Ruari stumbled, boots scratching the dirt. But he laughed. He was surprisingly chipper for a man on the brink of death.
“What’s so funny?” I asked him.
“This is how my mother escaped Endir. And it just seems fitting she chose this path as her salvation. She likely didn’t even notice the bugs.” He coughed, then laughed again. “Only Bellicent Denare would choose to slither among the grime.”
“We are also slithering among the grime,” I pointed out to him.
“Because we are doomed.”
“You keep saying that. What makes you so certain?”
He was silent for a moment. “Because Talaven told me.”
“You still haven’t explained what that means.”
“Druid Balfor told me to stop talking about it,” he said quietly, twisting his head to gaze behind me, as if he were searching for the old man behind us. “Where is he, anyway?”
“With the other Druids, I’m guessing. I think they’re near the back.” I paused. “Which means he won’t hear you if you tell me what you mean about Talaven.”
He grumbled beneath his breath, then fell silent. I sighed. For whatever reason, he would not explain his mad mutterings. Perhaps Druid Balfor was right. Ruari was too far gone for his words to make sense.
Another hour passed by, and then another. Soon, dawn would transform the sky from mottle black to brilliant blue streaked with purple pink strands of light. It seemed impossible. The Kingdom of Shadow had not known dawn for centuries. But I didn’t doubt the gods.
And when that pink filled the sky, Endir would fall.
Luckily, no one would be there when it did.
Ahead of me, Ruari slowed. I tried to crane my head around him to discover what was happening, but the walls were closing in around us too tightly for me to see anything but his head.
“Why have we stopped?” I asked.
“It looks like we’ve reached the exit,” Nellie responded excitedly from her spot just ahead of Ruari. “I see light.”
“Light?” I repeated, my heart dropping. “So dawn truly has arrived.”
A part of me had hoped the gods were wrong, even though I’d expected this.
Movement began again. Ruari shuffled forward a few more steps. The walls expanded outward as the tunnel opened up somewhere ahead. His footsteps quickened, and so did mine. Soon, I was walking out into the fresh morning air. The sun shone brilliantly in the east, burning away the mist. Kalen stood in the clearing ahead, his head tipped back. Sunlight danced across his carved cheekbones, highlighting the cut of his jaw and the shadowy ink of his hair.
He looked up and caught me staring. My lips twitched as a smile threatened to fill my face. But then he turned away and stole the smile before it bloomed.
Twenty-Eight
Tessa
Ifollowed Kalen around the corner, where the rush of water drowned out the sounds of everyone spilling from the tunnels. He stood gazing at the magnificent sight. The Ivory Cliff Falls looked different in the daylight. The water glistened, sparkling as it fell in luxurious curtains of blue. The ancient markings on the stones seemed to glow from within, as if lit by the sun’s rays.
I stepped up beside him. “Kalen, tell me what’s going on.” Not a question. I needed him to answer, and I would not ask.
His jaw tightened. “You’ve been different since you escaped from Malroch.”
I whirled toward him, my jaw dropping. “I’mthe one who’s been different?”
“Yes.” He turned to me now, and the anger in his eyes shocked me to my core. Even when he should have hated me, even after I’d stabbed him, he had never looked at me like this. I never could have dreamed he would. Like I truly was his enemy. “Tessa Baran would never suggest using a god’s power. Whatever happened in that city, it changed you. Just like it changed my mother. They stripped you of your humanity just like they said they would.”
Realization crashed over me. Tears filled my eyes. I reached out for his hand, but he shook his head.
“I don’t believe it’s you in there,” he said, nearly choking out the words. “Not anymore. Look at what’s happened to Ruari. You gave him famine. Tell me that doesn’t seem like a design of the gods, like you haven’t been working with them to tear Aesir apart.”
