Page 17 of The Delver (The Vrix #2)

Callie trailed behind Urkot with her thumbs hooked under the straps of her backpack and her eyes downcast to watch her footing.

Thankfully, her solar lantern, held aloft in one of Urkot’s upper hands, cast a bright white light along the passageway, making it much easier to avoid tripping or rolling an ankle.

She could only hope it would last long enough for them to find a way out of this place.

This tunnel was nothing like the one she’d followed Ahgratar into. The floor was uneven and covered in rocks, and the walls fluctuated erratically between wide and narrow, and were slanted at such steep angles in spots that Urkot had to duck low to get through.

Besides the sounds of their steps, it was ominously quiet. That silence was oppressive. Any other sound, such as the occasional clatter of a rock, was like booming thunder, putting her more on edge. She was sure the roof would collapse on them at any moment.

Callie squeezed the straps as she glanced past Urkot, deeper into the dark, winding tunnel.

Who could say how far they’d have to walk?

They could have miles and miles of travel ahead, and that was a discouraging notion.

She was already mentally and physically exhausted, and her eyes were tired from a combination of dust and crying.

Too often, her thoughts returned to the chamber where they’d fallen, back to that lifeless arm sticking out of the debris. Too often, her thoughts returned to the other delvers.

Were they trapped elsewhere?

Had any of them made it out, or…

Were they all dead?

Callie didn’t want to contemplate that. She had to believe some of the thornskulls had survived, that they’d escaped the crystal chamber, that they’d reached safety. She couldn’t…couldn’t…

She couldn’t come to terms with the horrific reality that they’d likely all been crushed to death.

And she and Urkot could’ve shared that fate. Had he not acted so quickly, had he not grabbed her and safeguarded her with his own body…

They’d been impossibly lucky to have survived with nothing more than sore muscles, bruises, and minor cuts and scrapes.

She looked at the vrix in front of her.

Whatever she felt must’ve been inconsequential compared to what Urkot was enduring. He’d been the one the rocks had fallen upon. He’d been her shield, her shelter from the storm, protecting her while his body was battered. And he’d lost his companions.

Her chest tightened, squeezing her heart, and she wiped her eyes as she fought back tears.

Fuck, I’ve never cried this much.

Everything was going to be okay. They had a goal, they had each other, and they would get through this. Callie had to stay strong, had to believe they’d make it out of here safely. She refused to wallow in despair.

Her brow ceased as she studied Urkot. In the lantern’s harsh light, the pale dust covering his body made his old scars stand out in relief.

Would any of the little wounds he’d suffered today add to those scars?

Would his body, already marked by a lifetime of conflict and struggle, bear new marks after this?

It was comforting that his gait was normal, though he moved with purposeful caution.

Not so comforting was the tension in his posture.

It was in the set of his arms, the tightness in his shoulders and their slight hunch, in the way his head swiveled while he scanned the tunnel ahead.

And the light was strong enough to highlight the fine hairs on his legs; they’d been standing all this time.

Callie and Urkot had been through danger, had been through crises. Urkot had often been the one to cut the tension with a bit of humor, to lift everyone’s spirits by being a solid, dependable, positive presence. This silence wasn’t like him.

He was on alert. For more cave-ins, or something else?

Tilting her head, she frowned. “What’s wrong, Urkot? I mean”—she waved a hand—“besides the obvious.”

Urkot halted, shoulders rising with a deep breath. Callie stopped beside him.

Mandibles twitching, he huffed and gazed down at her. “In Takarahl, there are stories told to all delvers. Old stories. They tell of vrix deep understone, with pale hides and unending hunger.”

“Okay, that sounds…sinister. What do you mean by unending hunger?”

“The stories tell that they will eat anything they can find. Anyone they find.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about cannibalism? That there are vrix that eat each other?”

“Yes. They are called spiritstriders.”

Callie gaped at him. “Oh, that’s so fucked up.”

“A big time ago, spiritstriders made war on shadowstalkers.

They took many shadowstalkers alive, to sacrifice to gods buried in the deep…

and to devour them. But shadowstalker strength was too much for them.

They fled into the darkest tunnels, and my kind closed those tunnels to keep the spiritstriders from returning.

