The Drowned Woods (53)

Mer let out a dissatisfied sigh and pushed on. They walked for another half hour, pausing only for sips of water and for Mer to take stock of yet another fork in the tunnel. She took the right path, leading the small group into a wider cave. It had a small pool of water along one side, and Mer caught a glimpse of a few tiny fish darting back and forth. Loose rocks lay sprawled across the rest of the cavern. Emrick lifted his lantern, casting light across the uneven floor.

“What is that?” said Gryf, somewhere behind her. “Slate?”

“How should I know?” said Emrick irritably. “It’s a cave. It’s dank and wet and—” He tripped over something and fell to one hand. He pushed himself upright, then glared at Mer as if it were her fault he’d stumbled. She glared right back. His lantern hadn’t gone out, but it had fallen to the rocks and tilted dangerously to one side, wax dribbling onto the glass. She reached down to pick it up.

It was as she bent over, her fingers on the wooden handle of the lantern, that she saw those shapes were not slate. They were not rocks at all.

What she had assumed to be a rock was dark wool—the edge of a cloak. It was sodden and bloated, soaked through by seawater. She touched it, pulling at the fabric. It came apart in her hands and beneath it—

The grim-toothed smile of a skull gleamed up at her.

She fell back, the lantern dropping from her hand. It cracked against the rock. Mer staggered and hit someone—Emrick, by the sound of his startled cry. Then someone was hauling her up, and Ifanna was stepping forward with her own lantern in hand.

“It’s a body,” said Gryf quietly.

“Well spotted,” said Emrick. “And you thought it was slate.”

Mer stepped away from whoever had hold of her. A glance and—it was Fane. He had pulled her upright. “Thanks,” she whispered, and he nodded in reply.

Ifanna had lifted her lantern and the light fell across—

Mer would have called it a graveyard had all the corpses been buried. There were scattered bones, rotted clothing, and countless boots left to molder. Jewelry gleamed on bony wrists, hair waved gently in tide pools like kelp, and the scent of old bones wafted on a breeze. Mer pressed her sleeve against her nose, trying to ignore her stomach’s desire to heave. They were just bodies. Old bodies, at that. It wasn’t as if they could hurt anyone.

“I think,” said Gryf, “those people tried to find the Well. The tides must have pushed their bones back into this cave.”

“Fallen kings,” murmured Ifanna, as she bent over one of the bodies. She brushed a golden bracelet with her thumb. “There must be at least a hundred of them.” She picked up the bracelet.

“Put that down,” said Mer irritably.

Ifanna looked up. “What? It’s not like they’re using it.”

“We’re not grave robbers.”

“Is it grave robbing if there are no graves?” said Ifanna.

Renfrew stepped around her. “A philosophical question best pondered when we aren’t on a rather tight schedule.” He walked through the fallen bodies without a second glance.

Trefor trotted up to one of the skeletons, eyeing the bones with the same kind of interest Ifanna had given the gold. Fane snapped his fingers. “Don’t even think about it.”

The corgi looked crestfallen.

Mer took a shallow breath through her mouth. Gryf and Ifanna followed Renfrew, picking their way through the old bones.

Emrick reached down to retrieve his shattered lantern. He shook it and watched as the broken glass clinked to the rocks. “We only have two of these,” he said, with a dour look toward Mer.

“You dropped it first,” she said.

“Because I tripped, not because I lost my nerve.” He shoved the broken lantern at her and she caught it on reflex. Emrick strode past her, jaw tight. Of course he would blame her. She knew his type—all puffed up and arrogant, like a lady’s lapdog trying to bark down a wolf.

“You’re bleeding,” said Fane.

Mer set the lantern down. Sure enough, the broken glass had cut a thin line along her hand.

“You could sense that?” said Mer. There were times she forgot that he was spelled to sense iron—and she’d never thought he could sense something as small as a few drops of blood.

He nodded.

She sighed through her nose. “When this is all over, I’m going to shove Emrick in a deserted tunnel when no one’s looking.” She lifted her hand to get a better look at the small wound. As she did so, two droplets of blood slipped down her wrist.

The drops fell, and for a moment they hung in the air like tiny rubies. Then Mer watched as they hit the stone floor, plunking into a shallow puddle of water.

The moment Mer’s blood hit the water, she sensed the change.

It was not a sound—not quite. There was a rumble, like the reverberation of a struck bell.

Magic. It was water magic.

And it wasn’t hers.

“What is it?” said Fane. “Mer?”

She swallowed, holding up a hand for quiet.

Thud-thud, thud-thud.

The sound. It was rhythmic, a rolling gait that she would never have expected to hear underground.

Thud-thud, thud-thud.

“What is that?” said Emrick, his voice echoing from the cave walls.

Mer looked up at Fane, and the bottom of her stomach dropped out. His face had gone bone white.