Because at the end of the day, friends don’t come for friends. Not when they have family and lovers who take precedence.
“We should probably be getting some sleep,” Kiran says, snapping me out of my tumultuous thoughts. “Unless there’s anything else you’d like to talk about?”
I blink, then swallow, shaking my head.
Kiran examines me with those molten eyes of his, and for a moment, I worry he sees right through me. But then he tucks his satchel behind his head, propping himself against the cave wall, and closes his eyes.
I can’t help the relief that floods through me when his breathing slows.
I’m aware that it’s a shoddy excuse—claiming I can’t very well tell Kiran now that he’s asleep.
But I nurse the excuse regardless.
Up to this point, I haven’t allowed myself to reconsider the plan.
I need time to think.
Perhaps by morning, I’ll have figured out what to do.
Perhaps the answer will come to me in a dream.
CHAPTER 6
KIRAN
Humans die, rattles a voice, one that wakes me from my deep slumber and lures me to consciousness.
Asha is human, it whispers, its gentle cadence resounding in my skull.
Therefore, Asha…
I snap my eyes open, my breathing ragged as my eyes adjust quickly to the cave. The fire I made to keep us warm through the frigid night still burns, though it waned slightly as I slept.
Humans die, whispers the voice again, and it’s the first time I realize it’s not my own.
Though the voice reverberates in my very bones, it’s as if there’s a source to it, a rope tugging me toward its owner, leading into the gaping maw of the tunnel that stretches behind us and into the depths of the mountain.
Asha is human, it whispers, sounding mournful now, its voice warbling. Therefore, Asha…
No. I try to shake the voice away, but I’ve run the words over so many times in my mind, they’re etched into the very fabric of my consciousness.
I stand, placing my hand against the cool wall of the cavern. As if I need that to guide myself in the dark. As if my fae sight doesn’t adjust on my behalf. As if I can’t make a light source out of the air between my fingertips.
I can save her, whispers the voice, and my heart stops in my chest.
That’s impossible, I mouth back, but I can’t say it aloud, because I know it isn’t true. Not when Blaise, living evidence contrary to my point, sleeps soundlessly across the fire from me, the flames highlighting her features. Though nothing about her pallor indicates health, at least she’s alive.
Here.
With me.
It’s the here with me part that Asha won’t be. Not in a handful of decades, at least.
Bring the girl. She can help too, says the voice, and I find my feet crossing the cavern to obey. When I lean over and scoop Blaise into my arms, I’m shocked that she doesn’t stir, but the thought quickly flees from my mind.
I step over Evander, still fast asleep on the ground, and carry Blaise into the depths of the cave.
The voice calls me, and the further we draw into the recesses of the cavern, the more familiar it sounds, though I can’t quite place it.
Sometimes it’s Asha calling to me, sometimes it’s my mother from the grave. Sometimes it’s a mixture of Lydia’s and Fin’s voices, or how I imagine they would have sounded if they held any affection for me during childhood.
My footsteps hardly make a sound against the damp floor of the cave, though moisture dripping from the stalactites does.
I can help her. I can save her, whispers the voice, and I find I believe it.
The dark tunnels break off into a series of paths, but there’s no question which way is forward, not with that voice tugging on my heart like an anchor to the bow of a ship.
So I follow it into the darkness.
I’m not sure how much time passes before I arrive at what I somehow know in the recesses of my soul is my destination.
The bowels of the mountain swarm with a substance that appears as shadows one moment, a thick mist the next, depending on how the dim lights from the glowing fungi that crust the walls of the cavern shine on it.
You came, my child. You listened. I can help you.
I shake my head. “I don’t need your help. It’s my wife.”
Ahh. Humans die, and Asha is human. This is your fear, your problem.
