“Don’t push your luck.” It was a weak return, and she knew it. But she wouldn’t be too hard on the man, she insisted to herself; she told him she’d liked his newfound sass and it would be contradictory to squelch it.
His eyes followed her as she woke Helen softly, helping the girl out of the cart without waking Will or Florence. She could feel his attention prickling at her magic until she disappeared around a winding tunnel, Helen leading the way. And yet, she still felt his presence long after. It was a shadow connected to her heels, waiting on her as her footsteps echoed through the caves, no doubt audible to his Dragon ears.
That sensation faded away as a hazy dawn faded into view. Helen blinked blearily at the light, the small amount nearly blinding after spending five days trekking with nothing more than torches and the faint glow of glovis eyes lining the tunnel walls. Fresh air kicked the dust around, making no effort to pierce the depths of the Underground. Nature heeded the lines between above and below; it was the boldness inspired by steam and guns and magic that inspired Fenthri to blur it.
“You’re going to make it back?” Helen yawned. “Do you need me to wait here?”
Arianna made a show of pocketing her grease pen. “I can follow the line.” She tapped the mark she’d drawn while walking.
“You’re sure? If we get separated, there’s no hope of finding each other down there,” the cartographer cautioned.
“So go back and sleep, and don’t move for a while—if you can manage that.”
“Sleep, yes, understood.” Helen’s dramatic salute quickly deteriorated into another wide-mouthed inhale of air. She passed the hardened eye of a glovis from hand to hand. It still emitted a faint glow even after the creature’s death, and Ari watched the speck of light as Helen traveled back into the depths.
The fog embraced her as Ari emerged, breathing fresh air for the first time in what felt like forever. Standing alone for the first time in weeks. She wasn’t accustomed to traveling in a pack.
She looked over the dusty plains of Ter.4, a steam engine rolling across the ocean of tall grasses in the distance. Master Oliver had taken her under his wing when she was still so young. They had traveled the world together, just the two of them. And then the Dragons had come to ruin it all. To confine guilds to their territories and initiates to textbooks rather than true learning.
Still, when she watched the sky lighten over the plains, the quiet dawn on a mostly barren land, it looked as it had then—smelled as it had then. Arianna stepped forward, putting Wraiths and Dragons and boons and misplaced Ravens behind her. For a brief hour, she navigated the world as nothing more than a Fenthri woman.
Three hare and a bag full of edible plants later, she returned to the world below. Escapes were wonderful, but impermanent and shallow. She was made of stronger mettle than those that fled into the warm bosom of nostalgia.
The fingers of her left hand trailed through the grease line, following it down and through the winding passages. Silence flooded her, and it wasn’t until Arianna was nearly to their resting place that she realized the source of her unease.
It was too quiet. She heard no breathing, no discussion, no clanking of the cart over the rails as its occupants shifted in their sleep. Her pace quickened and Arianna sped to meet the last corner, already knowing what would greet her.
Nothing.
Her line ended where it had begun in a spot she knew she could not be confusing for any other. Panic swelled to a crescendo and Ari forced it down with a hand on her dagger, as though she could ward off her emotions with golden blades and lock them away behind spools of wire. She stretched her hearing, but stillness greeted her in all directions.
Wherever they had gone, it was far and fast—enough that even her Dragon ears couldn’t pick up the faintest squeal of wheels on rails. Her breathing quickened as the options unfurled before her, and Arianna picked up a faint scent.
It was one she’d come to know on their travels—the crisp, fresh smell of burning wood. Cvareh. Her eyes drifted over to the wall, led by her nose, and Arianna ran her fingers along the fresh scratches in the rock. He had bled here.
Balling her hand into a fist, Arianna screamed, punching the rock so hard blood exploded and her bones snapped. Her anguish echoed through the caves uselessly, the ears she wanted to hear were too far away. But there were more things to hear her than a Dragon and a few misplaced Ravens in the Underground.
She drew her daggers, her bones already knitting, the pain sharpening her mind. A primal hiss echoed up to her, followed by the clicking of pincers. Ari placed the tip of her dagger in the wall, slowly walking backward.