Page 54 of Monsters of Air

“Fuck!” He tore Landers off Zilon and practically tossed him to the side. “Run!”

The harshness of his tone broke through Lander’s fury and he looked up too, his eyes widening. Philit yanked Zilon and shoved him to me. Zilon didn’t hesitate, sweeping me up in his arms and running after Landers.

All I could do was watch as that massive cloud of snow came at us so fast that it looked as though it was swallowing the world. We were next, and there was no way we could escape. It was moving too fast. Philit was behind us, yanking the Fae with him as we all bolted from the wall of snow.

“Zilon,” I whimpered, pointing toward a dark swatch of nothing against the rock.

“A cave!” Zilon yelled, everyone following my finger as we ran. Snow was now falling over us in waves, the wall so close it was threatening to pull us in.

It had almost reached us… but the cave was so close.

“You’re going to be okay,” Zilon panted as snow crashed against the stone wall, everything groaning and screaming as we threw ourselves into the cave.

We barely made it.

“Deeper!” Philit called out, his voice echoing over the stone as we raced into the pitch before stumbling over rocks and bones and falling in a heap.

The world around us rumbled for a long time, complete darkness wrapping around us. I squeezed Zilon, looking behind us at the wall of snow and stone that trapped us.

“It’s over,” I whispered, my voice echoing in the hollow cavern as the groaning from the snow slide drifted into nothing. Zilon carefully put me on my feet.

“We need light,” Landers said. “I can’t see shit.”

“Is the big dragon sacred?” I taunted, fully aware my voice was shaking. Nothing like deflecting your own fear.

“Give me a minute,” Zilon grumbled.

“Over here, Zilon,” Philit said, both of them hissing as they began to strike flint and steel in an effort to find something to light.

I didn’t dare move. I was too scared to run into something even with the bright sparks of light that bounced through the air every few seconds. Landers however, had no qualm with that and proceeded to swear and grumble as he ran into walls and tripped over who knows what.

“Shit.” Landers swore for the twentieth time before there was one last thunk and Zilon’s flame roared to life. Fire flicked over the walls, showcasing Landers ass high in the air after tripping over a boulder.

“Took you long enough.” He jumped to his feet as though he had meant to do that. I could have laughed if the light hadn’t revealed my worst nightmare.

We were trapped in here.

Zilon and Philit held a stick high, fabric curled and burning at the end of each one. They moved them this way and that, trying topper into the dark and only finding walls of stone in any direction.

“I’ll go check the entrance. Wait here.” Philit took off, disappearing back the way we had come. It was minutes before he came back, shaking his head.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, not that I needed to. I could tell in the way the air moved around this place. The entrance was closed, but there was something else, some sound further in…

“It’s been completely buried in. No telling how far we’d have to dig and there are rocks mixed in there too.”

“So, what? We’re trapped?” Landers asked, he was clearly panicking.

“No. It just means we have to go further in,” I said, turning toward the dark pitch on the other side of us. Wind blew through the hollows, a faint drip echoing over everything. “There is a way out, I can feel it.”

“We’ll have to rely on Rayna to help us figure out which direction to go in.” Philit said, holding the torch before him as he stepped beside me.

“Great. The sooner we move, the sooner we can get out of here.” Poor landers was clearly one false move away from losing it. “Just don’t get us lost. We want out, not the path to Zilon’s dick.”

It’s too bad Zilon stopped me, because I would have punched him.

Chapter Nineteen

The light from the torches flickered over everything, making the high damp walls of the cave look even more ominous. Even with the light I couldn’t see anything above us, or anything more than a few feet before us. We could be one misstep from going into an abyss.

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