Dragon Sword (The Dragon Lord’s Bride #2)

Chapter 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“What was that?” one of the elves shouted above us.

Will dropped off the door and shrugged me off his shoulders before he closed the portals behind us, shutting out all light. I quickly held out my hand and my sword extended from my palm, illuminating the stone tunnel in which we found ourselves. The doors had not only effectively shut out the light but all sound, as well. If our entrance had been noticed we heard nothing from the guards.

I turned away from the entrance and held up my weapon. My light illuminated the dark tunnel and revealed a long tunnel that stretched beyond the glow of the sword. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of smoothed cobblestones and, as far as I could see, were without doors.

Will came up beside me and studied the dark interior with his red eyes. “Stay close.”

I didn’t need him to remind me as we walked down the stone passage. Our shoes clacked loudly along the rocks and the air grew cooler. The spartan surroundings slowly changed as plant roots crept out of the walls and grass peeked out from the stones beneath our feet. A strange heavy air wrapped around us, binding me in a cold blanket that made me shiver.

“Why is it so cold?” I asked my companion. He didn’t reply so I looked up at Will. “Will?”

Will stopped and turned his head to stare down at me. His red eyes were now lifeless and the black sores covered his face.

I screamed and stumbled backward until my back hit the wall. He stumbled toward me as pus boiled from his sores and his lips curled into a snarl. I ducked out of reach of his grasping hands and tripped over my own feet. My side hit the stone floor hard but crawled backward on my arms as he lunged at me. I flung up my arms and shut my eyes. A bright light burst out of my palms, blinding me even through my eyelids.

“Rose!”

A pair of strong arms shook me. My eyes flew open and I found myself staring into Will’s frightened face. His wide eyes flickered over my face as his hands grasped my upper arms.

I blinked and looked around us. We stood in the tunnel amidst the roots and the grass. “W-what happened?”

A breath escaped him and his hands on me relaxed. He searched my face for the same answers I wanted. “You froze and wouldn’t reply to my questions.”

I cupped my forehead in one palm and scrunched up my face. “Is that. . .that’s not how I remember it at all. You didn’t answer my question and when I looked at your face you were-” I froze and the color drained from my face. I clapped his face between my hands and searched him over. “You’re okay, aren’t you?”

He gently grasped my hands and smiled. “I am fine.”

I scoured the area around us. “So what exactly happened?”

“The magic of the tunnels,” he reminded me as he, too, inspected the space with pursed lips. “It feeds off your worst fears and drives you back to the exit.” I recalled the mirage and shuddered. He drew me against his chest and into a nice, warm hug. “There is nothing to what you saw. The magic can only frighten you. It cannot predict the future.”

I took a deep, shaky breath and nodded. “I’m ready. Let’s get going.”

Will took my hand and we ventured deeper into the tunnel with his flame providing light. We hurried our steps and soon found the scenery changing again. The roots thickened and the grass cracked the cobblestones and there were now doors and side passages. Soon a maze presented itself to us and we stopped at a crossroads with both of us looking this way and that.

“Where do we go?” I asked my guide.

He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

My face fell. “You haven’t been here?”

“Not in this particular spot in the manalla,” he confirmed.

I swallowed the growing lump in my throat and looked around. “Then we guess.”

Will smiled down at me. “The tunnels lead over the entirety of the city. We may become lost.”

“If that happens we’ll dig our way out,” I suggested as I squeezed his hand. “But at least we’ll be chewing through stone together.”

He chuckled and looked ahead of us. “There are certainly worse circumstances. Now let-” He paused as a scuffing sound came from somewhere head.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. “What was that?”

“We should find out,” he mused as he led me down the leftward path.

His flame wavered as we moved quickly down the passage. Its light danced along the walls and illuminated doors with small storage rooms and other hallways. I smelled the stench of rot and I nearly choked on the damp that suffocated us. In a minute we had reached a spot where the doors had changed to cells.

“Is this another dungeon?” I asked my companion as we passed one of the cages. The shadows were so deep that I couldn’t see anything in it.

“It would appear so,” Will mused as he slowed his pace and held his light higher to illuminate the depths.

A hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed my arm. “What are you doing here?’

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the voice and Will was quick to grab the hand and jerk it off me. The arm retreated into the darkness and a bitter laugh came from the shadows beyond the cell bars. The voice was familiar and Will lifted his flame to illuminate the space.

Terve’s sallow face stared back at us. He was so changed that I hardly recognized him, so pale was his face and so sunken his eyes. Their depths looked as if nearly all the light had been extinguished.

“I never expected to see you, or at least so soon and without escort,” Terve commented.

I stared at him in horror. “What happened to you?”

“Elves need to absorb light to keep their magic,” Will explained as he studied the elf with pity. “Without it, they wither like a plant.”

“And thrice as fast,” Terve chimed in with his bitter smile as he stumbled back into the darkness. His faint outlaw fell against the rear wall and he slid down to the cold floor. “We die within a fortnight without sun.”

I stepped up to the bars and grasped them in my hands as tears came to my eyes. “This is because you helped us, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “It is because I helped my people by telling you our troubles and I have no regrets about that. Neither should you.”

“We will get you out of here,” Will spoke up as he grasped one of the bars.

“No.” The word was said in such a firm tone that Will paused. Terve met both our eyes with his resolved gaze. “Should they discover me missing then I will have caused you to fail in your mission. That is, provided you have come to search out the truth.”

“What truth do you know?” Will inquired.

Terve sighed. “That the humans kept in the dungeons above this one are not the only ones that have been spotted in the woods these past six months.”

My eyebrows shot up. “There were others?”

He held up one finger. “A single woman clad in a dark cloak. She was spotted in the shadows of the stones six months ago. Our scouts attempted to capture her but she vanished as silently as a shadow. We only know that she was an old woman and had the scent of mortality on her. She was again sighed only three weeks hence and again around the stones, but we could not catch her.”

“How could she just disappear?” I asked him.

The elf shook his head. “Some great magic must be aiding her, but her arrival both times brought calamity. The first was the initial infection and the second heralded even more change in the animals and even in the trees. Many have blackened trunks that we have managed to hide only with great magic skill.”

“Why did you not tell us this information earlier?” Will questioned him.

The general turned his face to one side. “I gave an oath as a general to my king that I would tell no one of the intrusion save for my men. Now that I am a civilian my oath is broken.”

Will studied him with a curious look in his red eyes. “Did you intend to relinquish your command to break that oath? Is that why you helped us at the stones?”

A bittersweet smile slipped onto his lips. “Whatever I do I do it to help my people. I believe the king is in the wrong by keeping our people oblivious to the trouble but he will not believe they are capable of handling that truth. He has no plans to tell them the dangerous truth. His only actions were silence from his guards and to send Luja out to the world at the knight’s behest.”

Will frowned. “At Luja’s behest? It wasn’t the king’s idea?”

Terve shook his head. “It was Luja who insisted on the trip. He so pestered the king that His Highness sickened of his pleas and allowed him to leave.”

I looked up at Will and saw his brow had darkened. “Why would he lie to us?”

Will folded his arms over his chest and his eyes shone with a flickering light of curiosity. “It makes one ponder what else he may have lied to us about but he will have to wait.” He dropped his arms and met the frail eyes of the elf. “We’ll search for the truth on your behalf and do whatever is within our power to help your people fend off this shadow.”

Terve bowed his head. “That is all I ask.”