Throwing myself into action, my head filled with ear-splitting shrieks, I ran for the light. Pain erupted in my ankle, and I buckled with a cry. It was nothing. Just an old injury. I wouldn’t let it kill me, not when I’d made it this far, even though every step was like wading through fire. Locking my jaw against the pain, I forced myself to run.
Light glared, scorching my eyes as I closed in on the finish line. I screwed them shut. I was going to make it. I had to make it.
Through my eyelids, burning white light engulfed me, and the ground disappeared from under my feet. For the second time in my life, I plunged from a cave and into open air.
Hard, unyielding ground crashed into me, forcing the air from my lungs in a puff. I rolled, limbs pinwheeling, body sliding, before skidding to a stop.
Cool, rough grass pressed against my face, and when I sucked down a breath, its musty, straw-like scent filled my nose. My eyes squinted open, watering in the piercing light.
I was out of the cave.
Trembling like a newborn kitten, I clambered stiffly to my feet. The pain in my ankle roared its protests, but after a few ginger attempts, it took my weight grudgingly.
I was halfway down a gentle slope blanketed in dead grass. Above me, cliffs rose high, identical to those I’d so foolishly gone into. A crack at its base marked my exit, and there, in the shadows, pale creatures writhed. Were they held back by the same barrier that had kept the witches out, or did daylight hurt their enormous eyes, made for living in darkness? Whatever the reason, I was safe, I’d made it. Elation swelled in my chest. I was alive.
Maybe Claudia’s ugly old necklace was more than just a questionable fashion choice.
Limping, I revolved on the spot, taking in my surroundings. I found myself in a crater, walled on every side by high, sheer cliffs. The sun gleamed high overhead, still hours away from dipping below the horizon and robbing me of the protection of its light. It glinted at the tip of a sharp pinnacle.
There, at the bottom of the valley, surrounded by a dense forest of bald, twisting trees, stood a lonely tower.
17What Is It With Me And Bottomless Pits?
My direction was clear. Maelgwyn had to be confident in the efficiency of his cave zombies because he hadn’t made the slightest effort to hide the princes’ location. Arrogant prick. Clearly, he hadn’t known who he was dealing with.
I gave a dismal laugh at my own expense as I took stock of my body. He was dealing with an absolute mess.
Beneath the thick layer of dark, sludge-like gore splattered over my belly, my probing fingers found no trace of slashed flesh. My internal organs remained firmly in their allotted place, even if the aftershock of my near-death experience had them squirming like ferrets. Both my shirt and wrap were torn, four great slices cutting clean through both layers of fabric, but the flesh beneath was intact. I’d definitely felt talons rake across my abdomen. Had the protection spell cast by Sage, quite literally, saved my skin?
It certainly hadn’t saved me from the aches and pains of my tumble down the slope. With one eye fixed firmly on the cave mouth above me, I limped up the hill, retrieving my daggers and lantern. By some miracle, my little flame still flickered and danced, though the glass protecting it had smashed clean out of its frame. Would I need it in the tower? I squinted at the top of the ugly stone structure, protruding from the dead forest. No glimmer of sunlight reflected on any windows. It would be just my luck that the building would be as black as the tunnels, maybe even guarded by more awful creatures like the ones still swarming the shadowy cave mouth, fighting each other for a chance to brave the sunlight and strip the meat from my bones. Whatever awaited me in the tower, I had to face those tunnels again if I wanted to get home. Would the princes be as burly as the fae guards of Tir o Gaeaf, or would centuries of slumber have reduced them to stick-thin waifs? Who would be protecting who on the return journey?
With resignation heavy on my shoulders, I hooked the battered lantern over my wrist once more, palmed my dagger in my shaking hand, returning its twin to its sheath, and set off down the slope of dead, yellow grass, my eyes fixed on the dead, black trees.
Only, they weren’t trees.
My heart plummeted to my boots as the full scale of my latest obstacle drifted into sharper focus with every limping step.
Brambles. Thick, tangled brambles, as tall and broad as ancient trees, knotted and entwined with a density that prevented the glaring sun from touching the ground. I halted in their damp shadow, contemplating the wall of thorns. Some were as large as shark fins, waiting to shred my skin, others were shorter but still long and skinny, like oversized sewing needles, ready to pop an eyeball or sink between my ribs. Had they spent the past couple of centuries growing and snaking and twisting? In a couple more would they engulf the tower and fill the crater? What would become of the helpless, sleeping princes if I failed today? Would pain penetrate the curse as thorns squeezed the tower down around them, crushing them in a stony grave?
