Page 55 of Monsters of Air

So, when we instead ran into a wall, and two caverns that were moving in opposite directions, I was secretly relieved.

We weren’t falling to our deaths, but I didn’t know which way to go either.

Worse, no matter how long I stood there, staring between the two options, nothing was getting clearer.

“Pick a damn path,” Landers snapped, still looking around as though he expected the Fae to come streaming in and pick us off one by one. The Fae’s smug grin was really not helping to keep that paranoid delusion at bay.

“Don’t get your cock in a knot,” I snarled, sending him fuming as I went to each entrance, trying to focus on what I was hearing and figure out which way to go.

Which would have been easy if either path had sounded even the slightest bit different. All I heard was fluttering and wind. For all I knew these paths could intersect with each other.

“Rayna?” Philit asked quietly behind me. I probably looked like a loon holding my ear to the open air of the caverns.

“Hold on,” I said, trying to narrow down my focus. Then I caught it. Water dripping. That seemed more plausible to a way out than anything else. Well, plausible and we wouldn’t die of dehydration. I pointed to the path on the left. “There’s water in this one.”

“Then we go left,” Philit said.

“At least we won’t have to lick rocks to stay hydrated,” I said as I moved between Philit and Zilon. Somehow standing between their torches, and them, made me feel better.

We kept going, not much to look at other than the light flickering across the floor and walls. We went around a bend, the light from the torches spreading over everything. For the first time I caught sight of the high ceilings, and a glint of silver that was covering the stone.

“What’s that?” I froze in place, watching the silver lines wobble underneath the torchlight.

“What?” Philit asked, coming to my side.

I lowered his torch so he could see what I was pointing out. Across the wall were deep markings, almost like claw marks, except they were huge. Huge and deep and stretching down to the floor. Over the floor.

They were everywhere, crisscrossed underneath, up the walls, and over the ceiling where deep black smudges joined them.

“Those are burn markings,” Philit said, his shoulders stiffening as he stepped before me, as if he was trying to block me from the truth.

But I had already figured that out.

“Burn marks and claws?” I asked, my heart already pounding. I only knew of one creature that would make burn and claw marks this big.

All of the guys were staring at them with the same panic. All except the Fae. He looked at them in awe, as if he was in some sacred place. I don’t know what sacred place would look like a dragon had been tortured inside of it.

Well, unless you were a Fae.

Philit came closer, getting a better look. “These are old by the look of it.”

“It is an old dragon lair?” I asked. That sounded better than a dragon torture chamber.

“Maybe. Come on,” Philit said, straightening up, frowning hard.

We passed more scorched and clawed stone, each one telling a bigger part of the story.

“You know, the way they’re facing, the dragon was trying to get out.” Landers ran his hand over the marks, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed.

“You think it was fighting something?” Philit stepped closer to me.

“What would it fight against so desperately to risk fire in here?” Zilon whispered, tugging the Fae after him. He kept stopping to stare at the marks, and then at me, that same reverenced smile on his face. I was half tempted to put a bag over his head.

“If it has fire, then there was a rider too, right?” I asked and everyone froze, the dragons turning to stare at me in horror. “What?”

“A rider makes a dragon stronger. So, what were they running from that a dragon and their rider couldn’t fight?” Philit stepped even closer, his arm brushing up against mine with every step.

“What was in here that was too much for them? The Fae?” Zilon wrapped his hand around mine, like he was scared that whatever it was would return.

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