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Chapter twenty-four

Badness and Weakness

W e paused for several minutes, trying to determine which cavern we were in. These walls were spiraled, almost like the inside of a shell, smooth and inhuman. My hands dragged along them, confused. Where were the tool marks from the workers? The other cavern had clearly been cut with hammers and chisels. Even loamers, who would do the bulk of the moving, relied on tools for the finer work. What had made this? A natural vein, perhaps?

“Can you use your earth magic to determine how much farther we have to go?” I asked Uncle Koll. “Would that help us determine where we are?”

He shook his head. “This far down, I can feel…too much. The earth is like cheese with holes in it. Or water with bubbles. I feel the voids and fullness, but I cannot reach the surface. Below us is hot.”

“Hot?” The Shade turned sharply.

“Extremely hot. My palms are sweating. It’s starting to run down my back and into—”

The Shade clenched his jaw. “We don’t need those details, Uncle.”

“I don’t like hot. Let’s get out of here.” Uncle Koll pointed along a green line on the map. “Assuming we are here, let’s head that way. ”

Goosebumps prickled my arms. Assuming seemed a bit treacherous. But the bats ahead of us had reported no new spyrings, so on we went.

We walked for what felt like an hour. My feet ached, and my brow began to sweat as the air around us continued to warm. “Is it only me, or—”

“Not just you, my dear. We are in deep trouble, I think.” Uncle Koll placed one palm on the wall. “If anything, we much are deeper than we were before.”

A left, then right, we went up and down, and then we entered another spiral cut tunnel.

“These walls are so odd.” I said, running my hands over the waves on the surface. “What tool carved them?” The men shared an uneasy look. “What?

Uncle Koll pulled at his collar. “It’s nothing, my dear.”

“That look wasn’t nothing.” He waved his hands and walked away. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The Shade sighed, “I’m not sure it will help you—”

I let go of his arm. “I’m not a delicate flower. I am not going to wilt or break. I don’t want you to keep something from me.”

He quickly kept pace. “I’m just trying to protect you, Dayspring.”

“I don’t…I don’t want protection from information. If I’m attacked, sure, use your willowy tendrils to slap things about”—the Shade looked affronted, but I pushed on—“but you either trust me to be an adult and able to handle it, or you don’t trust me at all. You can’t expect me to choose or react wisely when I don’t have all the information.”

He groaned and wiped a hand down his face. “It’s not a matter of trust. It’s that…your life has been unfair, and you seem to have carried everyone and neglected yourself. You were responsible for th ose around you to your own detriment. Can’t I wish for you to live without the burden for a little while?”

I paused, sorting through whether I was offended or grateful for his comment. His sentiment was fine, but… “But you can’t decide for me. I have to be free to be able to choose.” I swallowed with difficulty. “I think…there’s a small chance that you’re right”—he chuckled—“but if I’m to figure out what is mine to carry, then it’s not fair for you to shield me from every harm.”

His other hand flared to the side. “We are surrounded by harm. I clearly trust you. I let you come.”

I caught his gaze in mine. “Then trust me a bit more.” I turned toward him, pleading with my gaze. He tilted his head as if battling with himself.

He huffed out a breath. “There’s that rumor—”

“A prophecy,” Uncle Koll interjected.

“—a rumor told by old ladies.”

Uncle Koll guffawed. “Fair.”

The Shade continued. “And the prophecy you know says: Lest the deep reject the vile ones that slink beneath and this way run. Et cetera, et cetera.”

I nodded. The Shade swept his hand through his black hair. “Well, in one version I found quite on accident in the king’s study, the first line read, ‘Lest the deep reject the vile worms .’” I blinked, slow to understand. “Uncle Koll senses the earth shifting below us in a single line. Moving in one direction. Constantly. A long, winding, moving thing that isn’t earth.”

I glanced at the older man who looked worried. “I’m not certain, my dear,” Uncle Koll said quietly. “I can’t tell if it’s something made of the mountain that will not affect us in the least, or…”

“A beast,” the Shade murmured.

Cold like ice slipped down my spine. “Oh.” I rubbed my arms. “But that’s okay, right? You’ve got your powers, and Uncle Koll—”

“A massive beast. Monstrous. I’m not sure I could drive it back,” the Shade said.

“Especially—” Uncle Koll started.

“Especially with our animal friends in tow. It’s not safe for them,” the Shade finished.

