Page 132 of Kingdom of Embers and Ruin

“Be careful,” he warned.

Behind her, she could feel him withdraw his axe with one hand, his other hand staying close to her waist, prepared to pull her out of the way if it was a trap. Her friends gathered around behind her as well, weapons at the ready. Herrick squeezed her hip to signal her to continue.

Pulling her finger down the seam again, her hand was almost eye level with her when she felt the pad of her finger snag on something sharp, pricking her finger.

Without missing a beat, she continued her path down the seam, her blood shining on the rock in her wake. When Maude’s hand reached where her waist was, the pressure from the awareness lifted and disappeared. She stopped and waited, withdrawing her hand and wiping the small cut onto her pants.

At first, nothing happened. Herrick began to relax behind her while she readjusted her grip on her bow. Then, the moonlight shifted slightly in the sky. Shining onto the corner where Maude’s blood was drying, the moon illuminated the dark red line until it glowed as bright as the stars. Herrick took a step back, his hand going to Maude’s waist to pull her with him.

The ground beneath them began to shake, and a high-pitched grinding sound deafened them. Before Maude’s eyes, a crack big enough for an adult to get through opened from where she had run her finger over. Maude raised her bow and drew back, pointing it at the pitch-black opening once the sound subsided.

When nothing rushed out, Maude took a hesitant step forward and directed one of her fireballs into the opening to light their path with a wave of her hand.

Maude looked over her shoulder to Herrick and her friends. Grim resolve was all that showed on their faces. Gunnar nodded to her from where he stood at the back of the group, the wooden sticks wrapped in cloth and doused in oil already in hand.

He began to hand them out, a few bundles to each of them except Maude. With half a thought, Maude lit their torches, marveling at her absolute control over hergaldernow.

She let out a long breath before she turned back to the small opening of the Knotted Caverns. The emptiness that radiated out of the hole in the rocks echoed deep inside Maude, a familiar and disturbing feeling.

This is wrong, Maude thought.We shouldn’t be here.

Swallowing her doubts and trusting in the path she had chosen, Maude led her friends into the darkness.

24

The only source of light for Herrick and his friends came from the torches Maude had lit for them. She and Gunnar had worked through the day carving torches from the last of the wood they had used for the longboat, soaking cloth in oil and then wrapping it around the top. When they had crossed the barrier into the Caverns, the torches had flickered but stayed lit, thank the gods.

Every few hundred feet, one of them would place a torch in the dirt to mark the path back out. They quickly reached a crossroads, the tunnel they were in breaking into two directions. With no discernible way to decide which route was the correct one, Maude opted for the right, saying that it made more sense to go further inside the Caverns as opposed to skating around the edges. The path quickly began to descend beneath the earth.

“I think you choose correctly, Maude,” Hakon said from behind him. “My ears are popping from the pressure; how far below the water do you think we are now?”

“I’d say at least 50 feet below,” Herrick commented, his ears beginning to build pressure.

“The path is flattening,” Maude called over her shoulder, the intensity on her face bringing her features into stark relief in the firelight.

From here, Herrick could see the scar that lined the side of her face, adding to her fierce beauty. At this moment, she looked exactly as she had the first time Herrick ever laid eyes on her. The strands of hair that framedher heart-shaped face were a deep red now instead of the dull black she had used to disguise herself, and the concentration in her eyes now focused on their mission instead of him.

Herrick still thought the same thing he had on that night in the fighting pits; she was the most bewitching woman he had ever met, and he would follow her to the ends of this earth.

Feeling his gaze on her, Maude peeked at him over her shoulder. She still had the same anxious look in her eye that she had before he had kissed her on the rocky shore of Ljosa. Herrick gave her a reassuring half smile, his dimple appearing, before she turned back around.

After what felt like hours later, they came to another crossroads. Eydis, this time, suggested their path.

“We should go left this time.” She wrinkled her nose. “The right smells like damp mold. I think it leads to an underwater grotto.”

Herrick slammed a torch into the ground, marking their path, and followed Maude. The path began to incline now, and Herrick knew they had to be getting close. After a few minutes, Maude slowed her pace so she would walk next to him.

“This seems too easy,” she said to him, eyes forward.

He agreed. The stories that came from that man who escaped from the Caverns when his friends did not speak of monsters, pitfalls, and traps.

“Keep a watchful eye open,” he said to her.

“Obviously, Herrick.” Maude rolled her eyes.

Herrick chuckled and motioned for her to keep going. He was about to speak when Maude increased her speed a bit, coming to a near run.

“I see something,” she said, drawing her bowstring back. “A light, up ahead.”

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