Page 57 of Dark Bringer (Lord of Everfell #1)

“Seriously?” Kal said, impressed. “I’d hoped he was dead, but . . .” She barked a dry laugh. “I’m glad it worked out for you.”

“Let’s hope he’s really dead this time.” Cathrynne was silent for a minute. “I am sorry about the forcing. It was an insane risk. But I didn’t want what they did to me to happen to you.”

Whatever it was must have been pretty bad, but Kal didn’t want to know the details. “How’d you find me?”

“Lara Lenormand remembered your description. She’s my sister.”

“Ah.” Kal frowned. “But you’re from Kirith.”

“I was born in Arjevica.”

Her voice sounded breathy and tight, like she was trying to pretend she was fine. Distracting herself from the claustrophobia. Kal understood. She’d had her own little freakouts before. Talking about something else always got her through them.

“I saw you,” Cathrynne said. “On the riverboat from Kota Gelangi. You had a ship tattoo.”

Kal touched her neck. The rain and dirt had rubbed away the makeup. “I got it a couple of years ago. Stupid.”

“No, I like it. What’s the significance?”

Just keep talking. “My friend and I were saving up to buy a boat. Figured we could be traders, sailing up and down the Parnassian Sea.”

“That sounds nice.”

She glanced back. Cathrynne’s torch bobbed along behind.

“Well, it beats living in Pota Pras. Anyone in that town who catches a break moves somewhere better. It’s the hope of a lucky strike that keeps people going.

But my friend grew up moving constantly, he’s been everywhere.

Ask him what they eat for breakfast in Iskatar and he’ll tell you.

He made traveling all over sound like fun, even though I know he and his mom had some rough times, too.

Before all this, I’d never been out of Satu Jos. ”

“So your family are all miners?”

“Not exactly. My parents investigate claims for bigger companies. Drawing up maps, certificates of location, that kind of thing.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Cathrynne said.

“Yeah, well, you spend most of the time clawing your way to the top of some nameless hill in the middle of nowhere and taking survey measurements. It’s fucking exhausting and it doesn’t pay a lot, but I guess it beats wasting your life underground.”

Kal paused for breath. She hadn’t meant to say so much—or quite so bitterly—but it felt good to tell the truth. Cathrynne knew who she was. Where she came from and why she was running. Maybe it could all be over, once everyone knew where the source was.

She pushed ahead before the cypher could respond, ducking through a narrow gap where part of the ceiling had collapsed. They’d reached the section where the new tunnel branched off. The rock walls were no longer rough-hewn by human tools but smooth and glassy.

Cathrynne stopped walking. “Why is it different?”

“Sinn fire melts the rock like butter,” Kal explained. “It leaves behind tunnels like these. They use them to move around underground.”

She had to give the cypher credit—she didn’t turn and run. But she did look green.

“How do you know they’re gone?” she asked.

“I mean, I don’t. But you can usually feel the vibrations if one is close.”

“Usually? But not always?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Kal could tell from the rapid rise and fall of her chest that she was struggling. “You don’t have to go any further.”

“I’m fine,” Cathrynne said tightly.

Kal shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

They walked in silence. Unlike the straight mining tunnels, this one twisted and turned, following some logic only the Sinn understood.

A few times they passed offshoots that plunged into darkness.

Kal didn’t remember seeing those the last time.

She felt certain they were new but didn’t want Cathrynne to panic, so she kept her mouth shut. The burnt toast smell grew stronger.

A small voice—not Durian, this one was all her own—suggested that maybe they should turn back.

The area was clearly more active than it had been.

But Kal had nothing to start her new life.

Once again, the witches had taken everything she had of value.

But that cavern was full of kaldurite. Just a few would make her fortune.

No risk, no reward.

“How much farther?” Cathrynne asked. “I feel like we’ve been down here forever. You said it was a short walk.”

“The cavern is just ahead,” Kal replied. “But we’ll have to crawl.”

Cathrynne swore under her breath. “You didn’t mention that before.”

Kal turned to face her. “Sorry, you didn’t ask.”

The cypher’s jaw clenched. “How far is the crawl?”

“About twenty cubits. It’s really not so bad.”

She grappled with this for a long moment. “I’ll go first. I want to be able to see the end.”

“Fine by me.”

They splashed through the shallow river that marked the crevice. Cathrynne eyed it with trepidation, then dropped down to shine her light through.

