Page 87 of The Delver
Callie threw herself against him, hugging him, as more tears slid down her cheeks. But even through those tears, she smiled. “Your spider butt is perfect to me.”
Chittering softly, he hooked a finger under her chin and tilted her face toward his. His touch was so light, so delicate, as he slid his hand up to brush the tears from her cheeks. He crooned. “No more leaking eyes. Save your water.”
A soft laugh escaped her. “I’ll try.”
With Callie’s assistance, he tended his wounds with sticky silk, and then he helped her get the excess off her fingertips.Seeing him patched up helped calm her a bit more. Vrix healed fast, and they tended to ignore most minor wounds, but all she could think about was the germs and dirt that they were exposed to while traipsing around the jungle.
Of course, all her things were soaked again, but she’d take sopping clothing over death any day.
There was only one way for them to go. Callie had to bite her tongue to keep herself from trying to talk him out of it, from urging him to rest, because she knew he was right. They had to move. She wasn’t sure if the spiritstriders would figure out that their quarry had fled underwater, but it would be for the best if she and Urkot weren’t here to find out.
So she climbed onto Urkot’s hindquarters again, mindful of those freshly covered wounds, and assisted him in binding their bodies together with a silk strand. Rather than simply looping it around their waists, they created something much closer to a makeshift harness.
It reminded Callie of the way skydiving students were strapped to their instructors on their first jumps—a thought she quickly pushed away, because she didnotwant to fill her head with images of people freefalling through the air when Urkot was about to carry her up a vertical shaft.
She clung to him as he climbed. Her muscles screamed whenever they tensed, sore from the strain of trying to free him from the underwater passageway.
Not going there.
The sooner she could forget that moment, the better. She never wanted to experience that fear again.
The shaft led straight up. Crystal formations of various sizes grew from its walls, filling it with light, and moisture trickled down the stone. Urkot’s muscles flexed and stretched as, foot by foot, he ascended.
As they moved higher, the air warmed, and soon patches of lichen and viny plants were scattered amidst the crystals and stone. Callie didn’t look down. She was aware of the chamber below getting farther and farther away, and that would’ve concerned her had she been with anyone else. But she felt utterly secure with Urkot.
Above them, the light was even brighter, as though wherever this shaft led was absolutely flooded with the blue glow that she was coming to appreciate so much. Of course, her appreciation was likely due to the fondness she’d developed for the color even before getting trapped in this cave system…
When they reached the top, Urkot hauled himself onto solid ground, moved away from the edge of the shaft, and let out a heavy breath. The air was heavier here, warm and humid, a welcome change after the cold that had settled into Callie’s bones.
Callie gasped as she peered around, eyes widening.
Of all the wondrous sights she’d seen down here, this cavern made the top of her list. It had a high ceiling covered in stalactites and glowworms so numerous that they resembled the stars in the night sky. Stalagmites rose from below, most of them beneath their inverted counterparts. Lush plants grew in many places, giving off glows of their own, and huge clusters of crystal shone on the walls, again making her feel like she was standing inside a geode. Raised pools of steaming water covered nearly half the cavern floor, from which a few more rock formations rose.
Hot springs. Fucking hot springs!
Urkot sliced away the cord binding them together, and Callie hurriedly slid off him, stepping forward to look around in awe.
She approached the nearest wall, one of the few without crystals. Its surface glistened with moisture and was shaped in bulbous, smooth tiers that cascaded down to create somethingresembling cresting ocean waves that had been flash frozen. “I think this is an active flowstone!”
Urkot moved up beside her, regarding the wall with his head cocked. “Flowstone?”
“Yeah! The water is depositing tiny traces of minerals that have been building up over eons, forming the stone. That makes it look like…like melting wax.”
He extended a hand toward it.
“No!” Callie grabbed his arm and halted it before he could touch the flowstone. “You’ll kill it.”
Turning his head, he blinked at her. “It is stone, Callie.”
“I don’t mean literally. The oils in your hand—well, I’m not sure about a vrix hand, but definitely a human hand—will disrupt the flow of water and stop the deposits from building up. So it would basically stop the stone from forming.”
Turning his attention back to the stone, Urkot lowered his arm and leaned his face a little closer. “I have seen stone like this. Sometimes, we call it bleeding stone. But I did not know it is still…growing.”
She leaned forward to look more closely, bracing her hands on her thighs. “It happens so slowly that you’d have to live for thousands of years to notice any real change.”
He hummed thoughtfully.
Together, they stepped back and surveyed the rest of the chamber. There seemed to be only one exit apart from the shaft, a tunnel opening just tall enough for Urkot to fit through if he stooped down. In a show of impressive strength, he shifted a slab-like boulder from nearby and, with much grunting and grumbling, positioned it in front of the opening, effectively covering it.
