Molly wagged a finger at him. “No, you don’t, Reef. She just woke up and needs a chance to get acclimated. Don’t put this on her so soon.”
Reef squared his shoulders, his thick eyebrows drawing together. “When should I tell her then, Molly? Every day brings a new storm. Every hour, our food stores dwindle. Every minute, someone else comes closer to going mad inside this rock. If there is a better time for her to know the truth, I’d like to know when it is.” He leaned in, a few of his thick braids falling forward. “War rules, Molly. We do what’s needed, when it’s needed, and right now that means she needs to know what’s happening.”
Reef’s words shook any last wisp of fuzziness from Aria’s mind. They brought her back to where she’d been a week ago, alert and tense, a little breathless, with a sense of desperation curling inside her like a stomachache.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
Reef turned his intense gaze on Aria. “Better if I show you,” he said, striding away.
She followed him from the gathering area, deeper into the cave, where it grew darker and quieter and darker still, her dread mounting with every step. Molly let out a sigh of exasperation, but she came along.
They wove through the melting formations—a forest of stone that dripped from the ceiling and rose up from the ground, gradually molding together—until Aria walked through a natural corridor. Here and there, the tunnel opened to other passageways, which breathed cool damp drafts against her face.
“Down that way is the storage area for medicines and supplies,” Molly said, gesturing to the left. “Everything that’s not food or animals. Those are kept in the caverns at the south end.” Her voice sounded a little too cheerful, like she was trying to compensate for Reef’s gruff manner. She swung the lamp gently as she walked, causing the shadows to tilt up and back along the cramped space. Aria found herself growing slightly light-headed and seasick. Or cavesick.
Where were they taking her?
She had never known darkness like this. Outside there was always Aether, or sunlight, or moonlight. In the Pod, within the protected walls of Reverie, lights always blazed. Always. This was new, this suffocating pool. She felt the pitch black fill her lungs with every breath. She was drinking the dark. Wading through it.
“Behind that curtain is the Battle Room,” Molly continued. “It’s a smaller cavern where we brought one of the trestle tables from the cookhouse. Perry meets with people in there to discuss matters of importance. The poor boy hardly ever leaves.”
Walking silently ahead of them, Reef shook his head.
“I worry about him, Reef,” Molly said, with plain irritation. “Someone has to.”
“And you think I don’t?”
Aria worried too—more than either of them—but she bit her lip, leaving them to argue.
“Well, you’re good at hiding it, if so,” Molly shot back. “All you seem to do is lecture him about what he’s doing wrong.”
Reef glanced over his shoulder. “Should I start slapping him on the back and telling him he’s wonderful? Will that do us any good?”
“You could try it once in a while, yes.”
Aria stopped listening to them. The hair on her arms lifted as her ears latched on to new sounds. Moans. Whimpers. Sickly sounds that swept toward her through the tunnel. A chorus of need.
She broke away from Molly and Reef, clutching her wounded arm to her side as she rushed ahead. Rounding a bend in the corridor, she arrived in a large, dim cavern, lit along the perimeter by lamps.