“How fucked are we?” Dagan wondered, though he didn’t actually want to know. It might be kinder to just pass his knife around, as endings went.
“There’s a tunnel on the other side of this wall. I’m feeling—a little better. Do you have any food or water?”
Dagan frowned in surprise, pulling out his waterskin. “Here. Wait, are you saying…?”
“We should go fast. That fire burned up the good air,” Innan said before taking a greedy swig of the water. “Ah—gods, that’s good. Water is so delicious.”
“Are you saying we might get out?”
Hen mumbled, “Don’t wait for—”
Dagan reached out quickly and covered Hen’s mouth before he could finish the sentence. “I swear by all that is good and green in this world, Hendrik, if you tell me to fucking leave you one more time, I will knock you over the head and drag you out of here unconscious. Do you understand?”
Hen’s bloodshot eyes went wide. But he nodded.
Dagan removed his hand but slowly. “Sorry, Innan. You were saying?”
Innan glanced between them but apparently decided now was not the time to comment on their personal drama. “I chose this spot because there’s a tunnel. It’s just closed off now. If I can—if I can just focus for a while, I might be able to shift it.”
“That’s why there’s an arch?”
They nodded. “It goes down a few more feet, but it’s old. Older than the cavern, probably, maybe than anything in the City. From before the wastes.”
This was a scale of time that, to Dagan, would’ve been unfathomable even if he wasn’t stuck in a dark cavern running out of air with the two people he loved most in the world. The situation made it all the more impossible to wrap his mind around, though, so he just said, “What can I do?” He was already digging for the rations he’d packed when they’d set off…yesterday? Earlier today?
Innan said, “Nothing yet. I won’t be much help carrying Hendrik, though, I’m afraid.”
Dagan handed them a package of acorn-meal biscuits and jam. He couldn’t imagine eating any of it, himself; his stomach might have been full of rock dust, from the heaviness in it. “Don’t worry about us. Can you walk?”
“Yes. I’ll meditate for a moment. You can talk. I won’t mind.”
Dagan didn’t want to talk, though. He wanted, more than anything in the world, to scream at the top of his lungs and let the darkness swallow up whatever this feeling was inside him. It twisted in him like—like rage. Was this what it felt like? He’d never experienced it before, whatever it was, and he never fucking wanted to again.
No, not just rage. Not fear, either, but despair. Innan might say they could find a way out, but he knew in his heart there was none. He’d known since the moment they’d battled those guards and assassins in the antechamber; he’d known there was no going back. And he was angry about it. Angry for himself. Angry for Kajja and Piret. Angry for the Blue Bird River and the Heart Wood—hell, he was even angry for the City, now he thought of it.
And more than anything, more than all of it put together, he was angry for Hendrik. At Hendrik? This bleeding shell of a man who’d clawed his way to the edge of the hells with a shattered leg, just to make sure that fucking evil thing in the pit was really dead. When he should’ve been running.
But he couldn’t have. He couldn’t run, and that wasn’t his fault, so there was no point being angry at him. For him, yes, of course. After all the traumatic experiences, none of which were his fault either, this was how it was going to end? After all those achingly sweet moments where he finally saw a future for himself? After all the tender coaxing Dagan had lavished on him, until he finally cracked and allowed himself to be cared for, to be vulnerable, to be loved? To feel safe?
After all that, he fucking tells me to leave him?
Hot tears stung Dagan’s eyes, and he swiped at them with the back of his arm impatiently. There was no time for this, for stupid, pointless anger and self-indulgence. Innan needed him; Innan had to live to see the fruits of their phenomenal heroics this day. Rage and despair would still be there, if they made it.
If they didn’t, which they wouldn’t, then he’d rather go out fighting anyhow.
He laughed out loud, thinking of the silence in the cavern where once the dark figure had rattled their bones and brains with its strange voice. Where was it now? Playing possum? Or singed to a crisp, at last? How could they ever be sure? How could they—?
“Are you hurt?” Hen winced as he tried to sit up more.
“No. I mean, nothing that’s going to kill me immediately.” Dagan sniffled and rubbed at his eyes again. “You, on the other hand… Can we set that leg or is it…?”
Hendrik’s face crumpled. “I don’t—I don’t think so.”
Fuck. Dagan squeezed his eyes shut again, willing the tears away. Later, he could break down. Not fucking now. “Well, we have to keep as still as we can then, darling.”
A hand on Dagan’s face, large and rough but gentle. Hendrik traced his cheekbone with the pad of his thumb lovingly.
Dagan leaned into it, drawing a shuddering breath.
Hendrik whispered, barely audible even in the perfect echoing silence of the great black cavern, “I’m so sorry, Dagan.”
Dagan jerked away.
“Dag—”
“Stop. Stop talking or I will throw myself into that fucking chasm.” Dagan sat up on his knees, eyes overflowing uncontrollably, and rummaged aggressively in his pack for his healing kit again.
Hendrik obeyed, and Dagan wasn’t sure if that made him angrier or not. It felt wild, irrational, nonsensical to be so enraged; it felt like the stupidest, shallowest, most insane moment of his life. And yet he couldn’t stop the feeling, swelling, burning, consuming him from the inside out.
One of his sleeves was already torn—hopefully somewhere above ground with Jak now—so Dagan took off the rest of his shirt. It wasn’t terribly good, as bandages went, dirty with stone and sweat and ash. It was all they had, though. He bundled up what wrappings he had in his pack along the sides of Hen’s ruined shin, careful not to jostle the jagged bone jutting out of his skin. Hen’s face went white but he didn’t make a sound as Dagan tied him up, as cushioned as he could be.
“You should lie down. It’ll keep the leg elevated more,” Dagan huffed as he sat back to inspect his work.
Hen shook his head. “I’m okay. It’ll just make it harder to get back up, when we have to.”
“How in all the hells did you stand on this?” Dagan had a clear picture in his mind, now events were coming back to him. Hen on the ground, then struggling to his feet. Hen about to tell the dark evil creature that had held his people captive for a millennium to go fuck itself, swaying on a broken leg. Hen grabbing the torch off Gareth and flinging it with all his might.
“The rush, I guess.” Hen seemed as bewildered as Dagan felt. “I didn’t even feel it. I mean, I did but—I didn’t care.”
