Page 10 of At the Mercy of Midnight
“Where do you think it’s originating?” she asked quietly.
“I couldn’t say, but it’s making me feel jittery,” Silas said in an equally soft voice.
Amelia looked at him, surprised. She was so used to the snarky comments and sarcastic smirks that a true statement of feeling was as odd as the magic she felt around her.
“There must be a source here, in this temple,” Amelia mused, bypassing the odd moment. “It’s getting stronger as we move deeper. If it isn’t the Monolith’s power…there must be a secondary source we aren’t aware of.” Her own voice sounded awed and excited to her own ears.
“Mm,” he agreed softly. “That would be something.”
“It could be dangerous to get too close, as it is with the Monoliths.”
“Yes, let’s be wary.”
“I am wary,” Amelia said indignantly. A rattling noise made her jump and pause, heart spiking in her chest, only for her to realise she had kicked a loose rock and it had ricocheted off the temple wall noisily.
“As you should be,” Silas said with humoured scorn.
“I don’t need you to tell me to be careful.”
“Oh?” he said, pausing in front of what might have once been a large painting across a stone wall. There were hints of colour swirled around, and perhaps a hand that Amelia could see, though the rest of the art was lost to time. She looked at it sadly. “Was that not you about to plough in here with absolutely no sense of self-preservation?”
Amelia turned from the wall and kept moving, forcing Silas to join her with the lamp. He strode quickly past her, keeping the lighting raised to guide them.
“I let my eagerness blind me for a mere moment,” Amelia admitted begrudgingly, “but shall I remind you of the time you raced me into that cave in the Shadowlands?”
“I didn’t race you, Winslow. I take longer strides than you, and it happened to aid me in beating you to our destination.”
“Well, your longer strides had you entering that cave with little thought, and tell me…what was it you found?”
Silas turned to face her, taking small steps backwards as he held the lamp between them. Amelia squinted against the light directly in her face. “Yes, yes, I came across a bear. An unfortunate outcome, but—”
Amelia gasped, heart in her throat as she saw the crumbling stone floor giving way into a deep hole directly behind Silas’s slowly shuffling footsteps.
“Finley!” Her hands shot out, grabbing for his raised arm holding the lamp. At the same moment, his heel found the gaping hole and his balance became compromised, a look of terrified surprise morphing his features in the glowing light. Amelia’s hand swiped at his hanging sleeve, while the other managed to take hold of his extended wrist. His body shifted worryingly backwards, but her hold on him was firm. She took a lunging step back and pulled him with her.
Silas stumbled forwards, the lamp falling from his fingers to clatter noisily to the floor as he regained his balance, his own hands shooting out to take her shoulders.
The lamp flickered worryingly at their feet, making their surroundings jump in and out of focus. They both breathed heavily into the thick air of the temple as the light pulsed on and off before it decided to remain, their safe perimeter of light returning.
His grip on her shoulders was tight, and her hand still circled his wrist firmly. The blue of his eyes seemed brighter, even in the darkness, as Silas stared at her with a heaving chest.
She blew out a rough breath. “What was it you were saying about self-preservation?”
His face relaxed at her words, a smirk returning as he shook his head at her and stepped to the side, hands sliding away from her shoulders. He turned to observe the hole he had almost tumbled into. “Truly, right now I’m wondering how either of us have survived our occupations so far.”
Amelia bent to retrieve the lamp and checked the runed crystal inside. It looked unharmed, but the flickering had worried her. She handed it back to Silas. “I have a spare crystal if we run into trouble.”
He nodded, taking the lamp. Together they moved forwards carefully and inspected the chasm in the floor. It spanned across the entire walkway, blocking their path. Silas knelt before the opening and tried to shine the light into the cavernous hole, but there didn’t seem to be a visible bottom.
“Hmm,” he hummed as he stood and took several steps away from the danger. “We may have to find another way around.”
Amelia sighed. “I’ve seen no other doorways or openings on our way through.” She would be crushed for this to be the end of today’s exploring.
Silas looked back at the gap, lips twisted to the side in thought. “It might only be two or three metres. We could jump?”
Amelia rolled her eyes and shoved a piece of her dark hair away from her face. “Are we already going to start again on self-preservation, becausethatis not jumpable.” She gestured irritatingly at the large hole, knowing very well it was more than three metres straight across.
“Oh, Winslow,” he teased with a grin, “where’s the sense of adventure?”
