry you out if I have to,” he murmurs.

“And if I don’t let go?” I ask.

Silence. Then Z’leni, softer than I’ve ever heard him.

“Then we hold on. All three of us.”

The crawl continues. And for the first time in a long while, I believe we might actually survive this. Together.

25

RANI

The air inside the cavern is too still.

I watch the torchlight dance over cracked rock walls, held by one of the Zmaj scouts. We’re close to the city. So close I can feel it in the stone. The pulse of my people, the Urr’ki. Their presence hums beneath the stone, alive even if I cannot reach them. I cannot enter my home. Not yet.

The Zmaj scouts who agreed to escort me linger at the edge of the shadows, speaking in hushed tones. They don’t trust me, which I understand. Why should they? I am the face of the enemy they have fought all their lives. To them nothing has changed and I still am.

I draw my cloak tighter around my shoulders and lower myself onto a flat rock to wait. The silence between us would be almost unbearable, but I am used to it now. The Shaman taught me to be at peace with it. All the time I spent alone in my dark cell with nothing but my own thoughts. The only choices I had were to come to terms or go insane. Knowing my people needed me was an anchor that kept me from choosing the latter.

“You were royalty?” one of the Zmaj asks, breaking the silence at last.

He has copper scales and a voice like gravel. His expression is skeptical, but not cruel, only curious.

“I was,” I answer.