Page 66 of A Promise of Peridot
There was no safety down here. Not with these rocks falling, the cave collapsing. He’d be squished like a snail underfoot.
He needed to get out. We all did.
“Griffin!” My commander’s glossy emerald power had barely made a dent in the enchanted stone that held the treasure room. “Get Fedrik back to camp. I’ll find them.”
Griffin gave an agonized look toward the wall he had been slicing through—
“Now,” I roared.
He hurtled back to us, slinging Fedrik’s arm around his neck and taking off without so much as another look in my direction. They barreled across the stone platform above the reapers, following the path Mari’s luster had left. They would only make it as far as the cave-in and then...
I didn’t have time to think about what might happen then.
It was all I could do to dart back for the wall to the treasure room, over crushed stone and dirt and debris. I heaved what rocks Griffin had broken loose away, one by one, sweat rippling on my brow, muscles straining at the effort. My lighte spilled out of me, wisps of barbed smoke and thorn cutting through the stone where Griffin had etched deep grooves with his own power. My arms, now two of eight, the wisps working in tandem like I was a creature of great myths.
“Arwen, can you hear me?”
Nothing.
I wasn’t breathing.
“Mari?” I roared. “Arwen?”
“Kane.”
“Yes, my love.”Sweet relief.
“We’re trapped!”Mari screeched, the walls now thin enough to hear through as my lighte broke down and shoved boulders the size of wheelbarrows out of the way.
“Try to stay calm.”
Skin was ripping off my hands in coin-sized chunks. There was too much rock, too much stone, even with my shadow arms of smoke and thorn and wings. I pulled and pulled, until there was nearly a path through for me above the tunnel they had crawled through.
But still—more rock. More stone. Each bigger than the last, the more I broke through it... Was the wall between usrebuilding?
Fuck. I couldn’t do it alone.
“You have to use your lighte.”
“It’s not working—I’m trying but it’s not working!”
“Breathe. This is nothing for you. You have endless power. Draw it from the air.” But I was no Dagan. There was no sun. Notmuch air left to draw from. I could only hope Arwen hadn’t come to the same realization.
“Kane, get yourself out of here. Get Fedrik and Griffin to safety.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You have to. The whole cavern is going to collapse. We’ll find another way out.”
“I’m almost through.”
But I wasn’t. I had just narrowly squeezed into a carved crevice, and it was already sliding back together. I’d have to rebreak through solid, ancient, cursed stone. I slammed all the lighte I had into the wall and tiny fissures spider-webbed along it. I struck again, bones in my hands cracking, muscles in my back aching and screaming in protest.
“No, you’re not. I can see the wall re-forming.”
“Kane!” Griffin’s voice. I spun, but it wasn’t a call for help.
It was a warning.
