Page 122 of The Spider Queen
I was in too much pain to reply. Sweat beaded my brows and upper lip. Shivers ran up and down my spine. Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more of the searing heat that seemed to melt my bones, I felt the invisible partition shatter—and once again, I was flung away from it, landing hard on the ground.
“Poppy!” Hunter yelled.
I turned my head and retched. My palms no longer burned, but they throbbed. I looked at them, expecting to see blisters and seared, red skin. Nothing.
Wards can always be broken—but each of them requires something from you. In this case, it needed your pain.
You said you could break it. I assumed that meant you would’ve used your power to do it.
No. Wards don’t work that way.
You couldn’t have warned me?I snapped.
Sometimes it’s better to go in blind.
You’ll pay for that,I taunted, throwing his threat back at him.
Looking forward to it, Poppy. Now get up and come free me.
Hunter sat next to me. When I tried to get up, he forced me to stay down. “Take a minute. Thane isn’t going anywhere.” He unzipped the backpack, pulled out a canteen of water, and handed it to me. I took a sip, swished it around, and then spit. Then I took a long drink.
“Better?” he asked.
I shrugged and handed him back the canteen. “Thanks.”
“How are your hands?”
Looking down at them, I realized they no longer pulsed with discomfort. “Okay, I think.”
“Wow.” Hunter shook his head.
“Right?”
He helped me stand and held onto my hand. We slowly approached a line of crystalline white powder that lay where the wall had once stood.
“I’ll go first,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m the protector—and if something is… You are the one that has to live.”
I hated that he spoke the truth but reluctantly nodded. He stepped over the line and paused. When nothing happened, he nodded at me. I stepped over the line and felt the temperature spike. It no longer felt drafty and cool in the cave, but sultry and humid, like we were close to a hot spring.
“Do you feel that?” I asked.
“Feel what?”
“Guess not,” I murmured. “It feels warm to me.”
“Weird.”
We walked into the cavern, heading for the opening on the other side where I could see another staircase. We had to go even deeper into the ground.
My steps were slow, hesitant. The air continued to grow hotter the closer we got to the stairs—at least for me. Hunter appeared unaffected.
I put a hand to his arm to stop him from going down the stairs. “I have to go first.”
“Why?”
