Page 23 of Mountain of Dragons and Sacrifice

He’d looked after my bleeding knuckles and fed me. Why would he go back to trying to trick me like this? It was exhausting trying to keep up with when he was nice Evander and when he was the dragon’s steward Evander.

Was I about to find out the hard way what had happened to the other maidens?

Evander stepped out of the tunnel after me. “She was with me. I’m sorry we worried everyone. We’re going to explore tunnels for the rest of the day.”

Daphne’s expression relaxed still further. “Oh, that’s all right, then. I’ll go tell the others you’ve been found.” She spun on her heel, shouting even as she raced back into the tunnel she’d come from, “I found Nessa!”

“I should return to rock polishing.” I swallowed and broke into a hurried trot in the direction of that passageway. The candle’s flame flickered, nearly going out, with the breeze of my movements, and I held up a hand to shield it.

Evander hurried to catch up. He stepped in front of me, forcing me to halt before I ran into him, though he didn’t touch me. “Nessa, no one is angry with you. You’re free to keep exploring tunnels or go back to rock polishing. But you don’t have to keep working because you’re scared the dragon will be angry. You’re safe here.”

I searched his face. Did I dare trust him? Or was this another test? What was the right answer to the test? Rock polishing or tunnel exploring?

Argh. Being a sacrificial maiden had been far more straightforward when I thought I was going to be eaten. I hadn’t been prepared for mind games.

“All right. Let’s keep exploring.” I forced a smile, though my shoulders still ached with tension. Hopefully the fact that I stuck with Evander all day would spare me from the dragon’s wrath.

Evander returned my smile, though something almost like sadness glinted in his eyes before he turned away and pointed at a dark opening a few yards away. “I was thinking we could wander down that one next.”

I nodded, letting him lead the way in that direction.

That tunnel turned out to be just as dark and blank as the previous one, though this one ended in a store room filled with what appeared to be extra furniture.

Together, we strolled down several more tunnels. Most of the rooms we discovered were merely empty. Plenty of tunnels just ended, seemingly going nowhere.

As the afternoon passed, it was strangely comfortable exploring with him, despite my fear that he would report all of this to the dragon. He was such a solid, warm presence beside me in these otherwise cold and gray tunnels.

As we strolled down the last corridor, this one having ended in a deep pool of water, and headed back toward the waterfall cavern, Evander glanced at me. “Do you have any siblings? What is your home like?”

I stumbled, the words banishing the comfortable warmth.

Once again, Evander had been luring me into a false sense of safety with him, making me lower my guard so that he could gather information about my family in order for the dragon to make them disappear the way the families usually did a few months after the Day of Sacrifice.

Evander reached out a hand, briefly steadying me, before he released me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. You must miss them.”

I nodded as we stepped into the waterfall cavern, savagely stuffing down the pang of missing my parents. The olive grove. The safety and familiarity of home.

I blindly headed for the nearest tunnel, its opening smaller than most of the others.

Evander’s arm shot out, halting me. “Not that one.”

“Why not?” I dodged around his arm. Was this tunnel the one where Clarissa and the others were being held? Or where their corpses had been stashed as if they were macabre trophies?

“It’s dangerous.” Evander moved to stand between me and the tunnel, but he didn’t grab me or otherwise physically stop me.

“Is it dangerous? Or is it something the dragon doesn’t want me to see?” I clutched the candle holder, unable to force my gaze higher than one of the ties zigzagging down the front of his leather jerkin. “I thought you said I wasn’t forbidden from exploring.”

Evander opened his mouth, shut it, then sighed. “All right. But stick close to me.”

He ducked into the tunnel, and I hurried to keep up, the candle flickering.

Unlike the other tunnels I’d explored, this one was rough. Almost unfinished. Marks scored the walls, as if from carving this corridor from the mountain. It was barely wide enough for Evander and me to walk side-by-side, and he had to duck his head as we walked because the ceiling was so low.

After only a few yards, the lantern’s light fell on the solid rock before us.

I groaned and rested my hand against the stone of the mountain blocking our way. Another dead end. Did any of these tunnels lead somewhere useful in this rabbit’s warren of a mountain? How was I ever supposed to find Clarissa and the others if all I did was run into empty tunnels?

Evander turned, taking a few steps back the way we’d come. “See. Just a dead end. We should go.”

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