Standing, Callie spun to face him. “Will more come? If there’s one, there must be others close by, right?”
“I do not know.” He held up her bag. “But we must go. With the sounds and blood-scent,somethingwill come soon.”
CHAPTER 13
Time always lost meaning understone.Living in Takarahl, Urkot had rarely seen the sky, and he’d never really known whether it was day or night in the world above when he’d slept in his den. When he’d worked in the tunnels, there’d been no sunlight to mark time’s passage.
They’d simply worked until the next group of delvers arrived to take over.
Taking up a den in Kaldarak had changed all that. He was aware of every suncrest, every sunfall, knew when it was cloudy, when it was raining. He could tell what time of day it was by the shadows. He’d come to relish the feel of warm sunshine on his hide and fresh air in his lungs.
He could not blame Ketahn for having left Takarahl to dwell in the Tangle all those years ago.
Being in these tunnels now, he’d lost all sense of time again. The darkness, the stale air, the damp stone, it was all as disorienting as it was familiar. They’d walked for what felt like a very long while, following the subtle airflow. At times, he had to stop where the tunnel split, extend his forelegs to either side, and stand motionless until he sensed the faintest current through his fine hairs to guide him.
These tunnels seemed endless, and there was no indication that he and Callie were any closer to a way out. Instead, they seemed to be striding deeper understone.
Urkot turned his head to look at Callie, who walked beside him with a crystal in hand.
His mandibles rose, his chest warmed, and his heartsthread thrummed. No matter how dark these passages were, she shone bright. A flame in the shadows, intense and pure, instilling him with strength and hope. She was beautiful and radiant.
She was his suncrest.
Callie tipped her face up and met his gaze. Her soft smile made his hearts thunder.
He rubbed at his chest and faced forward.
He didn’t know how long they’d rested before the spiritstrider had found them. Callie had slept in his arms, he knew that, but what sleep he’d claimed had been broken and brief. He could not completely lower his guard while they were down here. Could not risk being asleep when the next danger arose, not while they had neither shelter nor protection.
Weariness had carved itself into his bones. His body pulsed with deep, throbbing aches, and his hide was tender in many places where it had been bruised while also feeling tight and itchy in others, where his cuts and scrapes were healing.
They would need to find shelter soon, would need real rest, because the longer they went without it, the duller his senses would grow and the slower his reactions would get. He would become too weak to protect her.
“Is it just me, or is it colder?” Callie asked, breaking the silence.
“It is colder.”
His gaze flicked toward something far ahead in the tunnel, well beyond the glow of their crystals. He halted, putting out his lower hand to stop Callie beside him, and tilted his head.
“What is it?” she whispered.
Urkot tucked his crystal in his palm and curled his fingers around it, snuffing out its light, before covering Callie’s crystal with his lower hand. As the darkness swallowed them, what he was staring at became clearer—it was another source of that soft blue light.
“You see?” he asked softly.
She stepped forward and squinted. “Is there light ahead?”
“Yes. We stride with care. Stay close.”
Uncovering the crystals, he proceeded forward, positioning himself slightly in front of Callie. The light ahead was likely the result of a natural occurrence, but who was to say whether the spiritstriders also gathered crystals to use as light sources?
I could be leading Callie right to their den.
But as they neared the light, it wasn’t the unsettling clicking of spiritstriders he heard—it was the gentle sound of flowing water, accompanied by a hint of its fresh, crisp scent.
Finally, they reached the source of the light. Crystals grew from veins in the walls and ceiling, in tiny clusters that became larger as Urkot and Callie drew closer to the opening at the end of the tunnel. These were soon joined by another source of light—glowworms. The small creatures wriggled on the ceiling and hung from glowing strands of silk, forcing Urkot to duck to avoid them. Their glow was the same blue as that of the crystals.
“Oh gross,” Callie said. “Are thoseworms?”
