Page 116 of The Girl in the Forest

I studied the dancing fire, the sinuous movement of the flames. Licked my lips, sipped the sweet tea. I listened to the lulling sound of muffled voices, urging me to sleep when I should be on edge.

When I should be aware of each minute that passed while we did… nothing.

Every faille sense prickled…

“We should move,” I said.

“We will,” Cybelle answered. Her back was to me. So was Kazamir’s. I dragged my gaze over Levi, Laura. Brin. They were sitting… staring.

I braced against a rock and stood, swaying for an instant before I swept up my bow and nocked an arrow, turning on instinct, watching from the corners of my eyes for the telltale bend of light. The mark of illusion or magic. I spotted the flicker at the top of a tunnel opening. The arrow flew. Light flashed, then exploded, kicking up bits of gravel.

“Everybody—run!” Blood pounded in my head. I was kicking out the fire, knocking over the tea.

“Cybelle,” Julien roared. Kazamir was straightening, puzzlement on his face. I bent to haul Levi to his feet. Laura and Brin were locked together as they stood. I snatched up my backpack, then thought better of it and tossed it aside.

“Leave everything,” I said. “We don’t know what’s safe.”

“Go, go, go!” Julien was shouting now. Cybelle looked around, assessed, then turned and followed Kazamir into one tunnel. The rest of us followed.

“What’s going on?” Laura asked. She was breathing hard. Her voice was strained.

“I don’t know whose magic,” I said. “Amal’s or the vampires. But we were being lulled. In the smoke, or the tea. Illusion masked the tunnel. Something was coming.”

I knew that with certainty. Either more deadly tendrils, or Barend and his wolf hybrids. Some fresh horror because we’d all been forgetting who we were, and why we were there.

The tunnel narrowed, darkened, and grew coldly claustrophobic. Only Brin thought to grab a flashlight. As my feet scuffed and snagged on the rocks, the unsteady, fading light she held made rock angles and the lowering ceiling disorienting. Two miles, I kept telling myself. We could make it two miles and be out in the open. With the sky overhead and fresh air to breathe.

A blood-curdling scream brought us skidding to a halt, teetering at the brink of a gaping black pit. Below, I could see Kazamir. He’d fallen on a bed of spikes; black iron, covered with dripping gore. The spikes speared through his body… through his stomach… his leg… his back arching while his arms reached…

I stared at his face. His eyes were wide, puzzled. His mouth opened with no sound. Cybelle was rushing forward, bending toward him with her arms outstretched toward his...

Julien’s arm braced me while I flung my arms wide to stop Brin and Laura from following Cybelle. Levi surged to a halt as an ominous crack sounded and a slab of rock broke from overhead and plummeted, crushing Cybelle as she bent over Kazamir; they disappeared beneath a ton of black stone. Only a trace of red where Cybelle had been standing.

“Noa.” Julien gripped my shoulders. “Don’t look. Don’t think about it. Just climb over. Get out.”

I blinked with understanding. He wanted me to climb over the rock obstruction, over the crushed and buried bodies of Cybelle and Kazamir, like climbing over a fresh grave.

“No. Not without the rest of you. I’m not leaving.”

“There’s no time,” he hissed. “Listen!”

The sounds registered then, the grunting, snarling aggression from what were most likely tusked pigs with cloven hooves, echoing in the distance.

“We’ll be right behind you.”

But Julien was putting me first, because they had to keep me alive. Fuck that.

“Levi goes first,” I ordered. What good was being a faille with a dread lord sigil, if I couldn’t order people around?

“Laura and Brin next,” I added as I pounded against his shoulders, glared and held his warm brown gaze. “Then I’ll go and you’d better be right behind me, Julien, or so help me, I’m coming back for your ass.”

“Listen to you, all commando,” he teased, but his dark eyes swirled with concern.

Levi was already climbing into the cleft between the tunnel wall and the slab, then turning back to show Laura and Brin where to put their feet. Brin found a lip of stone for a handhold, levered herself upward. Her foot slipped and wedged sideways. My reaction was automatic. I held her ankle, forced a sliver of energy between her shoe and the stone until something gave enough to pull her foot free.

I followed them, my fingers slipping damply in the handholds. My focus was on my feet, not getting stuck. Not trembling so much. I was supposed to be calm, all commando, doing what was right.

Overhead, the slabs of rock pressed down at odd angles, narrowing the space into nearly impassable. I shimmied through on my stomach, wincing as sharp edges cut into my back. I worried Julien wouldn’t make it through, since he was larger than I was. But the vampire flattened himself into what reminded me of shadows, stilling my heart for the seconds it took him to slither through the slotted opening.

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