“It’s not a vow to you; it’s a vow to myself. You can’t release me.”
“Cat. Be reasonable. What if—”
“Just wait for us,” I call. “We’ll be back.”
My pulse thuds wildly as I back away under Griffin’s livid stare. A muscle jerks in his cheek, ticking hard enough to send a ripple through his beard. His eyes blaze, and my heart wrenches as I turn away.
“Cat!” he roars.
I turn the corner without looking back. My eyes burn, and every shallow, quick breath shudders in my throat.
Kato waits until the light from the cave’s entrance fades entirely before asking gruffly, “Are you all right?”
I sniff and press my chilled fingertips to my stinging eyes, stemming the hot prickle of tears. “No.”
He doesn’t try to talk to me again, which is for the best.
With only the light of the torch and the dim glow from our cloaks, we wind our way deeper into the labyrinth, ducking pointy icicles and slipping on mirror-smooth patches of ice. When the tunnel splits into three branches, we peer into the darkness. Which reveals nothing. Because it’s dark.
“What do you think?” I ask, my voice rough from disuse and swallowing tears.
Kato lowers the torch, scanning the tunnel floor for footprints or signs of passage. There are none. The ice is even and unmarked underfoot, and so cold that the chill is already seeping through my thick-soled boots.
He shrugs. “Straight?”
After that, there are so many offshoots that we simply take turns deciding which way to go. Twice, we stumble back onto Ariadne’s Thread and know we’ve gone in circles. We’re debating whether or not to backtrack while picking up the thread when a dim light beckons us from a distant tunnel on the right.
Curious, cautious, we follow the light and find a cavern, bright and high-ceilinged—if you can call the enormous sheet of ice filtering in the sunlight from outside a ceiling. Far above our heads on the frozen roof, zigzagging patterns of windblown snow splash swirling shadows across the cavern floor.
Kato looks up, frowning. “How thick do you think that ice is?”
I scrunch my nose. “Thick enough?”
Voices carry differently in the cavern, amplified by the smooth walls and towering ceiling. When we’re not speaking, it’s quiet enough that I fancy I can hear my own heartbeat echoing back to me off the sheets of ice.
It’s quiet enough that there’s no mistaking the distinctive twang of a bowstring when it vibrates in my ears.
CHAPTER 17
WE BOTH DUCK ON INSTINCT, AND THE ARROW SLAMSinto the milky-white stalagmite behind us, embedding itself deep into the mineral deposit.
Kato reaches for me, but another twang sends us diving in opposite directions. I scramble toward another stalagmite, slipping on the ice and skidding beyond my mark. The bowstring hums again, and my right foot gets punched out from under me.
I hit the ground hard on my side and slide. Grunting, I flip onto my stomach and then scrabble back over the ice until I crash into the back side of the mineral tower. Another arrow clatters across the ice just as I snatch in my trailing foot.
“Cat!” Kato is ten feet away, behind a stalagmite that’s not even as wide as his shoulders. “You’re hit!”
A colorfully fletched arrow sticks out from the heel of my boot. “It’s in the sole.” I yank it out and drop it next to me. “I’m fine.”
“Not for long,” a singsongy voice croons from a gallery of caves high up along the opposite wall of the cavern. “You’re oh-so-wrong.”
I take a quick look out from behind my shield, trying to discern the archer’s form. “Atalanta, I presume?”
There’s a pause. “She knows my name. That’s not part of the game.”
Twang. Crack!
She aimed high. I look up and see a huge, lethally sharp icicle speeding toward my head.
