Page 86 of The Lost Prince
“Where’d you learn the word decrepit?” I said before I could help myself.
Even though it was pitch black, I could feel the derision emanating off her.
“Gods, you’re such an asssometimes,” she said back, her voice breaking.
I wasn’t sure what all the upset was about. It was a simple question; not an insult.
“Another girl you competed with, I bet,” I said, more to myself than her. I remembered her saying before that the other girls reaped with her taught her a few things.
I wondered where they were now. Married to Nobles? Dead?
It was such a waste, wasn’t it?
“Yes, say it. If you didn’t need me, you’d punch me in the nose,” I commented wryly, stumbling over a rock when I didn’t pick my foot up high enough. “Enough of this. I’m lighting a torch.”
I stopped and retrieved the little kit from my waist. We tried not to use it unless we had to. This was certainly an appropriate time.
“Took you long enough,” Shava goaded me. “I wanted to see how long you’d stumble around in the dark before succumbing. Can’t you just turn on your glowy skin?”
My eyes narrowed at her. Not that she could see them. Yet.
“Ha. So funny.”
I fumbled with the pouch in the darkness and the flint clattered to the ground. Shava made a tsking sound and snatched the materials from me.
“Allow me, or we’ll be here all day.”
“You’re in a pissy mood today,” I commented.
“Probably has something to do with being surrounded by idiots no matter if I’m in the mud quarter or the Seat or a cave,” she shot back.
I squashed the urge to squash her, because she was much better at lighting torches than I was, and my poor shins wouldn’t take much more abuse.
After a bit of grumbling, sparks flew, and then the small torch ignited, illuminating her dirty, tired face.
Not that mine was likely to look any better.
Shava led the way down the tunnel, which (now that we could see) looked much rougher and haphazard than the one that had led from the mines into the mud quarter. Rough lines and hack marks were etched deep into the stone walls, and the path wasn’t straight or even at all.
“Seemed like a rush job,” Shava said, not necessarily to me.
Silently, I agreed.
Continuing to study the marks as we walked, a pattern emerged.
“They’re all facing outwards, with the deeper cuts away from us,” I remarked.
Shava paused, putting a hand up against the wall to feel the deep grooves with her fingers.
“They dug outward from the capital,” she surmised.
I grinned. It was satisfying when someone could follow your train of thought.
“An escape tunnel then?” she asked.
“Or something else,” I murmured.
We continued our journey in silence. Eventually, the tunnel narrowed until we were forced on our hands and knees. I tried in vain to quell the burgeoning panic as all the memories of nearly dying in a cave surrounded me.
