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None at all. But then, what was so strange about that?
She’d never had any choices of her own.
They’d only been stumbling through the tunnels for a couple minutes when the ground grumbled beneath her. She froze, mouth open in a question she did not voice. Rig clutched her hand harder and cried out, as if he guessed what was coming. Then, as the rumble rose to a roar, the floor pitched and knocked them off their feet with bruising force.
Chapter 4
Agmon braced for something horrible. Jael could feel it when he pressed his hand to the stone walls. He sensed the tension in the mountain, the anxiety wafting from the Bifrost that threaded through the rock walls. The runestone amulet around his neck filled the tunnel with aquamarine light. The magic within the stone, awakened by the runes he had traced against its surface, caught the facets and imperfections in the runestone and cast uneven shadows—beautiful patterns that spoke to the uniqueness of the natural world and the intricacies of the magic living inside all things.
The thought made him eager to preserve the fragile peace between the living and the magic, and he quickened his pace a bit. He had almost reached the furthest point of his round for the day, where he would check on runestones in the Bifrost. The Bifrost lines ran all over Agmon, and when properly guarded by runestones, created a magical barrier between Agmon and the rest of the world.
The Bifrost kept them sheltered, safe, and hidden.
He doubted the outside world cared much about them. Perhaps the humans and elves had forgotten about them down here in the deep places of Rhuin.
Which was just how he liked it. Attention brought meddling and meddling brought complications.
No one needed that.
Just thinking about it put a damper on his mood once again.
Jael ground his teeth together and plodded around a bend in the tunnel to approach the cavern that marked his destination. Here, several Bifrost lines intersected to create a sort of hub. He glimpsed the flickering aquamarine lights from the runestones and the more piercing rainbow shards of color from the Bifrost that carved a delicate line through the rock walls. He reached out a hand to trace the luminescent crack of light jagging its way through the cavern wall. The heat of the magic warmed his fingertips, pulsing erratically beneath his callouses.
Why was the Bifrost so agitated?
He entered the cavern with a disgruntled sigh. He needed no additional light here, not with the runestones glowing and the Bifrost pulsing. The chamber exuded light and warmth.
Too much of both, to be honest.
A frown pulled his mouth downward as he realized the cause. Many of the runestones embedded in the wall with iron clasps had gone dark, allowing the power of the Bifrost to run wild. More lines had already formed as the Bifrost forged new trails through the rock. The runestones should have kept the Bifrost from sprouting...but when numerous stones failed all at once, the magic often broke free and took on a mind of its own.
No wonder the magic was so excited...like a child turned loose in the goblin market.
He swung his pack from his shoulder and peeled it open to reach the fresh runestones he’d brought with him. One by one, he would have to release the iron clasps, remove the spent runestones, and replace them with the fresh store in his pack. He counted the number of dark runestones on the walls and hoped he had brought enough. Too much power left to its own devices was never a good thing.
As if sensing his concern, the Bifrost surged, striking out at him with glittering white tendrils that knocked the runestone from his hand and sent it clattering across the floor. Jael couldn’t help it: he yelped, fingers singed and stinging as he scrambled on all fours to retrieve the runestone. He returned to the place at the wall and jammed the stone into the iron clasp once again, this time braced for an attack.
For it had felt like an attack.
Which was ridiculous. Insane. The Bifrost and those of the under realms shared an unspoken agreement. A bond. A symbiosis. And it wasn’t as if the Bifrost was alive, in the literal sense. But magic had life of its own, something the natural world couldn’t explain.
For some reason, the Bifrost had been riled into what Jael could almost swear to be...a bad mood.
“Be still, you,” he rasped to the grasping tendrils of magic trying to carve alternative paths through the stone wall. He traced the binding rune, two intersecting circles, on the runestone before moving on to the next one several yards down the wall.
The magic thrummed, almost as if it were hissing “no” back at him. At first, the emotions radiating from the Bifrost felt irritated and petulant, but as he worked his way down the wall, replacing runestones as quickly as his smarting fingers could manage, he detected something else beneath the frustration. Something deeper churned within the glowing depths of the Bifrost. It took him a few minutes to place what it was he was sensing.
Fear.
The Bifrost was afraid.
The realization caused his own heart rate to spike. What would cause a magic that carved its way through solid rock to experience fear? Such magic seemed impervious to the passage of time, the cares of the moment, the things that the goblins and elves and humans must deal with.
The Bifrost seemed to sense his thoughts and pulsed harder against the walls of the cavern, as if it were whispering back to him. Help. Help. Help.
He studied the chamber, counting the number of runestones needing to be replaced. Since he was half done, shouldn’t the Bifrost be calming down by now? Instead, the magic pulsed with renewed agitation.
He cut his thumb on a sharp bit of iron on one of the casings. Flinching, Jael wiped the blood on his tunic before snapping the clasp into place and tracing the binding rune against the smooth surface of the dark gray stone.
