She didn’t stir. Didn’t so much as flutter an eyelash.
Noah straightened and turned away before anyone could see the moisture brimming in his eyes. The thought that he might never see any of them again stole the breath from his lungs.
He helped Taran lift Emily onto the stretcher, noting his father’s incredible gentleness as he tucked the blanket around her frail body. Paige gathered what few belongings they had as Finn checked the corridor and gave them a quick nod. Then he and Finn stood alone, watching with shattering hearts as the small group slipped into the darkness of the passageway.
Noah listened to their footsteps fade and felt the silence close around him like a tomb.
Noah and Finn worked quickly,stripping torches from their brackets in the abandoned corridors near Noah’s chamber, examining the pitch-soaked heads and binding those that needed it with new strips of cloth. They had four good torches and two spares by the time footsteps echoed in the darkened passageway beyond.
Noah’s hand went to the sword at his hip before Keir’s familiar silhouette materialized in the dim torchlight, Taran close behind.
“Safe?” Noah asked.
“Aye.” Taran’s face was grim but resolute. “Hidden well. Keir chose wisely. I memorized the route and the kitchen layout, marking all the turns in my mind. If we get separated, I ken I can find my way back.”
“And the collapsing tunnel?”
“Beyond a third corridor, past the main storage chambers. ’Tisnae far from where they’re hidden.”
“I’ve no certainty that tunnel will lead to a portal,” Noah admitted shamefully. “But I’ve seen Austin return from its depths with trunks of what I perceived to be more artifacts. So it at least must lead to something that could lead to a portal. It’s not much, and it could end up being a deadly choice, but it’s the only one we have at this point.”
“Aye,” Taran nodded, his face grim. “’Tis a chance we’re forced tae take. Emily dinnae stir the entire way tae the kitchen. Nae once.”
Noah absorbed the blow in silence. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t shatter what little composure he had left. The fact that he hadn’t positively identified a portal by now weighed heavy on his soul.
“We must hurry.” Keir took one of the torches. “The entrance to the deep cells is this way. Stay close. Stay silent until we reach the lower levels. The Keeper’s guards patrol the upper corridors, but as far as I know they have no reason to venture that far down. At least not before tonight.”
He led them through a succession of passageways that grew progressively narrower, darker, and colder, the walls peppered with moisture that gleamed rusty-orange in the torchlight. Noah noted doorways sealed with age-old timber planks, corridors blocked by fallen rubble, abandoned guard posts where a few rusted brackets still held the remnants of long-dead torches.
They stopped before a section of wall that appeared no different from the rest until Keir pressed his shoulder against a particular stone. A narrow gap opened, barely wide enough for Finn’s broad frame, revealing a staircase that spiraled downward into complete darkness.
“I wasn’t sure that door actually existed,” Keir whispered, seemingly amazed. “I only heard stories about this place as aboy. Some of the older guards spoke of it in tales designed to frighten impressionable children. They said it was built centuries before the rest of the fortress, carved straight into the mountain. Used for prisoners the lords of that time wanted forgotten.”
He lifted his torch and the light caught the first few steps, some slick with moisture, all worn smooth by the passage of countless feet in some distant age. “No one comes here now. Or so I believed.”
Noah followed Keir onto the first stair, feeling the temperature drop as if he’d crossed a threshold into winter. Cold, damp air rose from below, carrying the scent of ancient stone and closed up places.
They descended single file. Keir, then Noah, Taran, and Finn guarding the rear. The staircase twisted steeper and tighter as they went deeper, the walls pressing close enough that Noah’s shoulders nearly brushed both sides. Water trickled somewhere in the darkness, a constant, disorienting drip that echoed from somewhere impossible to discern.
Great cracks ran through the stone steps where the mountain itself had shifted over centuries. Sections of wall had crumbled, exposing raw mineral-studded rock behind the rough masonry. Iron rings jutted from the walls at intervals, some rusted to brittle stumps, others still holding fragments of chain.
Noah counted forty steps. Then sixty. The staircase seemed to have no end, spiraling ever downward into the belly of the mountain.
Then Keir stopped so suddenly Noah nearly collided with him. “Look.” He held his torch higher, closer to the wall.
A natural curved indentation in the rock wall created a small landing where fresh soot stains blackened the stone above a bracket that held the stub of a recently burned torch. Below it, where dust had accumulated deeper over the years, were cleardisturbances. Footprints. Multiple sets, overlapping, pressed into the grime by boots heavier than their own.
“Someone’s been down here,” Finn muttered, peering over Taran’s shoulder. “And recently.”
“The guards who brought her.” Keir’s voice hardened. “I’d wager my life on it.”
They pressed on with renewed urgency. Twenty more steps brought them to the bottom, where the staircase opened into a vaulted chamber barely large enough for the four of them to stand together. Three corridors branched off in different directions, each vanishing into darkness that swallowed their torchlight within a few paces.
Noah stared into the black mouths of those corridors and felt something cold settle in his stomach. The maze. Keir hadn’t exaggerated. Each passage could lead to Skye, or to a dead end, or to a collapse that could bury them all.
And above them, dawn crept closer with every wasted breath.
“We can’t afford wrong turns,” Noah said. “Every one costs us time we don’t have.”