“I can see the other side,” she said with a touch of relief.

“You don’t have to go in,” Kal said again. “I promise the kaldurite is there.”

The cypher sat up on her haunches. “I believe you. But I still want to go. I need to . . .” She trailed off.

“Prove that you can?” Kal finished.

Cathrynne nodded.

“Believe me, I get it,” Kal said. “I’ve crawled into some seriously funky places for the same reason.” She smiled and Cathrynne smiled back. At that moment, Kal decided that she couldn’t abandon this woman in the tunnels. She just couldn’t do it.

“The Light-Bringer,” she said in a rush. “I’ve heard his word is unbreakable. Is that true?”

“It’s true. Integrity means everything to him.”

“So when he said I’d be free, he meant it?”

“He did, and you have my word, too.” She paused. “I’m so sorry about your friend, Kal. He didn’t deserve that.”

She thought Durian might appear and crack a joke, but he didn’t. A hot lump tightened her throat. “Thanks,” she managed. “You’d better go first. We only have an hour before the angel comes looking for us, remember?”

The crawl turned out to be easier than last time since neither of them was wearing a pack.

Cathrynne slithered through the low tunnel faster than Kal could believe, then bent over with her hands on her knees, breath rasping.

It opened into a vast cavern that their lamps couldn’t fully illuminate.

Stalactites hung from the ceiling like icicles, matched by stalagmites that rose from the floor.

In some places, they joined to form columns thick as old trees.

“Hey, you did it,” Kal said, patting her back.

“Hated every second, but . . . Minerva’s luck ,” Cathrynne breathed, looking around in awe.

Hundreds of kaldurite stones in varying sizes were scattered across the cavern floor. Blues deepened to violet, reds flashed like glowing embers, all changing as the light of the electric torches moved across their facets.

Cathrynne crouched, watching the colors shift. She used her sleeve to pick up a stone. “Amazing, isn’t it?” she said. “Like a void in the ley. How is that even possible?”

While she was preoccupied examining the stone, Kal discreetly scooped handfuls into her trouser pockets. When they were full to bulging, she returned to Cathrynne.

“You know where it is now,” she said. “So let’s get back?—”

The stones on the cavern floor began to wobble and jitter, sending sparkles of light across the cavern walls.

Cathrynne stiffened. They stood motionless, barely breathing.

The tremors came again, stronger this time.

Rhythmic quakes that sent dust sifting down from the ceiling.

Then came a sound that turned Kal’s blood to ice: a dry scrape like a dozen knives being sharpened at once.

She extinguished her torch with a quick twist. Cathrynne followed suit a second later, plunging them into darkness.

A glow appeared at the crevice. Not the steady light of a torch but the flickering orange-blue of living flame.

It brightened, throwing distorted shadows across the cave wall.

The air grew forge-hot. Sweat erupted across Kal’s body.

She pulled the Bluekiller from her belt.

Subtract the bullet she’d fired at Levi and she had seven left.

“Get back!” Kal cried.

They scrambled out of the way as a gout of white flame shot from the crevice. That burnt-toast smell scorched her lungs and coated her tongue. Through wavering lines of heat, she saw that the narrow shaft they’d crawled through was now a full-fledged Sinn tunnel.

She grabbed Cathrynne’s hand, gripping the pistol in the other. They backed away as the head appeared, roughly the size of a mining tram, with a crown of six silver horns. Its gaze found them. The blue emperor opened its jaws, revealing teeth like ivory daggers.

The Sinn unleashed a deafening roar. It bulled into the cavern, moving with the speed and power of a fright train. They retreated to the rear wall, where another smooth-walled tunnel wound into darkness. Kal switched her lamp on, flashing the beam into the gloom.

When she turned, Cathrynne was staring at the Sinn in fear and wonder. Kal paused, transfixed by the creature’s monstrous beauty. It was a thing of heat and shadow, shifting like a bed of live coals, all burnt orange and bloody red except for the eyes, which were a rich golden hue.

Then she yelped as a torrent of flame licked the cavern wall to their right.

“Go!’ Kal shoved Cathrynne into the tunnel. Then she turned and pulled the trigger until the hammer fell on an empty chamber. “I hope I hit it,” she panted. “I mean, it’s too big to miss, right?”

A furious roar answered as they fled into the tunnel.