Page 26 of Traveling with Gentlemen
Amon's sigh was heavy and Jonathon patted him on the shoulder nodding. "It was worth a try. Very well, everyone. Keep close together."
Auguste collected the lamps from the saddle bags as Ezra tethered our donkeys to a pillar. I wrapped my arm around Booker's and we stood in the center of our party.
"We don't know what we'll face inside. What traps Birsha has set for those brave enough to enter," Amon warned, gaze glowing as he looked over his shoulder to each of us in turn. "If I decide the danger is too great and tell you to turn back, you do so. Please."
Ezra snorted softly behind me and Jonathon's lips pursed at the order but we all nodded our assent.
Amon raised his lantern high and we walked forward as one, into the black.
Light was swallowed immediately, like the burning wick of a candle smothered under glass. Booker's hand covered mine on his arm and I reached out with my free hand to clutch the draped fabric of Amon's coat. I crossed over the threshold and the last blue glow of the night sky vanished, my vision coated in a thick nothingness. I shivered, grateful for the warmth of Amon's coat in my grip, the strength of Booker's arm to hold onto.
With my shiver, a touch crawled over my shoulder, the pressure of thin fingertips, the slide of long digits, until a hand was clasped in place, holding onto me just as I held onto Amon and Booker. Ezra was at my back, it could've been his touch, but I knew his hands, the way they felt as they touched me, as well as I knew my own. This was not my lover.
"Does anyone else…" I trailed off. My words were murky, muffled in cotton, and the air on my tongue was fuzzy and uncomfortable. I sealed my lips shut as the grip on my shoulder tightened, and seemed to drag behind me like dead weight. I ignored its force, followed the gentle tug of Amon's coat, the steady momentum of Booker at my side. A warm touch grappled at my waist and this time itwasfamiliar, Ezra latching onto me in the dark.
I sighed, ignored the pinching pain on my shoulder and held tight to safety even as the minutes seemed to drag on. Were we moving at all or had we come to a stop? My feet were moving, but the sensation of them was lost, disconnected from my body. My hand gripping fabric grew numb, and then my arm around Booker's. Soon, all I felt was the deep ache of the touch on my shoulder, bony fingers clamping and digging. I folded my lips between my teeth to keep from crying out, and blinked my eyes as acidic tears rolled down my cheeks.
If I turn back, the others will follow, a weak and frightened part of me thought.If there was real danger, Amonwouldturn back, I reminded myself.
And with that thought, a flicker and then a bloom of light appeared in front of me. Amon's lamp! It glowed again as if it had never been snuffed out, just buried from our view. Relief arrived with a gusting breath, my forgotten feet stumbling forward and landing me against Amon's broad back. He too was heaving with breath, Jonathon kneeling down, his head hanging from his shoulders.
"Well, that was suitably awful," Jonathon whispered.
"Just as a cursed tomb ought to be," Auguste agreed, sliding down to the floor and skirting away from the darkness that hovered at our backs.
Ezra arrived, collapsing into me, so that he, Amon, and I nearly went toppling forward if not for Booker's steady hands catching us. My arm slid around Amon's chest, and his fingers grabbed onto me as fiercely as the haunted grip that had now vanished from my shoulder. But his touch was infinitely more welcome.
"You're well, my star?" Amon asked.
Ezra righted us both and my eyes opened wide as I took in the vast antechamber we'd arrived in. The room was rounded and as large as Sofia's broad courtyard. The walls rose up carved with archaic symbols and figures, formed on the interior of the mountain, narrowing the higher they went. Monstrous arms and hands held torches in their grasp, the fire burning there an eerie and sour yellow shade, sapping the room of any color. Four archways were spaced evenly around the edge of the room, still figures of statues seated inside, and in the center sat a large platform. No. A stone coffin. Birsha's supposed grave.
If only he had stayed in it.
"Esther?" Amon prompted again, reaching for me.
I flinched as he grasped my shoulder, covering the spot with my hand and he drew me closer, pushing my collar aside.
"Something held me in the dark," I murmured, mouth still a little fuzzy.
Amon nodded, and I reached for his face, the view of him so welcome after the endless shadow. "I nearly dropped the lamp," he answered, lifting his hand to show me the bruising on his wrist. I bent my head, kissing the mark.
"Let's get a little farther away from the horrifying hallway, if we don't mind," Ezra cued, nudging my back.
"Cheeky ass," Auguste murmured, smiling and rising from the floor, helping Jonathon.
"That's where the shadow monsters grabbed me," Ezra replied with a wink.
I burst out in a sudden, slightly delirious laugh, and the sound rang throughout the room, bouncing against the carved walls. It was the wrong place entirely for such a laugh, but it seemed to brighten the expressions of my gentlemen.
"What first?" Booker asked as we moved deeper into the room.
"I want to know what exactly is in that tomb," Jonathon said, nodding toward the enormous stone box in the heart of the space.
"No doubt something just as terrible as the last trap we walked into," Ezra muttered in my ear.
I bumped my hip to his and he grinned at me, slinging an arm over my shoulders and kissing my temple.
"You all right?" I asked.
