This was Luc’s corpse.
I shoved my filthy sleeve into my mouth to muffle the sobs that I could not suppress. There was no way out. A shower of pebbles rained down onto the pool, and my howls cut off abruptly as I held my breath to listen. But nothing else stirred. I huddled in terror in the cold wetness of water and offal next to Luc’s bones. I had no sense of direction; not even of up or down or the size of the space around me. The darkness was unforgiving and my frozen body refused to reach out to discover the limits of my circumstances. I was terrified. It was not like the terror of running from a wolf, always knowing you can turn and fight. It was not like the sense of drowning, where there is a chance to flee to the surface. From this darkness and this place, there was no escape. I could neither run nor hide, and no one can fight the dark. All there was left for me to do was die.
But the very idea of ending it here, interned in a pool of offal with an idiot like Luc, struck fury in my heart. I wasn’t injured or starving. There was hope yet. I began to move, feeling around in the pool in search of Luc’s pack. The trolls must have given him a lantern to replace the one I’d lost, and I was certain his pack would contain a flint for lighting it.
My fingers brushed against rough fabric, and I hauled it upwards, knowing from the weight that it was the sack containing the rest of his gold. I felt around inside, pulling out smooth coins one after another until I determined there was nothing of use inside. I started sorting through the gold on the floor, but found nothing but metal and rock belonging to the mountain. No flint.
“Where did you put it?” I muttered, forcing myself to concentrate and remember the moment I had seen Luc first light the lantern. I remembered the desperation I’d felt at being deprived of sight, the splatter of water against my face as he’d climbed out of the pool, and the sound of steel striking against flint. And sight. In my mind’s eye, I saw the glow of light, and the movement of him tucking the small rock into his coat pocket.
Grimly, I waded over towards the corpse, my fingers reaching reluctantly down to touch the bones and half-digested mush of fabric. Then I froze. From out in the blackness, I felt him. Like a silken cord strung between two points, one of them drawing ever closer. Tristan was coming.
CHAPTER 26
CéCILE
I was running out of time. I dug my fingers into the fabric, my heart hammering as the moments ticked by. Tristan was moving many times faster than I had, and I was all but certain he was leading his father’s soldiers towards me.
My skin brushed against a sharp edge, and I gleefully extracted the knife, sticking it between my teeth for safekeeping. “Flint, flint, where are you?” I hummed under my breath, trying to combat my panic. He was closer.
My fingernails grated across a stone stuck between two ribs, and I quickly pried it out, not allowing my mind to linger on how it became lodged there. Tristan wasn’t far now. If I didn’t get a source of light soon, he’d catch me.
I needed to find the lantern. Wary of the knife’s sharp edge, I tentatively struck the two together. Nothing. “Quit being a ninny,” I scolded myself, and smacked the two firmly together. A spark flew. I repeated the process, but the quick spark wasn’t enough to help me locate the lantern. I’d have to do it by feel.
Clutching my precious objects, I continued my search. When my hand closed over the slim metal handle of the lantern, I very nearly crowed with delight. But I was too late. I heard the sound of boots, and then light blossomed from overhead.
“Cécile?”
I froze, the sound of Tristan’s voice eliciting an unfortunate mix of emotion in my heart.
“Cécile? Where are you?”
My silence was only delaying the inevitable. “Here.” My tight throat restricted the word to a croak. Coughing, I cleared it and called again. “I’m here.”
“Are you hurt?”
I shook my head and then realized he couldn’t see me. “No.”
“I’m coming down.”
With a recklessness I would never have dared, he scampered down the slick rocks and stopped on a ledge above me. He was alone. Brilliant light filled the chamber, and I looked around and saw in an instant that if my light hadn’t broken, my passage out of the slime would have been easy. I stared at the open passage that led to freedom and struggled with my emotions. I should feel disappointment, devastation even. I had been so close. If I’d been better prepared, or bolder, I might be breathing open air. But part of me – a part that made me cringe – was glad that he had come.
A soft snort of annoyance caught my attention and I looked up. Tristan had his arms crossed and was glaring at me.
“Is it because you’re a human or because you’re a girl?”