Page 19 of He Who Ignites The Flame
My mouth clamped shut at how the air was pulled from my lungs, my voice muffled—as if my name had been swallowed up and swept away into nothingness as it passed through my lips, leaving me hollow and lost, as if a part of me had been taken. The voice didn’t respond, leaving me in a sea of silence.
Mama?
The air was cold and damp as it filled my lungs, and a strange sensation crawled over my skin, something unnatural and dreadful. I was moving… No. I was being carried.
My eyes cracked open, lids heavy and fighting to slip closed again. I was cradled in someone’s arms, my body swaying with each echoing step of boots against stone. I couldn’t make out who carried me, their face shadowed under their hood as the dark slabs of rock surrounding us.
I groaned, my body weak, as if my muscles and bones had been lulled into a deep rest.
Sleep.
My eyes threatened to close again.
Rest.
Yes. Rest. Rest sounded nice.
My lids slowly slid shut, but with the next shift of the person’s step, the little wooden pegasus tucked against my chest threatened to fall, and I stiffened. I clung to it before it could slip from my grasp, and the woody, smoky scent of the boy with steel eyes that lingered in his coat I still wore reached my nose, nearly drowned out by the musty, damp smell of the cave. He promised he would come back for me, but I had wandered from our spot by the creek. Where was I?
A hiss echoed through the cave as we passed the mouth of another tunnel, and for a moment I thought I saw eyes watching from the dark depths—six enormous eyes, but they vanished almost as quickly as they’d appeared, leaving me wondering if I’d dreamt them up.
“I see you’re awake,” the male carrying me said, the old language leaving his tongue fluidly, but still, I understood them. There was something dark in his amber eyes, shadowed in the darkness of his hood, something that flared every instinct within me to get away. I gasped and jerked back, pushing out of his arms. He grunted, and I spilled from his grasp before crashing onto the stone below. The rock bit into my side, and I twisted onto my hands and knees.
He cursed under his breath, reaching for me as I scrambled away. The cut on my foot stung as it reopened, leaving a broken trail of blood along the stone behind me. I crashed into the rocky wall, and my chest heaved as I frantically looked around the narrow cave. My pulse thrummed in my ears as I searched for any means of escape, but we were deep under the mountain, only the dim light of...
I scrunched my eyes as I watched the little floating orbs of light fluttering and flickering around us,withus. They were like fireflies, only they weren’t. They were something else, something that didn’t belong here.
“You won’t get far. Just come quietly, and you won’t get hurt,” the male said, approaching me cautiously. He didn’t sound at all like he meant the words he spoke. He held his hands out as if showing he was unarmed, not dangerous, but instinct told me not to trust him. Mama’s voice danced across my thoughts, drawing back to the present.
Always trust your instincts, mikros.The beast protects us.
I shrank away from his hands. His fingers were decorated with rings, the near-gray skin of his knuckles peeking from his fingerless glovesmarked with black ink. As I took him in, I noticed more ink marking the skin along the side of his throat before disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. They were intricate inscriptions like those written in the books Papa read to me in the Archivallia—the old language of the gods. Movement caught my eye from behind him. There were others like him, unconscious children in their arms as well. They had all stopped, watching and waiting.
He grabbed hold of my arm, and I screamed despite the pain lancing up my throat. “Come here, girl!”
I kicked his chest, fighting to free myself from his grip with everything I had. The unnatural feeling coiled around me once more. He dragged me farther into the cave. “No!”
“Stop fighting me. There’s no escaping now,” he grunted.
I realized my hands were empty, and my eyes darted to the tiny wooden pegasus lying on the stone behind us, the distance growing with each step.
“No!” I reached for it, my voice hoarse and cracking as I cried out, my vision blurring. “Arion!”
“Rhyas,” a male ahead of us called, and my captor stiffened. “Don’t fall behind. She blessed our passage, but Scylla may mistake you for an intruder if you’re not with the group.”
“Understood,” Rhyas said stiffly, a hint of panic painting his tone for a moment as he tightened his grip on me.
“You’ve got your hands full with that one,” one of the others said, but I didn’t see who, too busy pulling against his hold to get back to Arion. I couldn’t leave him behind; he was the only thing I had left of home.
Rhyas didn’t ease up his grip. He scooped me up, his arm looping around my stomach as he hoisted me against his side. He didn’t seem even remotely fazed as I kicked and hit him. “She’s got fight, that’s for sure.”
I froze as the one he spoke with fell into step at our side.
The male lowered his hood, his shadowed green eyes dragging over me, assessing me, and my heart stuttered when I saw the short, curved horns protruding from his forehead, the delicately pointed ears peeking from beneath his tawny hair, and the thin tail swaying behind him with each step. “Good. He’ll be pleased with this one. She’ll be perfect for The Pits.”
The Pits? Dread crawled over my skin as we continued deeper and deeper into the cave. My body cried out, instinct screaming within me.
Don’t go there, little one! Stay away!