As it was, there was no way through the brambles for anything larger than a small cat. Maybe without the thorns I could have slithered and crawled between the narrow gaps left between the stems, but even then, I’d have risked tangling myself in a twisted tomb.
My grip tightened on my dagger. It had shrivelled a mushroom and a monster. Why not a bramble? Easing my arm between a cluster of deathly sharp thorns, careful to avoid skewering myself in the armpit, I scraped the tip of the black blade over the woody vine. With a bone-deep groan and a drawn-out creak, the bramble shrivelled, shrinking and slithering back into the mass like a retracting rope, whipping out of sight. In its place, it left a shadowed gap, large enough for a small child to fit inside–assuming they had an exoskeleton to protect from the thorns–and curled up in a ball.
Right, okay. Easy. I just had to nick enough branches to clear my path to the tower. I could do that. Sighing, I set to work.
One by tedious one, the brambles withered away at the end of my dagger, and I waded gingerly into the thatch they left behind. Hollow, husk-like brambles exploded into puffs of dust beneath my boots, while thick, healthy ones knotted overhead, beyond my reach. As long as they didn’t fall down, I’d be fine, or that was what I told myself as I left all traces of daylight behind and worked my way deeper into the weaving thicket.
With my boots blackened by the puffed remains of my bramble victims, I halted my path of destruction. At last, a wall of dark stone blocked my way, the mortar crumbled with age. Smaller vines covered in hair-like thorns clung to the tower wall like the stone had been caught in a net. Beneath the web of stems and thorns, I glimpsed planks of wood so ancient they wouldn’t have looked out of place on a pirate shipwreck. The musty scent of rotten wood drifted up my nose.
Perfect. It was a wonder this crumbling ruin was still standing. Health and Safety would condemn the building in a heartbeat, and yet, I had no choice but to go inside without so much as a hard hat. At least this ordeal was almost over.
It had to be almost over.
The canopy of dense brambles overhead left me with no sense of the tower’s height, but it couldn’t be that tall. Within the hour, I’d be on my way home.
Spurred on by the thought, I slashed the web of vines away. Without their support, the rickety door gave an ominous groan, tilting on its rusted hinges, the top half hanging free from the frame. There was no handle, but I transferred my dagger to my injured left hand and eased the fingers of my right into the dark crack the tilt had created.
Wood crumbled beneath my touch as I pulled on the door, using my entire weight to haul against it. After a moment of resistance, it gave a small jolt, almost throwing me off balance, and then began to move. My shoulder trembled as I dragged the door toward me, leaving a gap just wide enough for me to squeeze through.
Yet another dark cavern awaited me, and I hesitated, holding my flame aloft and letting my eyes adjust. The last thing I needed was another creature ambushing me. I’d been lucky once; I couldn’t take any chances.
Nothing but silence and the lure of magic greeted me. It was stronger now, I realised with a surprised blink. Preoccupied with trying to survive, I hadn’t noticed the warm, pulsing something in my sternum, a second heartbeat calling me onward. Now I acknowledged its presence, I couldn’t believe I’d managed to drown out its strange loveliness. The sense of surety and calm that pulsed from its source. The feeling of home.
It was a trick. This tower was not my home, and calm was the last thing I needed to be. Danger stalked me, death clung to every shadow. I needed to be sharp and aware. I needed to survive. Only then could I go home.
With a shuddering breath, I eased through the gap and into the tower.
At once, flames erupted on either side of me, burning in brackets set into the walls. Ahead, another pair lit, then another, until my path was marked in a glowing trail, straight to the foot of a stone staircase.
No stalking creatures were revealed by the light, just plain stone walls and a floor coated in a thick carpet of dust. That was a good start, I supposed, but it did nothing to ease my nerves. Traps could be hidden anywhere, like some booby-trapped Egyptian pyramid. As Sage had wisely advised, I could trust nothing. I eyed the cobwebs that swayed in a non-existent breeze as I passed beneath them, but no spiders revealed themselves. Hopefully, they were long dead. Hopefully, I would not be joining them.
The hallway seemed to stretch far longer than it should have if my glimpse of the tall, narrow tower had been anything to go by. Or maybe it was my twinging ankle that made a short distance seem long.
I reached the stairs. Dusty, crumbling stairs, but otherwise, normal. They spiralled up and away from me, disappearing from view. Flexing my sweat-dampened fingers around the hilt of my dagger I took my first, careful step.
The walls didn’t come crashing down. Ghouls didn’t come whooshing from amongst the cobwebs. It was only me and a crumbling old tower.