Uncle Koll stopped and turned, his eyes burning toward the Shade. “It’s not safe for anyone.”

The Shade conceded with a nod.

“Perhaps.” I cleared my throat. “Perhaps we could go back? Try on the surface, then?”

“Perhaps. There are ways back through the tunnels, to be sure, but…” The Shade paused as we passed a dead spyring on the ground. Upside down, its legs curled around its body. It had been dead long enough that its usually acrid scent was weak in the stale air. “But we don’t have fire power to help keep away most spyrings like the prince and his men.” He stopped as the tunnel turned sharply downhill. He restarted, his voice quieter. “And the surface, as discussed, is also treacherous.”

“Also, I did collapse that one tunnel,” Uncle Koll supplied. “Making the map quite inaccurate now.”

A rumbling groan shuddered through the very air around us.

“Whoooooooooooo aaaaarrrrrrreeeeee yooooooouuuuuuuuuu?” A sound deeper than thunder hissed and scraped through my mind. Bertha stood, arching her back as the ten hairs on her shoulders stood on end. Her eyes seemed to glow in the light, and her translucent skin paled even further.

Uncle Koll set his hand upon the wall, and his eyes widened. “Run again, please.”

The animals kept pace as we sprinted down the incline. The vibration of the floor buzzed through my shoes and shook my spine with each step. The sound felt heavy, and I covered my ears. The wolves whined.

Uncle Koll stopped and pushed against the wall to our right, shoving it aside and creating a hole. He grunted, the muscles in his arms flaring with the effort. After a clatter of falling stone, he led us into another tunnel. This one felt like it ran upward and had been carved with squared off tools.

“Faster, faster!” Uncle Koll shouted above the groaning, thunderous din. He picked up a lagging pangolin, as the raccoons climbed onto the backs of the wolves. The bats screeched around us.

“Giant.” “Hot.” “Help us!” The bats cried in my mind.

The Shade was visibly limping but threw a tendril backward for what seemed like minutes. Then he whipped his arms toward his chest and pulled two bats to himself. He clutched them against the leather of his chest as we continued to run.

The air was sweltering. The smell of eggs rotting in the sun burned my nostrils. My thighs ached as they protested any more steps before us. The Shade heaved himself up the steep turns of the tunnels with his hand on the walls, grimacing with each step. I tucked myself into his side, one arm wrapped behind him, my brows pinched in concern.

His smirk was tired. “Thanks, Dayspring.” Even his voice in my mind sounded weary. For too long, we dashed and wove through endless corridors, and by degrees, the air cooled again, the scent shifted back to soil and dust, and the rumbling faded behind us. The Shade slowed further.

“Uncle Koll?” I called out to him in my thoughts and was relieved to see him turn in concern. He fell back to the Shade’s other side, slinging the Shade’s arm over his shoulders. We slowed to a fast walk, but even this proved difficult for the Shade.

Uncle Koll sputtered a few cut off sentences before he said, “You know, if you’d just—”

“I know.” The Shade sounded resigned.

Uncle Koll huffed.

I frowned, ready to argue again when the Shade cut me off. “I will tell you, Dayspring. I will. Soon. Some things I can’t tell you yet, but I will. I promise. Right now, I just need you to trust me for a little longer.”

Trust was a tender, budding seedling, but I did. “Okay.”

His weight collapsed slightly in relief. “I will not harm you.” His voice was quiet, but his words were heavy. “I will do everything I can to give you what you deserve. To give you your freedom.”

I squeezed his arm. There was nothing I could say.

Uncle Koll harumphed. “Let’s get out of here.” He pulled out a vial of the healing potion we’d made earlier that week. He held it out to the Shade, who tried to wave it off. Uncle Koll palmed it to raise a craggy finger. “Do not start with me, boy. If you hope to run through the castle in an hour, you must recover what strength you can. Unless you want to—”

“Fine.” The Shade tugged the pink potion from Uncle Koll’s grasp. “I’ll take it.”

Moments later, his limp disappeared, and his weight lifted from my shoulders. The cold air of the tunnels felt icy in his absence. Uncle Koll nodded his approval before leading us to the left again. The ground flattened and darkened. The rock looked almost glassy, worn down from thousands of steps taken by the workers as they’d plodded in and out of the cavern. Tools and trash were cast along the edges. Ahead, a track began with no sign of a cart .

A sharp chirping sound startled me, and I looked back for some new monster. Soon more chirps sounded, growing until I recognized it. Nighttime grasshoppers.

