Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(97)

I scuttled away until my back met the damp wall, my hands wedged behind my back. My blood-caked fingertips ached against the cool pebbled surface.

Eustace stopped a couple of feet from the entrance, then swiveled back to me, eyes narrowed. “You get it.” He snapped his fingers at me, as if I were a dog.

“I can’t reach it.” I bowed my head, letting my hair curtain the faint gleam of hope in my eyes. “Lord Brandon was supposed to—”

“Shut up,” he said, “and stay where you are.”

He jabbed the dagger at me in warning and turned back to the chasm. Stroking his weak chin in thought, he moved to the opening.

Turning back, he leered at me. “If this treasure is worth it—and you please me properly—I may let you live. Might even give you a coin or two when we’re done.”

Laughing, he sheathed the dagger and leaned out over the edge, steadying himself on the wall with his left hand.

I knew I’d have only one shot. If I failed, Eustace would kill us both. And I had no doubt that he’d make my death very, very unpleasant.

“You’d best not be lying to me, wench. If you are, I’ll cut your pretty little tongue out of your head.” He leered. “After you use it on me, of course.” He laughed at his own joke, but the chasm ate his laughter. He shot a look over his shoulder, looking uneasy for the first time. “Where the devil is it?” he growled. “Damn, it’s cold as a nun’s tit in here. And why does it feel so queer in this place? Like ants crawling over me?”

I closed my eyes. Every possible option flooded out before me in a neon-green overlay. In an instant, my brain had calculated the perfect angle, the required velocity, the number of steps it would take. Every muscle in my body tensed, ready. Eustace began to turn, his ugly, battered profile illuminated by the torchlight.

“Higher.” I kept my eyes locked on him as I inched to a standing position. “You have to reach up high.”

A sudden wind blasted from the chasm. It circled the chamber, sending tiny pebbles skittering. “I feel nothing,” Eustance said. “What the hell was—”

I launched myself from the wall, slamming into him from behind with every bit of strength I had left. Already unbalanced, Eustace teetered, arms pinwheeling. His horrified eyes met mine for a split second before gravity won and he tumbled over the edge. At the last instant, he snatched the hem of my skirts. His weight dragged me forward, and my feet skidded over the slick stones as the brute dangled over the seemingly bottomless chasm.

Bracing a hand against the rock face, I jerked desperately at the fabric. A look of pure terror washed over his snarling face as the material ripped. The sound of it reverberated as Eustace Clarkson tumbled backwards into the abyss.

His screams echoed around me. I clapped my hands over my ears, but it didn’t help. There was no cutoff. The sound only grew fainter, until finally it faded away.





Chapter 48


I SANK TO MY KNEES, MY LEGS UNABLE TO HOLD ME AS I crawled back to Bran. Wind circled the cavern, casting the pebbles in an endless loop around us. I groped at the side of his neck, praying frantically for a pulse. At first there was nothing. No answering beat.

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.”

I rolled him to his back and tried again. My fingertips were all but numb. I pressed harder, begging, until finally I felt a weak, threadbare thump of life.

Sobbing with relief, I grabbed his hands and dragged him to the center of the room, into the eye of the cyclone that was building around us. His skin felt like fire beneath my palms.

“Bran,” I cried, “wake up. You have to wake up.”

The glimmering light played across his pale features and closed eyelids. His breaths were so shallow that his chest barely moved, and no matter how hard I shook him, he still didn’t respond. Wincing, I slapped him, twice, as hard as I could. My fingers raised scarlet welts on his cheeks.

Now furious, exhausted, and more frightened than I’d ever been in my entire life, I screamed, “You jerk! How can you do this to me? You lied to me. You spied on me. You followed me here. Your screwed-up mom nearly killed mine. And now you are going to just lie there unconscious while I deal with this alone? Oh hell no. Hell no!”

I shook him so hard, his head bounced off the stone. Sinking back, I hugged my knees and rocked back and forth, my face buried in my skirts. I had a sudden, fierce longing for Collum’s sturdy presence and Phoebe’s cheerful comfort.

I let out a long string of curses, pounding the stone with my fists until they were scratched and stinging.

“Such language.” My head shot up at the creaky voice. “And, uh . . . not to abuse the cliché,” he said, groaning, “but where am I?”

I threw myself on top of him, darting small kisses on every inch of his face. He winced. “Ow. Why do my cheeks hurt?”

My hair hung down, framing his face as I grinned. “No idea.”

His brows drew together. One fingertip traced a gentle line across my cheek. “Your face.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Nothing mattered, because Bran was alive. He was alive. His eyes darted around the room. Though the wind was sweeping around the perimeter of the cave, its velocity growing, it barely touched us. “Do I want to know what happened?”

He struggled to his feet, his hand clutching his side. I glanced away from the dark pool of blood he left behind.