I watch the silvery skein which flows between two small undulations growing stronger as we get closer.
“I see it too,” I say, marvelling at the way it glitters in the limited light.
“You do?” Warden turns his head to one side, putting his face in profile.
“It looks like tinsel.”
“Tinsel.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what it is either.” I shake my head at the term I used and yet don’t have any idea where it came from.
Warden rubs at the scruff on his chin.
“Can you feel it as well?” he asks.
The second he mentions it, I feel the spark inside me, like I’ve been hooked onto something which doesn’t want to let go.
“Yes,” I half whisper. “It’s like a pulling in my chest.”
“You are connected to the lines, my lady,” Warden rasps. “Very few creatures in the Yeavering can see the lines, and even fewer can feel them.” He turns a little further so he can see my face. “What are you?”
“I’m a tavern owner who knows her staff can’t manage in her absence,” I respond. “And I need to get back before it all falls apart.”
“And you are a female without magic who can see Ley Lines,” Warden rumbles. “A conundrum.”
“If you say so.”
“Which way do you want to go, my lady?” Warden asks me.
I stare at the line. It seems to be pulsing in one direction.
“Left,” I say, noticing there is no path leading that way. “We need to go left.”
“Good choice,” Warden replies, his back end dancing in a way I know means I have to hang on. “It’s time to leave the Underhill, hopefully as swiftly as we entered it.”
Then he explodes under me, and it’s all I can do to hold onto him, my arms clasped as tightly as I can around his waist, my face pressed hard against his back as those enormous hooves thunder forwards.
The wind and mist whip at my exposed skin, my skirts flying and my hair tangling as his speed increases, the rhythm of his gallop strangely hypnotic.
On the occasions I open my eyes against the searing wind, I see the landscape is changing. It’s getting brighter and the mist is retreating.
Finally, Warden’s pace diminishes, and I’m able to relinquish my death grip on the creature who cannot die. We’re on a beach. Ozone fills my nostrils. A sharp breeze lifts my hair. Ahead the sea is a green-grey, becalmed as it disappears into the fret offshore. Small waves roll in, making a soft whooshing sound, but otherwise, there is only silence.
I sit more upright and see the gigantic rock which sits just offshore and was partially hidden by Warden’s bulk. Seabirds circle it, but they’re noiseless and eerie. A great bridge forms a connection between the rock and the land, a vast archway framing the sea and sky beyond.
I feel like I’m looking at something almost familiar, but I can’t grasp what it is, the memory snapping itself out of my reach like a ribbon in a breeze.
“What is that?” I ask Warden.
“It is the Heddon cave,” he says, his words pulled from him by the wind. “We need to go through it in order to exit the Underhill.”
“Presumably once the tide goes out.” I look at the waves lapping through the archway.
“There is no tide here,” Warden rasps. “There’s a reason it’s difficult to exit the Underhill, even if, it would seem, it is easy enough to enter it.”
“I can swim,” I suggest.
At least I think I can.
