Page 72 of Across an Endless Sea

“They’ve dug tunnels under the south-east section of the outer wall, Knight Commander,” one of the other knights says. “Luckily, they’d just received reinforcements, but the Fomorians are inside and they can’t hold them alone.”

“Get every spare soldier over there,” Jaro orders. “I’m going. Tell Ascal that the palace is under her command. And get another airborne patrol to do a sweep of the quiet sections of the wall. Look for dead lines of crops. There could be more.”

“Yes, Knight Commander.”

His orders are met with a grim-faced salute.

Jaro turns to face me next. “Are you with me?”

The corners of my lips twitch, and I reach to my spine, to the twin blades inked there, drawing them in a flash of black mist. “Can’t wait.”

Maybe killing Fomorians will do something to break the numbness.

We rush to the door just as Drystan strides through, missing a hand and caked from head to toe in sand and mud.

“What happened to you?” Jaro asks, looking at him with concern. “Never mind. Tell us later. Get that looked at and look after Wraith.”

The barghest looks up at Jaro with big red eyes, confused, then back at Drystan with a distrustful expression. Drystan’s anger at the idea of pup-sitting is obvious, but he doesn’t get a chance to protest before the two of us rush out towards the fray.

Twenty-Three

Rhoswyn

In hindsight, jumping feet-first into a deadly maze of caves full to the brim with tunnel wyrms mightnothave been my brightest idea.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much choice.

I slip and slide down the wet and rocky shaft in the dark. The tight, near-vertical tunnel seems never-ending. The water has worn the sides smooth and widened the way over time, but every now and again, there’s a narrow section where there’s so little space that I worry about becoming stuck. Salt water splashes everywhere, getting in my eyes, my mouth, and filling the tunnel with the scent of brine.

The deeper I slide the damper the air gets, until every inhale feels sticky and suffocating. This latest section of the chute seems to be the tightest yet, which isn’t helping the claustrophobia creeping in, and I hug my arms around myself, praying for this to be over quickly.

Then it is.

I soar through open air for the longest five seconds of my life. My stomach drops, and I let out a shriek of surprise before I plunge into the freezing water with an enormous splash that steals what little breath I have left. Somehow, I find the sense to kick against the current until my head breaks the surface of the water. Coughing and spluttering, I wince at my own soreness.

As much as I hate to admit it, Caed was right.

That ordeal would’ve been an awful lot worse if I’d gone down headfirst.

Judging by the way my scream echoes, the cavern I’m in is immense, and it’s so dark that I can’t see the walls. The only illumination comes from the bitterblues, but even those only seem to grow around the hole in the ceiling from which the white falls plunge into the lake.

The air is still warm, but the water is cold, and I’m soaked through. I need to get out of the lake before I freeze to death, but I have no idea which direction to go in.

Can tunnel wyrms swim? Are they underneath me right now? I should’ve asked Caed for more details.

“Mab?” I call. “Maeve? Titania?”

My guides appear, wings spread as they hover above the surface of the water.

At least I’m not alone.

“I need to find my way to the bank,” I whisper. “Can you fly—?”

I barely need to finish before Mab and Maeve are soaring away in opposite directions, quickly swallowed by the gloom. Titania stays with me, offering a small, flickering smile of encouragement.

Treading water quickly starts to get tiring. There must be a current, because I’m drifting away from the waterfall quickly, and soon it too becomes impossible to see the pillar of water. The roaring it makes is the only sound beyond my own, labouring breaths.

That’s a good sign, right? Surely something as terrifying as a tunnel wyrm would make noise.

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