Page 81 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
When my grasp starts to slip from his woolen collar, Neirin’s hand fastens around my wrist. The other, ruined by infection, hangs at his side, but there’s a strain in his shoulder like he’s trying to use it, trying to hold me, but just can’t.
The fingers on my wrist travel slowly up my arms. My breath hitches in my throat and won’t work free. His eyes track over my face.
I see the exact moment he decides. His eyes spark, and his hand shoots to my back. He brings us flush together and, before I can gasp, he kisses me. Kisses me hard. Kisses me as if he’s been thinking about it far longer than I could imagine.
One of my hands is crushed between our chests, the other clawing at his shoulders. Even his injured hand has fought its way admirably to my waist. It’s not enough to touch him. I want to devour him. I want to tear him apart and crush him to me until there is no Neirin and Habren—there’s only a horrible, wonderful us.
The unbearable desperation of that thought is a bucket of icy water, and I jerk backward, pulling my mouth from his, but he holds me fast in the cradle of his arms. It’s my turn to let my eyes roam all over his face, landing on swollen lips and hooded eyes, and the hair I’ve finally ruined. Neirin only stares in mild astonishment—at my actions or his, I can’t say.
I should apologize or explain myself. I should never speak to him again.
“I have to go,” I say instead. “This has to wait.”
He lets out a pained groan, his forehead coming to rest against mine. “Yes, until you save your sister. You keep saying.”
I put my hands on either side of his neck, our eyes meeting, noses touching. “If I can’t have everything, I don’t want anything,” I breathe. “It’s the both of you, alive, or nothing.”
I force myself away, his good hand gripping the back of my coat until I finally break free. I head for the door, too drunk on my own victory to really see what I’m headed toward. I pause, the handle just out of reach, and look back at Neirin.
He remains in that patch of sunlight, staring at me, wearing the strangest, saddest smile.
“You can’t go any further,” I say. “You’ve already gone as far as you can. For me.”
The terror on his face in unmissable. I can’t blame him. He thinks we’re both going to die: me, in whatever hell lies beneath our feet; and him, succumbing to the sickness, waiting here for my return.
As I step through the door, even I can admit that Neirin is probably right.
25
y caneri
(THE CANARY)
On the other side of the door, the roar of the ocean ceases. The only light comes from a forgotten, flickering lantern, which I nearly kick over—the soldier’s, perhaps? I pick up the dying lamp and hold it aloft, illuminating a dark hole in the ground dangerously close to my feet and an ancient spiral staircase creeping into the abyss.
The only way left to go is down.
My footsteps echo impossibly loud on the old, wet stone, the silence otherwise impenetrable, and the light barely illuminates two paces in front of me. The stairs feel endless, my legs burning when I finally reach the bottom.
The subterranean level is tiny, tight, and the walls are painted with blue whorls and figures I can hardly make out. I squint into the dim halo cast by my lamp and begin to illuminate a great mural, one part at a time. I get glimpses of ghostly, knife-eared fairies, painted beasts and gnarled faces that stare, empty-eyed, from the stone. A rush of air hits my back and a great crescendo of tumbling rocks breaks the quiet, and I whip around.
The wall behind me has entirely crumbled, revealing a huge recess carved deep into the cliffs.
I step into the jaw of the cave. Cold air creeps, insect-like, around me. The tunnel ahead is damp and narrow and reeks of mildew.
I expected fear to hit me like a slap, but it doesn’t. I stand and listen.
Nothing.
Y Lle Tywyll is as silent as the graves with which it shares the deep earth.
I move forward slowly, one hand on the wall. The echo of my boots on the rock carries for miles—whatever’s in here with me must know it by now.
The tunnel has to end eventually—only it doesn’t. The glow of the lantern is struggling to pierce the dark, and my eyes never adapt. Worryingly, with every step I take deeper into the cave, the fainter my lamp grows.
“Please,” I whisper as the flame flickers within the ornate glass.
A sharp noise shatters the quiet, and I almost drop the lantern. I turn frantically, searching for the source. I must be going mad, because that sounded like birdsong.
