Page 56 of Dark Bringer (Lord of Everfell #1)

Kal

S he gasped for breath, panic clawing at her throat.

Kal had gone from the rainswept grounds of the Lenormand School to a cold, clear night in what looked like the Zamir Hills, which wouldn’t be so bad except that she was buried up to her neck in hardpan. She tried to wiggle a single toe. Nothing budged.

“Help! Anyone!” The plea emerged as a barely audible wheeze. A gibbous moon cast hard-edged shadows across the cracked earth.

She remembered groping through the wet grass for her kaldurite stones after the White Foxes slashed open the lining of her coat, spilling them everywhere. After that it got blurry. She’d felt a strange shockwave ripple through her. Then the sensation of free-falling but with no up or down .

A jarring impact and she was here, only a head sticking out of earth hard as granite, like she’d materialized in the middle of it.

She could turn her face and not much at that, but in a sense she’d gotten lucky.

A little lower and she’d be dead of suffocation.

It was hard to imagine a worse way to go.

Something moved at the edge of sight. Kal’s head jerked toward a pile of rocks. Her mouth went dry as a scorpion sidled into a patch of moonlight. One of the big desert queens with claws like wire cutters. From ground level, it looked even bigger.

Well, maybe there were worse ways after all.

Kal licked her dry lips. Scorpions had poor eyesight. The way they hunted was by sensing the tiny vibrations of prey through their eight legs. Of course, Durian had told her that.

The scorpion crept forward a few steps, then stopped. She tried to sink deeper into the earth, but it was pointless, she couldn’t move anything below her neck. The forcing spell must have woken it up.

“Actually, they’re nocturnal,” Durian said. “It was probably awake.”

He squatted to her left, so she could only see him from the corner of her eye.

“You’re not helping,” she hissed.

“What can I do? I’m a figment of your imagination.” Never had his donkey bray been more irritating. “They only attack when they feel threatened. I doubt it will mess with you?—”

The scorpion skittered closer. Close enough to count the armored segments of its body, the jointed legs picking delicately across the sand. It was about as long as her forearm, with a shiny black carapace.

Kal tried not to appear threatening. She was, after all, only a head.

But the scorpion must have been riled up by the spell that had planted her in the ground like a fence post. Its tail lifted, preparing to sting.

The barb at the tip carried enough poison to kill a pack mule. Kal squeezed her eyes shut?—

And heard a solid chthunk a few inches away. She opened her eyes. A knife pinned the scorpion to the earth, where it twitched weakly. She let out an undignified sob.

“Are you okay?” It was the blonde cypher.

“Can’t move,” she rasped.

“We’ll get you out,” she said. “I’m sorry, the forcing went wrong.”

No shit.

“It was the first time I ever tried it,” she continued. “I guess it could have been worse.”

“For who?” Kal croaked.

Dark wings unfurled against the sky, blotting out the moon. She thought it was a Sinn and resigned herself to death yet again. Then she saw the gold-green eyes of the angel.

“There’s an old mine in the hillside,” he said. “Maybe we can find some digging tools there.”

The cypher nodded. “You stay with her.”

She returned a few minutes later with a pick. She didn’t waste time talking, just started hacking away at the hard-packed earth. The pressure eased around Kal’s shoulders, then her chest. She gulped in a full breath, dizzy with relief.

The pick rose and fell in a steady rhythm. When her right hand came free, Kal flexed her fingers, wincing at the pins and needles. The angel took a turn digging, and soon they were hauling her out of the hole, covered in red dirt.

“Nothing’s broken?” the cypher asked anxiously. “I really am sorry I lost you. But the White Foxes were about to force you someplace else, and trust me, this is still the better option.”

Kal hadn’t known that. She suppressed a shudder. “I believe you. And I’m okay. Just stiff.”

Now that she was free of her earthen tomb, Kal took a more serious look around. She realized with a sinking heart that she was back where the whole awful thing had started—Clear Creek Mine.

“What are your names?” she asked. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Cathrynne Rowan,” the cypher said with a smile.

Kal had been a bit afraid of her, but she had an honest face. Her eyes were kind, not dead like Ash and Kane.

“Gavriel Morningstar,” the angel said. “From Kirith.”

Morningstar . . . Kal froze. Everyone knew that name. He was the Light-Bringer. “You’re an archangel,” she stammered.

Not even seraphim came to Pota Pras except to conduct the census. She never thought she’d speak to an angel, let alone the son of Valoriel himself. Funny , she thought with bitterness, how everyone suddenly has such a great interest in me.