We were finally at the surface.

“Well, it’s not the dungeon entrance we’d planned for, but hopefully, they won’t be looking for an attack from within the mines,” the Shade mused.

The wind blew the dusty, earthy air from my lungs, and I nearly clapped with glee to see the stars. Perhaps we’d have to go back home this way, but I hoped upon hope to take a long route above the surface instead.

We emerged from a cavern high on the back face of the western mountain, where the castle perched above us. The wagon road before us turned sharply, elbowing down at frightening angles toward the village and the twinkling lights of the city. The distant mountain—into which the manor was carved along the canyon walls—was still dark in the pre-dawn light. Below us, the castle rose from its stern foundations with white columns, high arching windows, and massive patios.

The sight stirred a chaotic mess of emotions within me: relief to be above ground; hesitance to return to the place where I'd been so badly hurt; hope that I might see the queen; fear that I might see the prince; and dread at the thought of my father. The Shade squeezed my hand. I was not alone.

Bertha remained behind in the cavern as we headed down a deer path behind the craggy trees. In the east, the sky was barely lightening. A distant boom rose from the far mountain. The mesa was obscured with a haze of something even darker.

“Looks like the prince decided to attack after all,” the Shade muttered .

“The smoke traps were a good idea. If you weren’t there fighting back, it would be a dead giveaway you weren’t at home.” Uncle Koll scratched at his beard. “I wasn’t sure those trip wires were safe with all the creatures milling around.”

The Shade huffed. “They are much smarter than the prince.”

A weak defense rallied in my mind, but I stuffed it back. The prince was his own man; I wasn’t duty bound to defend his honor, only my own.

I slipped on a rock, and the Shade caught my elbow. The back garden gate of the castle gardens loomed ahead. “I take it you got in this way before?” I asked.

A dangerous grin sharpened his features. “Last time—if you remember—I used the main door of the ballroom. I wasn’t going for subtlety.”

I remembered it well: the fire, the smell, the shadows, and the burn in his gaze. “Thank you for saving me that day.”

The Shade’s brows pinched together, and he clenched his hand. Anger that smelled like pine and burned like charcoal filled me—his anger. “The prince revealed that day what a fool he’d become. These little spats, pseudo-battles, aggressive coups, assassination attempts—fine, he can do as he wishes, and I will respond—but to billow flames at his own people?” He paused, pulling me to a stop. “At you?” He shook his head and continued walking. “Unthinkable. Poor leadership at best. A complete failure at worst.”

“I would have died.”

“You would have.” His lip twitched. “That was the second time I wanted to kiss you.” I stumbled on a stone. “I’m glad I didn’t have to wait too long.” I stammered through a few false starts before he continued. “But since then, it’s been a remarkably long time. I hardly remember what your lips were like. Did you taste like radishes? Or was it bark? Or perhaps cave dirt?”

I stifled my laugh and whacked his arm. “You are just trying to distract me with such charming descriptions. It’s no wonder we haven’t kissed since then.”

“Ah, so you’ve decided. I’m glad you keep thinking of kissing me.”

I paused. “Wait a moment. What was the first time you wanted to kiss me?”

“When you were lost in my woods, and August was trying to scare you out.”

Of course. He was the forester.

“You were covered in pine needles and dirt, and I have never seen anything more kissable.”

I flushed. “I…certainly am not thinking about kissing you right now.”

But the Shade seemed to see right through me, even when my mental barriers were up. I had thought entirely too long about wanting to kiss him. I needed to think about something else. Something important—like measuring potion ingredients, or the meaning of life and happiness, or even the color at the edge of the rainbow. Instead, my memory of that harrowing experience was solely focused on that one world-ending kiss. Surely, I’d been delirious with blood loss, but that memory was seared into my very marrow.

The Shade leaned forward. His head angling toward mine. “Well, if you do ever think of it again, let me know.”

Uncle Koll growled beside us. “Young man, if you don’t focus, I’m going to feed you only carrots for a week!”

“Fine. But only because it would be distracting to kiss her with you standing there.”

Uncle Koll rolled his eyes .

“Ready, Dayspring?” He reached out for my hand.

“I’m ready,” I lied.

The impenitent Shade stood proud as we peered through the fence at the back of the gardens. Three guards paced the parapet of the castle, while another two strode corner to corner along the sides.

It was time to break into the castle.