Page 21 of Magic Hunted
The elf’s lips moved in a different way. I heard him speak a strange language, yet I still understood him.
“Haven’t. Stolen anything,” I rasped. What could he possibly think I’d stolen from them? I didn’t know they existed until a few terrifying minutes ago.
His nostrils flared as though I’d personally insulated him. “Liar! Seize them!”
The elves descended on us, their long limbs eating up the short distance over the rock toward us.
“Hold your breath.” Savvas gripped my hand and leapt into the deepest part of the river, taking me with him.
Cold water broke over my head. I bobbed to the surface as it swept us around a bend and away from the elves. Churning waves sloshed across my face. I was blind, choking on water, coughing and spluttering and gasping for breath. The current slammed us into the rocky wall. Rock towered on either side of us, rushing past in a blur. There was no place to grab ahold of, no place for any respite as we were swept along the midnight river. Savvas slipped under the surface. I dragged him up as he hacked water. “Let me go,” he gasped.
“No. Not going to happen.” That cost me when water slapped my face and I sucked down a mouthful, but I wouldn’t loosen my grip on him. He couldn’t drown. I wouldn’t allow it.
Again we slammed into rock as the river took a sudden bend, but the current eased, pooling heavily around my legs as it opened into a wider section. A bank rose from the water ahead of us, shining with dampness, but large enough for us to get out.
I gripped Savvas’ arm and urged him toward the bank. “Over here!”
Fatigue weighed my legs as I swam out of the middle of the river, fighting the current that threatened to wash us past the bank if we weren’t fast enough. Savvas wasn’t faring any better than me. His movements were sluggish and uncoordinated.
My toes banged into a rock, and the dull pain ricocheted up my leg. I planted my foot on the ground, wading through the water towards the bank. We stumbled into the shallows before my knees buckled. Savvas fell to his hands and knees, hacking up more water. His skin was pale. Almost blue. His teeth chattered behind pale lips but he still gripped my wrist and hauled me to my feet as he rose. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Chest heaving, I sprinted with him to one of the holes bored into the wall, knowing what they were now. Bug holes. Massive, terrifying, Elven bug holes. I slung a glance over my shoulder at the dark water and our sopping footprints on the damp rock before we darted into the tunnel. I hope the elves weren’t following us downstream, because we left a clear path.
I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that they were somehow tracking the magic that slipped from my body. Twice now it had happened and we’d been found in a matter of seconds. More than a coincidence.
The elves didn’t have to follow us downstream and track our wet footprints to find us. All they had to do was wait until I slipped up again. Savvas held my wrist in a death grip. He tugged me around a corner and into a branching passage. Tunnel after tunnel we stumbled through until my legs gave way and I couldn’t take another step.
He collapsed next to me, both of us heaving for breath, leaning against a jagged wall in the middle of a tunnel with no end or beginning. A maze built to wear down and confuse. It was an efficient trap. One in which we could suffer a slow death.
“There’s no way out,” I gasped, shoving aside the dark thought.
“We’ll find one. Got to get you back,” Savvas said, his fingers grazing the studs along my collarbone.
“I’m okay for now. Titan’s stopped calling me back.” The studs were barely simmering. Either Titan thought me dead or this was a reprieve. I leaned toward the reprieve. If I was incapacitated, I couldn’t get back. Titan may be insane, but he wasn’t stupid.
Savvas picked me up and put me in his lap, pressing me into his chest. “He’ll make them hurt you again, won’t he?”
I didn’t want the concern that whispered through the tendril of his soul-light. “You should be more concerned with Ashir and Dias. Elves have them, Savvas. Elves!” I’d never seen an elf. “What in the seven hells are they doing here?”
“This looks to be where they live. They must have hidden here all this time,” Savvas said.
“No wonder no-one comes back from the wastelands. If the never-ending tunnels don’t get you, the elves will,” I whispered. Stories from the Bloodthirsty War told of their fierceness. They’d slaughtered millions of humans before The Six made shifters and fought back. It had taken a magical creature to fight a magical creature and still shifters were vilified. I sighed. Nothing would overcome a millennia of oppression. Not even when shifters had saved millions more human lives. It didn’t make sense, but not much in this world did.
“If I knew what they wanted, I could talk to them,” Savvas said.
“You didn’t hear him? He said I’d stolen something from them,” I said.
Savvas gaped at me. The moment stretched, growing uncomfortable. “I didn’t understand him. Maybe I didn’t hear him properly. Is that what he said? That he thought we’d stolen something?”
I didn’t know what to think. There were so many maybes as to why the elf had been clear to me and not Savvas. I’d misheard many things in the moment under pressure. “Whatever he thinks I took, I clearly don’t have.” It was pretty hard to hide anything I might have stolen without clothing to hide it in. “Maybe we can communicate with them. They’ll see I have nothing and…”
“And what? They’ll apologize for the attempts on our lives, guide us back to the surface and let us all go on our merry way?” Savvas said. His worry bled through the barrier, blending with mine because they’d most probably slaughter us.
However, I would reanimate. Maybe I could use this curse to my advantage. “They want me. Not necessarily you. I’ll let them find me. They’ll lead you to Ashir and Dias, and you can escape.”
Savvas’ fingers dented my skin. Horror washed over his face. “I won’t use you as bait!”
“It’s the only way.” If they killed me, I’d reanimate. They wouldn’t.