“I believe the ley brought us here for a reason.” Gavriel Morningstar fixed her with an intent gaze that made it impossible to look away.

“Show us where you found the kaldurite. Once the source becomes public, you’ll lose your value to the witches.

Levi will stop hunting you. You’ll be free to live your life. ”

All that was probably true, though she took the “free to live your life” part with a good dose of cynicism.

“And if I say no?”

“We won’t coerce you,” Cathrynne said quickly. “I promise.”

“But we can’t just let you go,” Gavriel added. “It’s too dangerous. I will take you to my sister, Suriel. She can protect you for now.”

That option did not appeal to Kal at all. She believed they meant well—certainly more than the others hunting her. But she instinctively distrusted anyone who wasn’t human. Which now apparently included Levi, the one person she’d thought was on her side. The betrayal still hurt.

Kal sighed. “And if I say yes?”

“Then you’ll take us to the exact place you found the stones,” he said. “Once that’s confirmed, you can do as you like.”

A sandy-haired figure appeared behind the archangel, lounging against a boulder with his ankles crossed.

“Take the deal,” Durian advised. “But don’t be stupid. Get more stones while you’re down there. Then lose these two in the tunnels.”

Kal pretended to think it over. “I am sick and tired of running,” she said to Gavriel with the right note of reluctance. “And maybe you’re right about the ley bringing us here, because the source is in there.” She pointed to the abandoned entrance of Clear Creek Mine.

Cathrynne Rowan drew a deep breath. “How far down is it?”

“Don’t like tight places, huh?”

A shadow crossed her face. “No,” she admitted, “I don’t.”

Kal tried not to stare at the woman’s bruises. She felt a stab of pity.

“It’s not far. Less than half an hour, I’d say, and most of it’s pretty easy walking.”

Cathrynne gave a taut nod. “I can manage that.”

Kal led them to the mine entrance. Boards crossed the opening, plastered with faded warning signs, but she and Durian had pulled most of them off.

She ducked inside and lifted the edge of a canvas tarp.

Their stash remained untouched. Two electric torches and a few extra waterskins.

She handed one torch to Cathrynne and kept the other.

Kal drank deeply from a skin, then offered it to Cathrynne.

“It’s clean,” Kal said.

Cathrynne drank, then passed the water to Gavriel.

Kal used the chance to turn her back and quickly check the pistol wedged in her belt.

It had been under her shirt, pressed against her body, and didn’t seem any worse for the premature burial.

Kal slid it back into her waistband and switched on her torch.

The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating the tunnel entrance.

Rusted rail tracks disappeared into the blackness.

Timber supports held up the ceiling, warped with age.

Cathrynne stared into the tunnel mouth, her skin ashen.

“You stay up here,” Gavriel said. “I’ll go.”

“You can’t,” Cathrynne replied. “Look what a single stone did to you.”

He frowned. “I won’t touch anything.”

“Even so, just being near so much kaldurite could kill you.” Her voice hardened. “I can do this. Wait for us here.”

Gavriel Morningstar looked like he would rather die than let her go into the mine alone. Kal wondered if anyone would ever look at her that way. It must be nice. Although judging by the cypher’s grim expression, she wasn’t thinking about that at the moment.

“You’re too big to carry if it makes you sick,” she said. “And I’m not letting you die down there.”

A muscle in his jaw feathered, his expression mutinous, but in the end he deferred to her. “If you’re not back in one hour,” he warned, “I’m coming after you.”

They shared another look that seemed to say a great deal without words. Cathrynne’s face softened. “Fair enough,” she said, turning to Kal. “Lead the way.”

Kal switched on her torch and ducked into the tunnel. The familiar mix of stone dust and rotting timber made her want to sneeze. But there was another faint smell this time, wasn’t there? A hint of burnt toast. Or something like it. Her nose wrinkled.

Durian’s braying chuckles faded as she followed the tracks into darkness.

* * *

“Who did that to you?” Kal asked as they passed a rusted-out hulk of machinery. “The bruises, I mean. If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I don’t mind,” Cathrynne replied. “It was the White Foxes. They took me captive. They thought maybe I knew where the source was. Of course, I didn’t, but they wouldn’t believe me.”

“Those people are evil,” Kal said quietly. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“I almost wasn’t. But your bullet saved me.”

“Huh?”

“I escaped by pulling it from Kane’s chest and using the bronze casing to cast a projective spell. The surgeon left it there after you shot him.”