“I canna smell them, but I feel them,” Dubh said, confirming what Mathison felt.
“Who is it?”
“I dinna ken, but they mean us harm.”
Even viewing the forest through his magic, Mathison saw nothing out of the ordinary, and that only frustrated him more. He could not fight what he could not see, and there was something there. His senses never misled him, and neither did Dubh.
“Ask Intuition if she feels anything,” Mathison said to Calia. With his dear one so muddled with worry for the dog, Intuition might have trouble being heard. He wondered if the wildcat shifter had recognized Calia’s wolf. If Abicas had, then word of the pale alpha’s return would travel quickly, and that in and of itself could be a problem.
Calia stared at him, her eyes rounding with panic. “She says it’s too late.” She reached for him with both hands but seemed rooted to where she stood. “Mathison?”
Horrified rage engulfed him as she faded from view like morning mist burned off by the sun.
Suffocating darkness made Calia blink harder in a futile attempt at sharpening her vision in the complete absence of light. Wherever this was, it was the blackest black she had ever experienced and colder than dammit, as they used to say back in Tennessee. She hugged her knees tighter, wishing she’d relented and worn the clothes Kernia had made for her. At least the layers of linen and wool would have offered more warmth between her butt and what felt like a slab of stone that was radiating the chill up into her bones.
“Do not move,” Intuition whispered through the deathly silence. “They have placed us in the Pit of Pinnacles.”
“That name pretty much explains it,” Calia said under her breath. “Can they see us? Hear us?”
“Not at this time. I no longer sense their energy around us.”
Calia’s mind reeled with infinitely horrible scenarios, and she fought against rising panic. What about Mathison? Was he safe? The thought of anything happening to him...She clenched her teeth and forced the heart-shattering thought away. No. He was fine. He had to be fine. But what about poor, terrified Otto and their horses? Otto had to be safe. It wasn’t his fault that they’d come to this world. He was an innocent. Biting her lip, she held her breath to keep from sobbing aloud. If she gave in to hysteria, there would be no turning back. She had to stay strong and fight whoever was behind this.
“The evil sorceress Carman did this,” Intuition said. “Bansys is in no way this powerful, and I do not sense your Mathison or my Dubh anywhere in this darkness. I believe only we were taken, and our hearts would know if they had been ended.”
Calia couldn’t allow herself to even think about that. “What about my sweet Otto?”
“They would not trouble themselves with an animal that is not a shifter. It would cost them too much energy during the spell, because beasts naturally repel such manipulation of the elements.”
At least there was that, then. Calia wished she’d naturally repelled such manipulation. This reminded her of the case where she’d spent a day locked in the trunk of a car hidden in a storage unit. Thank heavens for the tracker tag she’d slipped inside her bra that morning, or her partner wouldn’t have found her until it was too late. Suddenly short of breath, she swallowed hard and told herself there was plenty of air. She must not panic. “Where exactly is the Pit of Pinnacles? If Mathison is safe,”—and heaven help her, he had to be—“will he be able to find us?”
“We are in the dungeons of Shadowmist Keep, and it depends on how much the two of you have weakened the curse with your bond. Neither of you has declared love for one another yet. You have united your fractured souls, but that is not enough to rob the curse of its power completely.”
Not liking the sound of that, Calia carefully rose to her feet, making sure she stood exactly where she’d been seated. “We’ve not been given time to declare our love—or even be certain of it.” But in her heart, she knew that was a lie. Her cowardice had held her back, but now, in the stark reality of current circumstances, the L word didn’t seem all that frightening anymore. She tapped the floor with her toe, testing the width of the pinnacle.
“You would be better served crawling and searching with your hands. Four points of contact balance you better than two when searching with your feet.”
Realizing the logic in Intuition’s suggestion, Calia dropped to her hands and knees. She trailed her fingers along the cold, damp slate flooring for as far as she could reach. “Can you sense a way out? See anything?”
“I see whatever you see, and so far, I sense nothing that could aid us in this infernal darkness.”
“Well…if this pit is in the dungeons of the keep, it can’t be as infinite as it seems, and there has to be a way out—right?”
“It depends on the magic of the Shadowmist twins. Although theirs does not seem as…”
Calia stopped crawling and waited. “As what?” she prompted when Intuition remained quiet.
“Their magic is not as…powerful…as I would expect from the sons of Mathison Shadowmist. He is of royal blood and known for the strength of his powers. Or at least he was before the curse.”
“Remember Mathison talking about how it surprised him when their mother conceived so quickly?”
“Yet another reason for Bansys’s treachery. There is little tolerance for false chieftains in the Ninth Realm—especially for the chieftains expected to rule all the clans. She would lose her power over the Realm if the twins lost the throne.”
Storing that away for future reference, Calia resumed her slow crawl through the darkness. When her knees ached with the effort, she flattened onto her belly, pressed her cheek against the floor, and stretched out her arms and legs, tapping out the circumference of the surrounding area with her fingers and toes. Solid stone for as far as she could touch. “This feels like a pretty good-sized ledge. Are you sure this is the Pit of Pinnacles?”
“Yes. Can you not hear the others that have been lost to this darkness? Listen to their whispers.”
Calia had really hoped that faint rustling was just the echo of her movements through this inky black hell. “I wish I could help them too, lay them to rest and give them peace, but I’m not all that sure how to even help myself at the moment.”
