Page 75 of Across an Endless Sea

This time, the wall is too far away for me to grab. I cartwheel backwards, remember the tripwire, and at the last second pivot. Phew, that was close.

A fresh tremor strikes out of nowhere, wrecking my already precarious balance.

My left foot lands in the middle of the snare. I barely have a second to realise my mistake before my world turns upside down. My arms fly up, instinctively protecting my head as I’m hoisted into the air by my ankle.

The rumble stops a second later, but the damage is done.

I’m caught like a fly in a spider’s web. Still, I suppose I’m lucky this was one of the non-lethal traps.

“FUCK!” I curse, then snap my lips shut out of habit, looking around for someone to level a censorious glare at me. But I’m alone. I can curse as much as I damn please. “Fuck this. If you’re out there, come and kill me already.” I let my head fall back, sucking a shaking breath into my lungs. “I just want to go home.”

But no one comes. There’s no answer to my prayer for absolution. Only silent burning tears that prick at the corner of my eyes.

My three guides flock to me, their ghostly hands reaching out, unable to offer true comfort.

My head, already afflicted by the constant ache of being surrounded by iron, begins to pound in earnest only a few minutes in. No one is rushing to kill me, which leaves getting myself out of this mess as my only option. Grinding my teeth with determination, I tense my abdomen and crane my neck, twisting in an attempt to see where I’ve been caught. I don’t have a weapon, but maybe I can—

Nope. That knot doesn’t look like the easy to undo kind, even if I was sure I had the core strength required to reach it, which I’m not.

Okay. Next plan.

Maybe I can swing myself…

And then do what? All I’ll achieve is making myself dizzy.

I’m so damned short, I can’t even reach the floor with my arms outstretched.

A movement—more of a whisper of sound and shadow—catches my eye in the distance, but it’s gone a second later, and I dismiss it as Mab moving into the glow of a bitterblue. Titania says something, probably trying to comfort me, but I just shake my head at her.

“I just want it over,” I whisper. “I can’t… I can’t take much more of this. I just want to go back to Elfhame. I don’t care how much it hurts. When I see Danu, I’ll ask her to cut Caed from my Guard. I don’t know what she thought would happen, but he’s never going to choose me over Elatha…”

Another flicker of movement.

I frown into the gloom, cutting off my self-pitying rant as I wonder what fresh hell Fellgotha has in store for me now.

Then, just when I think things can’t possibly get any worse, the whole passage shudders and sways, making me spin on my rope. Rocks tumble, then explode outward from the cave wall beside me, showering me in dust and debris.

I have just enough time to take in a feline face with the jaw structure and fangs of a snake and a long black forked tongue before the rope spins, stealing my view.

On my next rotation, I realise thatthisis a tunnel wyrm.

It has two forelegs, covered in spotted, matted fur and decorated with deadly claws that it uses to pull itself farther into the passage. The fur melts into scales a few metres beyond the legs, but the pattern continues down its long, slender, snake-like tail, which flicks into the tunnel after it.

It must be forty feet long—longer, even—given the way it coils in on itself.

My guides move to stand beside me in a show of silent support, but the resignation in their eyes tells me that they don’t think there’s any way out of this for me.

A cloud of lime-green smoke billows out from its nose—the same colour as its tiny eyes. I try not to look as its warm, wet breath washes over me, but my eyelids won’t shut. My limbs go curiously limp, and my head lolls.

I can’t move.

Whatever is in the tunnel wyrm’s breath has paralysed me.

Now, with the creature bearing down on me, hissing and spitting, I finally understand why Caed and the other Fomorians are terrified of the beasts. Being unable to fight for your life, or even flee, would terrify almost anyone.

Hell, my own breathing has turned shallow and fast, and I was praying for death a minute ago. Perhaps the paralytic will work on my lungs next. Passing out before being eaten sounds like a mercy.

Please, please, let this be quick.

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