Rise of Fire (Reign of Shadows #2)(2)

In this absolute absence of light, I waded through air like ink, lost.

My ears pricked, listening. Not far away someone wept. Panic bit me in the chest. Was it Luna? Had they taken her, too? She couldn’t be down here as well. Fate wasn’t that cruel. I tried to move my body, but my arms were wedged tight.

Maybe it was punishment for all my wrongs. I’d withheld who I was—what I was—from Luna long past the point when I should have told her. Fear held me back and now this was the price. Faulty logic, maybe, but it was all I could manage.

My head and shoulders were free, and I looked about wildly, tossing the hair back from my eyes and squinting into the darkness, peering in the direction of the person crying.

“Hello?” I called into the murk. The tears stopped abruptly as my greeting echoed over the chilled air. “Who’s there? Luna?”

“Who are you?” a voice demanded. Not Luna.

Relief eased over me. “Fowler,” I replied, and then almost laughed. What did my name matter? I was stuck in here with this hapless other soul and we were both about to die.

For a moment her ragged breaths were her only response. “I’m Mina. They took me . . . and my group. A few days ago, I think. I don’t know. There were seven of us. I’m all that’s left.” Her voice cracked into wet sobs. “There are others in here, too. But I don’t know them.”

A few days? They’d kept her alive this long? And there were others. Maybe that meant I had more time. Time to give survival another chance.

Determined not to give up, I tried to move my arms again, hopeful that I could break loose. My breath puffed out as I exerted pressure. If I could get free, perhaps I could find a way out of here. There was a way in, so there had to be a way out.

There had to be.





THREE


Luna


I CHASED THAT echo of a cry long after it faded. Even when the air around me softened to mere drips of water, I didn’t stop. I prowled down tunnels and passageways for so long that I worried it was only a matter of time before I came face-to-face with a dweller. I lost all sense of time in a world where every moment counted.

The space around me was empty. I moved, straining for any sound. My nostrils flared, the odor of dwellers rich around me: loam and copper. Metal in my mouth.

Even with the scent of them so strong everywhere, they weren’t nearby. This was their territory. The stink of them embedded in the bones of this underground tomb.

The silence was finally broken again by another shout. Human.

I followed the sound, my lips moving in a silent mantra. Let it be Fowler. Let it be Fowler.

I couldn’t be certain how long I was down here, but I sensed time was fading fast until midlight—that brief duration when the ink dark faded and a haze of feeble light surfaced and chased the dwellers back underground. In an odd twist, midlight was something I didn’t want to occur. The idea of dwellers returning and prowling the same space I occupied made my steps quicken despite any reassurances.

Suddenly the ceiling above me started to shake and froth, mud dropping down and raining on my head. Was it a cave-in? I ran, trying to escape the earth falling on me, keeping my hand on the wall to my left. I ducked down the tunnel, chest heaving.

Pressed into the wall, I turned my face up and held out my hand. Nothing was falling anymore. The ceiling of earth was stable. Holding myself as still as possible, I listened.

A dweller’s wet, sloughing breath filled my ears. Its dragging steps felt like a scrape of a blade across my flesh. The heavy weight of its body thudded and settled into the damp ground with each move. My heart beat so hard my chest ached. I heard the whisper of the sensors at the center of its face slither on the air, and smelled the drip of toxin.

The monster wasn’t alone. A human struggled against the dweller’s razor talons, sobbing and choking out garbled pleas. Hopeless words. There was no reasoning with these creatures. Not pity to rouse. No help. No rescue.

They drew near the smaller tunnel where I hid, and I debated my next move. Hold still or run? Lungs locked, I held my breath, waiting for them to pass. Hoping they passed. If they turned down this tunnel it was all over. I was lost.

The dweller passed me, dragging the hapless human behind, and I swallowed against the dryness of my mouth. Fortunately, the dweller was so focused on its victim it didn’t detect my scent. Or perhaps being coated head to foot in mud aided in disguising my smell.

I waited several long minutes before continuing. Part of me wanted to take cover and hide, but the longer I hid the closer we drew to midlight. And once midlight hit . . . I shivered. Dwellers would be coming home. I had to move. Fowler and I needed to be out of here before that happened.

I took several more bracing breaths, in and out, to calm my heart as I moved down the narrow corridor. I didn’t hear that dweller or its poor victim anymore. Faint, very human moans trickled over the vaporous air. It was colder down here than above. My teeth clacked slightly as I continued, growing closer to the sounds of humans, my hand skimming the uneven wall beside me. The tunnel opened up into a great space where the air flowed swifter, the current similar to when I stood in an open field with the wind blowing, lifting the hair off my shoulders.

I hovered, standing at the threshold, shivering at the cusp of something . . . a great maw of space that contained several humans. They were trapped. Their moans met my ears, soft anguished cries lined with defeat. Their hands slapped and clawed at the ground, trying to pull themselves free. Some were injured. I smelled the cloying sweetness of their blood. I lifted my face, smelling, listening, assessing.