“But when I was a broodling, we were told to take care because spiritstriders would await in the tunnels, taking lone delvers and dragging them into the darkness below.”

“That’s horrifying to tell a child,” Callie said, aghast. Being scared of monsters under the bed was one thing, but human parents usually went out of their way to diminish such fears.

To have a parent say that there were ravenous creatures lurking in the darkness, waiting to steal you away and eat you…

How had Urkot lived with such fear?

“Delving is danger,” he replied, his words thick and raw with sorrow. “Better to be aware and afraid than to not know. I have never seen a spiritstrider…yet vrix would sometimes vanish in the tunnels. Perhaps they were just lost… I do not know. But most were never seen again.”

Rubbing her bare arms as though it could rid her of the deep, sudden chill in her bones, she glanced down the tunnel into the darkness the light didn’t reach. “But that’s just a creepy ass story, right? There aren’t really spiritstriders down here.”

When he didn’t answer right away, she looked back at him. “Urkot? They’re not really down here, right?”

But he’d turned to stare in the direction from which they’d come, mandibles again twitching. “Where the rocks fell… There were marks on the walls. Claw marks in stone.” Urkot again met her gaze. “I do not think we are alone here.”

Callie’s eyes widened, and words burst from her before she could stop them. “The fuck you say?”

Her voice reverberated along the tunnel, echoing back at her.

Urkot banded an arm around her middle and covered her mouth with his hand as he looked, wide-eyed, toward the darkness.

Silence returned.

Barely above a whisper, he said, “We must keep our words soft, Callie.”

She stared up at him as that deep-seated cold spread through her body.

He kept his attention on the tunnel. “I do not know if the marks were made by vrix or by beast. But if there are spiritstriders in these tunnels, they may have heard the rockfall. They may come. We must be away.”

“Are we going to die?” she asked against his palm.

He turned his face toward her, and those bright blue eyes locked with hers. “No,” he said vehemently. “I will protect you.”

Urkot stroked her hair with his hand and caressed her cheek with a thumb. “ Nothing will harm you, female.”

They continued onward silently, Callie with a fresh batch of anxiety, following the uneven tunnel as its downward slope brought them deeper and deeper into the earth.

Urkot kept her close, helping her over some of the looser stones and larger boulders.

Though he didn’t speak, his presence alone was calming.

There were crevices in the walls, too low and narrow for Urkot to fit through, but that didn’t stop Callie’s imagination from running wild. She expected to see glowing red eyes staring back at her from those shadowy openings, or clawed hands reaching out to grab her and drag her into the abyss.

Stop it, Callie. That’s not helping. You’re just freaking yourself out.

A new sound broke the silence. It was faint at first, but constant, and grew in volume as they walked. Soon, she was able to identify it—the burbling of running water.

She was glad to have something to counteract that stifling silence besides their echoing steps.

When they reached a section where the ceiling hung low, Urkot stopped and held a hand up to her. “Stay. I will see.”

Callie grabbed the wrist of his lower right arm. “I don’t want you to go alone.”

His eyes softened as he looked at her hand. Gently, he pried it from his wrist and gave her the lantern. “I will be much fast, Callie.”

“ Please be careful.”

He reached into the pouch on his belt and took out a chunk of glowing blue crystal. Brushing his knuckles over her cheek, he offered her a vrix smile. “I am most careful.”

That touch, combined with his smile—no matter how different it was from a human’s—made her heart flutter.

And then his warm fingers were gone from her skin, leaving her feeling cold as he turned away, dropped low, and crawled beneath the ceiling.

She clutched the lantern to her chest, keeping her eyes on him until he was out of sight.

Over the sound of the water, she heard the crunch and scrape of his hide against the stone and loose pebbles. Those sounds disappeared too soon.

Callie bit down hard on her bottom lip as she waited, looking once more down the tunnel behind her.

The lantern’s glow was a blessing and a curse, warding away the dark but making everything beyond its light impossibly, impenetrably black. She felt like she was in the last pocket of existence in a vast void, surrounded by nothingness.

“Callie, come,” Urkot called.

She knelt on the rough stone and peered under the low ceiling. He was crouched on the far side, dimly lit by the crystal in his hand, the blue markings on his limbs glowing in its light.

“Okay,” she breathed. “I got this.”