Keres scrubbed a hand down her face, leaving a streak of soot on her cheek. “I was midway down the slope when your power went wild,” she said. “I saw him at the ridge, holding back the worst of it so the cave entrance wouldn’t burn.”
I remembered the glimpse. Shadows stacked like walls against my fire. A figure silhouetted in the blaze.
“I tried to get to him,” she went on. “Then the furyfire hit. You… you weren’t you anymore. It was like the god behind your mark took over. The hillside went up. I lost sight of him. The next thing I saw, he was gone.”
Gone.
The word hollowed my chest.
Slade shook his head quickly. “Not dead.”
I latched onto that. “Then where?—”
“The river,” she said. “Something or someone pulled him under.”
Naiad.
The realization hit with the force of a blow. I’d beggedNaliadne to watch the river borders, to help us if she could. If she’d seen that fire…
“They took him Beneath,” I whispered.
“Seems that way,” Keres said. “Better than burning. But it means he’s out of our reach. For now.”
I sagged, the tension in my muscles turning from rigid to liquid. The cold cavern felt suddenly too small, the air too thin.
Alive. He was alive. Drowned or half-drowned or furious with me somewhere under the river, but alive.
The relief hurt almost as much as the fear.
“I need to go back,” I said. “We have to get out, find another path down, reach the river?—”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Keres snapped. “Besides, that entrance is gone.”
Slade nodded grimly. “She’s right. The rockfall buried it. We tried clearing some of it while you were unconscious. Every stone we moved brought more down. If we keep going, we’ll bring the whole tunnel on our heads.”
“You can shadow-walk,” I insisted, looking at Slade.
“You’re in no shape,” Keres said sternly.
I started to argue, but Slade cut in. “Keres is right. We got lucky that Heliconia wasn’t at that camp, or we never would have been able to escape with your friend. Or our lives. But the minute she finds out her camp’s gone, she’ll know who did it.”
“And she’ll figure out how we got in,” Keres added grimly.
Slade nodded sadly. “The cave mouth will be the first place they look.”
My chest tightened. “So we’re trapped.”
“No, we’re taking the only way out we have now.” Slade crouched beside me, resting his folded arms on his knees.
Back through the tunnels.
The idea of spending days and days in the dark was its own anguish.
Keres spoke, reading my distress. “Eirnan says there are other exits. We can take Lesha and whoever’s left of the Withered and get them away from here before Heliconia regroups.”
Eirnan.
The knot in my stomach twisted. “Is he…?”
