Page 102 of Born into Darkness

Chapter 27

Ahammering noise in the middle of the night awoke me, and I sat up, half-dazed, rubbing my eyes. I expected it to be Grimm banging on my door, telling us to get ready to leave.

No. I didn’t want to go just yet. Morning had come too soon. Just last night, I’d spent time with Shadow, letting my fears drift away, allowing him to take me to amazing heights then falling asleep in his arms, the comfort of his body chasing away all my regular nightmares.

The thud sounded again. Distant. Hollow. Echoing.

Damn it.What was that?

At the thought of it being another message from my mirror, my heartbeat picked up. What if it related to our mission? Another horrible ploy of my stepmother’s laid bare? We couldn’t walk into a trap if one awaited us. I had to check.

I glanced at Shadow beside me. He was still asleep, dead to the world, his heavy breathing rhythmic and soothing. The dulled light of the crystal gave his skin an ethereal glow, like moonlight. Kind of fitting, considering the panthers hunted in the dark.

I crawled off the bed, moving slowly to avoid waking him. A few steps on the cold stone floor carried me to the drawers. The mirror lay face down, and I picked it up, turning it over. My stomach clenched with anticipation of what I’d find. Only my own reflection met me in the glass.

Thank the sea god.

But what had made that noise then? Something in my dream perhaps?

As I crept back into bed beside Shadow, I heard it again, rumbling from somewhere below my chamber. Curious, I got back up, threw on my pants, a shirt, and a jacket, and went to investigate. At the door, I listened, trying to get my bearings. At the next noise, I knew I had to go south along the corridor, down to the storage troves of the resistance, where they kept the weapons, water, food, and other such materials.

Why was no one else…well, the few who remained unaffected by the poison, anyway…awake and investigating?

A few guards on duty eyeballed me as I went, as if they wondered where I was off to. In a few moments, I’d descended the chiseled staircase and arrived in a tunnel leading to the armory and storage facility.

A few thuds called my attention to the left, to a door at the end of the hall. I snatched a crystal, using it to light my way as I entered the door. I continued on, down another winding staircase to a tunnel glowing a hundred feet ahead of me.

Fire from a sconce burning at the end of the tunnel revealed someone chiseling at the ground with a pickaxe. Who was that? From my position so far away, I couldn’t make out the darkened figure’s face. What were they doing, digging in the middle of the night? Intrigued, I inched along the rocky tunnel, squinting to make out the features of a dwarf dressed in dark clothing. Resting on a nearby rock was a folded set of chainmail armor.

Axe. I’d recognize his getup anywhere.

He must have heard me approach, and he glanced at me, stopping his digging to wipe sweat from his brow. Just how long had he been down here? He needed rest for tomorrow if we were to launch our rescue mission.

“What are you doing down here in the middle of the night?” I asked him.

“A little digging always helps me think before a battle,” he said, setting the tool aside to take a swig of water from his pouch.

“What is this place?” I asked, scanning the dusty, rocky tunnel.

“One of several long-forgotten dwarf tunnels,” he said, returning the pouch to its place beside his armor. “A bunch of us have been working to unearth them to give us easy passage across Wildfire.”

“Where does this one lead to?” I examined the boards of wood nailed to the dirt to prevent anyone from accessing the tunnels.

“Tritonia,” he said, his face scrunching with fatigue.

Tritonia. The way down the foothills led to Shadow’s plantation. With all the hunters and assassins venturing around—and the dragon king out for the panthers’ and my blood—I didn’t feel safe from another attack. Once my stepmother gazed into her evil mirror, she would have discovered the panthers and I had survived the last onslaught from her hunters. This knowledge would have spurred her to send larger search parties out looking for us. How would a party of twenty rescuers fare against a large pack of hunters? It was a scenario I didn’t want to contemplate, but I had to.

“Do the tunnels lead to the slave camps?” I asked.

“They haven’t been used in hundreds of years,” Axe said. “They’re unstable and dangerous. They’re prone to collapsing and need to be cleared and braced to prevent further deterioration. But that takes time and dwarfpower.” He kicked a small rock. “Something we don’t have much of.”

The words “unstable” and “dangerous” chimed in my head like the fire warning bells back in my hometown. Just like the fact that we had no time to repair any of the unstable tunnels walls. My back and shoulders hunched, but I refused to give up hope. Between the two choices—overland or under—they still might be better off taking the tunnel. Tomorrow, I’d present the alternative idea to Grimm before we left. Most likely, he’d say no because of the instability risk. But if there was a small possibility the tunnels would remain stable enough for us to pass through them, then we should investigate the option. If I could save one life from a hunter attack by doing so, then it was worth it.

***

The next morning,I sprang out of bed before the rousing bell went off, throwing on my pants, a fresh shirt, and a vest. I didn’t choose the dress because it was harder to run in.

“Where are you going?” Shadow asked, pulling on his own clothes, covering up that gorgeous body of his, making my heart sigh with disappointment.

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