“I’ve tested it,” Dashiell muttered. He turned his scowl on Luka. “Move now, or she starts bleeding.”
Luka’s hand dropped toward the hilt of a sword that wasn’t there, as if by reflex. He snarled, then rolled back his shoulders, picked up the lamp, and put a foot out to test the floor of the hoist. It wobbled slightly but held. He gave her one more fiery look, then, too quickly to protest, he stepped onto the platform. It lurched uneasily within the confines of the rock walls, but it held.
Izzy breathed out a rough exhale, but before she could say anything, Dashiell shoved her forward, onto the hoist. He was careful to keep her body between his and Luka’s at all times as he closed a low gate.
Dashiell pulled the knife a little away from her skin as they jostled together, but he left it just inches from her throat, a vicious reminder to Luka to behave. He nodded toward the lever built into the metal bars that made up the hoist’s wall. “Now that one.”
Luka hung the lamp on a hook built into the side of the hoist; then he reached out and dragged the lever downward. Steam poured from a small vent above them with a high-pitched squeal, and they began to descend. The entire mechanism clanked and groaned as the hoist slowly lowered.
Something rattled somewhere in the wall, and steam belched out through small fissures in the rock, filling the air with cloudy humidity and the scent of rotten eggs. The steam made their faces glow, pale and greenish in the flickering lamplight. Unsettling vibrations thrummed through Izzy as the hoist juddered unevenly, catching and lurching in a way that suggested something inside the mechanism had broken when the mountain erupted. Her beast grumbled unhappily, but the hoist continued slowly downward.
A gust of hot air churned around them, and the misty clouds cleared to suddenly reveal a huge face staring at her. Izzy gasped, almost falling back as her heart thudded, before realizing what she’d seen. Colorful frescos adorned the walls around them. The images were massive, as detailed and beautiful as the paintings on the arches of the temple, and even more vibrant, protected here in the hoist shaft.
They told the story of a great drake descending into darkness, slowly becoming increasingly small and human as they followed the shaft downward. Or, perhaps, the story was meant to be told arising into light, shifting from human to dragon as the viewer rose toward the temple?
It was like witnessing magic. At any other time, she would have loved to run her fingers over the glorious paintings, to revel in them and learn their secrets. But as they dropped lower, the pained expression on the shifting drake’s face only added to the horrible, oppressive tension.
It was almost a relief when an enormous crack in the stone obliterated the remaining frescoes, leaving only broken pieces. The steam grew thicker and more pungent while the hoist mechanism clanked and rattled even harder.
Fear started to churn through her once more. Izzy didn’t want to go down there. She didn’t want to be trapped in this cruel trap. They were going to die. Luka was going to die.Her breathing became more labored, aching with every forced breath.
Then Luka whispered her name. His eyes locked on hers with a steady gaze, as if they were the only two people in all of existence, and she held on to his presence. She breathed with him—long, slow breaths—as her panic slowly faded. She loved him. She would find a way to save him.
The roar of the sea grew louder and closer as they descended until it seemed like they were surrounded by the crash of waves. They emerged below the rocky sidewalls that had cocooned their journey downward into dim gray light. The hanging edges of the shaft were jagged and incomplete—as if the walls had collapsed long ago—and only the back of the hoist slid against the water-slick rocks. They were suspended in a large cave, open and terrifyingly exposed on three sides.
Below them, only just visible in the gloom, a sandy beach led to a churning, frothing stretch of water below a low-hanging cave mouth. On the back wall of the cave, below and to the side of them, a dark opening suggested a passageway leading deeper into the mountain.
The booming was even louder here, as the waves crashed violently on the rocks outside. Shadowy green light, bruised by the storm, filtered in through the cave mouth, revealing strange metal posts rising from the sand as if something was buried there long ago.
A small sailboat was pulled up with its bow in the sand, seawater frothing around its hull. It was sun-bleached, but far too new and unscathed to be some ancient relic of the temple. A single sail was tied back to the mast, and nestled on the deck, just behind the mast, a metal cage gleamed in the low light.
Mother of the gods.
“Is that?—”
A booming crack drowned her words, and a sudden blast of steam billowed out through the shaft they’d traveled down. It poured through the air as if it had finally found release—squealing, stinking, and burning. Something had ruptured in the wall above them! Izabel screamed as the hoist juddered, wrenched free of the failing brakes, and plummeted. It hurtled downward, throwing them into the air with a sickening weightlessness. Then, just as suddenly, Luka rammed the wall-lever back up, and the hoist stopped hard, swinging drunkenly against the rock wall.
Izzy staggered and almost stumbled right into Dashiell’s knife, but Luka grabbed her arm and held her upright. For a moment, they were suspended there, Luka holding her with an iron grip.
Dashiell snarled as he raised his knife.
“If she dies, you will have nothing to stop me from ripping you into tiny pieces,” Luka growled. His face gleamed with scales, and his pupils were surrounded by a rim of opal-green so thick it almost took his entire iris. His body vibrated with an audible roar as scales hardened into ridges over his cheeks. He was seconds away from losing himself and shifting inside the tiny space.
Dashiell swore savagely, but he shifted the blade half an inch from her skin. Izzy instantly took her chance and laid her fingers on Luka’s cheek. His skin was on fire, as if his drake burned right below the surface. “I’m okay,” she whispered.
Luka took a shuddering breath, his eyes slowly cleared, and the scales flickering over his throat settled into smooth armor plates. Her own beast pushed and howled to get closer, and she might have done it, if Dashiell hadn’t grunted and pulled her back. “That’s enough,” Dashiell barked. “The steam has built up again. Take us down.”
She glanced over the side. It was too far to jump, even fully scaled. Gods. They needed to get the hoist down. She let her hand drop.
Luka reached out and eased the lever down, but this time he kept his grip on it, ready if it should fail again. The hoist groaned and finally shuddered downward once more. It was slower than before, rocking queasily against the back wall. Somehow, the open space around them was even more threatening than the narrow confines of the rock shaft had been. But, thankfully, after several fraught minutes, they reached the ground with a heavy thud.
Gusts of swirling wind threw sand against her legs as Luka opened the gate. He stepped out and swung the nearby wheel around until its garnet pointed at the open spiral, shutting down the hoist.
Dashiell shoved her forward with one hand between her shoulder blades. The sand was soft and dry, and she slid, ungainly and off balance, as he herded her toward the sailboat she’d seen from above.
The cage looked even more terrifying up close. It was squat—too low for an adult to stand up—and narrow, as if it was built to fit in the narrow stern. It nestled just behind the mast where it would be out the way of the sails. The bars looked like thick steel while a massive lock dangled from the open door.
Luka growled menacingly from behind them, but Dashiell only chuckled. “I built it for one, but I guess you’ll both fit for a day or two.”
