Gulping, I decide it’ll be easiest to crawl as well. I ease myself carefully, so carefully, onto hands and knees, and then I inch forward. My heart is in my throat the entire way through.
If there’s any disturbance, if any of the wolves forget and lift their heads…
My ears play tricks with me, creating sounds when there are none. The meager blue light goes fuzzy in my eyesight.
My hands tremble, and I keep all my focus on my movement. Slowly, slowly. One inch at a time.
Finally, the tunnel ends, and we’re able to straighten.
Glancing up and past Venna, then, I think I can make out a door—yes, it’s an open doorway, and now Venna is passing through, now Skaia—
We’re all through a few moments later, breathing hard and brushing ourselves off. After the silence of the room behind us, our relieved breathing sounds loud and wild.
“Venna?”I reach out experimentally, and yes, the mental connection forms this time. Must be because the task is complete?
She looks at me, and only when I’m beside her do I realize she’s shaking. I reach out and take her hand.“Thanks.”
She huffs a breath and nods.“I nearly threw up.”
I hug her arm to my chest briefly.“You got us through that. You were amazing.”
Her eyes soften slightly.
“What was that blue light?”
She hesitates.“It’s… something I’ve been experimenting with, now that our powers have gone a little crazy. I still bend the shadow, like when I’m rifting, but instead of calling it toward me I’m pushing it away, so that any ambient light nearby rushes in.”
I shake my head.“That’s genius. Have you heard of any Kryptos ever doing that before?”
Before she can reply, the room we’re in erupts with burning red light. I jolt and cling to Venna’s arm. When I face forward, the Daemos symbol is burning with unnaturally red fire on the doorway.
And just like that, our mental link is broken. My magic is dampened down once more.
Cratos steps forward, a black silhouette against the bloody light. Stark looks back at us. “Ready?”
“That seems like a question you have to answer,” I reply.
His jaw ticks, and he turns without hesitation, approaching the door. It grinds open just the same, making my bones rattle. The chamber it reveals is similarly empty, long and narrow, but this time, we can see the opposite side. The far wall has another heavy stone door at its center. And it’s shut.
“Seems like we’ll have to figure out how to open that,” Noemi whispers.
“Daemos magic,” Venna says, following after Stark. “Maybe you’ll have to knock it down.”
“Without knocking the whole tower down on us?” I exclaim.
“Bad idea,” Anassa confirms.
“Quiet,” Stark says. He’s reached the center of the room now. He mounts Cratos, and the two of them do a lap of the room together. The red fire flickers around us, refusing to grant us any warmth. I shiver and look around the room, confused.
“You don’t sense anything?” Venna asks.
“No,” Stark replies.
“Wait,” I say, and turn. I squint up at the space above the passageway we just came from. “There’s writing above the doorway.”
The moment I say so, the door we walked through grinds shut behind us. My heart rate picks up again.
We’re entirely closed in now, trapped in both directions. The wolves growl and shift around nervously, tails flicking and eyes flashing. They’re made for wide-open spaces, not tiny, cramped rooms.
