Down in those too-close tunnels…down in that darkness unbroken by anything save the smallscintilsthey carry…even the strongest man must suffer under such pressure.
As I wait up here in my balcony seat, it seems to me that theoppressive closeness of closing tunnels and unbearable, suffocating heat increases. I find myself struggling to hold on to the reality around me, the presence of other people, the occasional gusts of fresh air funneled down through those intricate air shafts. Instead, it is as though I myself am down in that darkness. My vision tunnels, my breath tightens. My heartbeat increases, pounding against my breastbone.
Valtar.
I feel him. I feel him down there in the deeps. It’s like that prickling instinct I experienced yesterday in the gardens, but ten times stronger. My very soul reaches out from the confines of my body, seeking after his, searching in cramped and twisted spaces until it comes at last within reach of him. If only I could touch him, if only I could let him know that I am here! He is so alone—I feel it, the terrible intensity of his loneliness, a spirit cut off from all light and life. No one deserves such a fate. But when I try to touch his consciousness with my own, the heat between us intensifies, searing my awareness, forcing me to withdraw.
“Princess?”
I startle, Philippa’s voice breaking through the strange vision filling my senses. Blinking, I turn to find her hovering at my shoulder, her face concerned. “Are you all right?” she whispers.
I feel the king’s eyes on me, watching with interest. The last thing I want is for him to guess where my soul had gone. I swallow, lifting my head and breathing out slowly. The air expelled from my lungs feels heated like furnace bellows. “How long has it been?” I ask, half-afraid to hear the answer.
Philippa’s lips are white, the lines around her mouth tense. “A little more than three hours,” she says.
My stomach drops. Three hours? I peer over the rail into thepit, willing someone to emerge from one of those holes. In that moment, I don’t even care which. Just someone. Anyone.
“How long should this take?” I ask, turning to the king.
Rather than answer, Alderin turns to a person standing at his side. I’d scarcely noticed him before among all the strangers who make up this assorted court. Looking at him now, I realize that he must be of dwarf heritage, for he has the telltale reddish tint to his skin, the square build, the broad, flat feet, among other, subtler signs of his race. If not full-blooded dwarf, at least half. “Well, Bonefoot?” Alderin asks. “How far down did your people place the tokens?”
“Eight hundreddainths,” the dwarf replies, and wobbles his hand from side to side. “Give or take.”
I blink at him, uncomprehending. I don’t know what adainthwould calculate comparably to in a human system of measurement. But eight hundred? That sounds vast. Impossible. “How long should it take them?” I ask again, addressing my question to Bonefoot.
He shrugs. “Based on the pressure, heat, and air quality, and the effects on human lung and heart function…I would suggest if any champion doesn’t return within six hours, he must be presumed dead.” He smiles kindly. “I have people on standby to retrieve the corpses, of course.”
He says it so easily. So casually. As though he and everyone here expected some reasonable death toll to accompany the day’s activities. I begin to tremble; I can’t seem to stop. My gaze turns to the pit again, and with every power, every impulse, every flicker of whatever fire I can summon, IwillValtar to return. Oh gods, please, let him return! Let him hear my spirit crying out from the distance, urging him to abandon this foolishness, toturn back, to return empty-handed but alive. I can’t bear that any of them should die, but…but oh! If only one may survive, dear gods in your high heavens, spare Valtar. Spare him for me. Spare him because I…I…
I cannot finish that thought. Not here. Not now. Suddenly faint, I grip the rail in front of me, leaning forward and resting my forehead against it. “Princess,” Philippa says anxiously, stepping close to me once more. “Princess, if you need to retire—”
“No!” I say more sharply than I mean to. Sitting upright, I resume my straight-backed posture. “No, I will stay.” If those poor men below are willing to risk their lives in this terrible way, the least I can do is remain here through the long, hideous hours.
Time creeps on. Slower than it has ever crept in history, I’m sure. Every now and then, I find myself fading out of the present, my spirit seeking once more into the dark. I feel the heat, the horror, the turmoil and helplessness, all so sharp, so real, it might kill me. But each time, Philippa touches or speaks to me, drawing me back to the present. Alderin does nothing. He simply observes, his face quiet but interested. Perhaps waiting to see if the strain of this trial might be the key to awakening in me that fire he needs.
“Oh gods! Look!”
“He made it!”
“He damn well made it!”
The sudden burst of voices erupts around me, disorienting as a swarm of wasps around my head. I cannot at first make sense of it, but then Philippa grabs my arm and points to the pit below. “See, Princess! See there!”
I lean over the rail, vision swimming with fatigue and fear, struggling to comprehend what I see. A figure crawls out from one of the four clefts. Ragged, bloody, covered in dirt and debris.Almost unrecognizable as a man. Which one? Which one? I cannot tell, not from here, not in this terriblescintilglare.
Guards move to the head of the stairs, making ready to descend and help him. Alderin’s voice stops them in their tracks: “Hold! Let him finish what he started.”
So I watch in agonies as the ghoulish figure—some vague assortment of limbs hung together with muscle and sinew, barely enough to carry the spark of life within—crawls up from the pit, climbing the stairs on all fours like a beast. But he comes, driven by some determination I cannot fathom. Finally, he reaches the balcony, and the courtiers part to let him progress, still crawling, to my feet and the feet of the king. For some moments, he remains in that abased attitude before us, panting, dripping sweat. Foam falls from his lips and blood clots in hair so dirty, I cannot even guess the color.
At last, he manages to pull himself up into a kneeling position, one knee bent. He raises his dirt- and blood-smeared face, shaking hair out of eyes so harrowed, they hardly look human anymore.
But I know those eyes—black as pitch, the deadly fire at their core all but snuffed out.
“Valtar,” I whisper.
Without looking at me, he reaches into the front of his tunic and withdraws something I do not at first recognize. Then my breath catches, and the image seems to clarify: a rose. Red as blood, crushed and bruised. But still whole.
He drops it at my feet.
