My fingers found open space, and I placed them on the ground outside my little hole. Pulling myself free of the confining tunnel, I greedily gasped for air as I pawed at the dirt clogging my nose and mouth.
Tears burned my eyes and throat, but I didn’t shed them. I’d done enough crying earlier, and while I was free, my loved ones weren’t. There was no place for happiness yet.
Even with the dirt wiped from my face, I could barely see as it obstructed my eyes, but what I could see made it clear I’d entered the tunnel that used to lead to the gargoyle’s cavern… and still led to the now buried city of the dead.
I had no idea where I was in the tunnel, but when my instincts told me to go to the left, I obeyed them. My feet thudded across the dirt as I labored to breathe while continuing to cough up the remnants of the earth that had worked its way into my body.
When I’d been running for almost a minute, I stopped to vomit. Dirt and bile spewed across the ground as my body convulsed and my lungs throbbed with every violent heave.
By the time it finally passed, I was sure I’d thrown up at least a pound of dirt, but I could finally breathe without feeling like my airways would collapse. Rising, I wiped my mouth with the back of my filthy shirt before placing a hand against the stitch in my side as my lightning flickered off the dirt walls and the tree roots shifting through the earth.
My legs burned, and my lungs still felt like someone had taken a stick and bashed them repeatedly, but I started running again. I didn’t have time to take it easy.
So focused on forging ahead, I nearly ran into the wall of debris blocking the entrance to the city of the dead. I skidded to a halt in front of the rocks, wood, and broken furniture that had tumbled into the tunnel before the rubble cemented it shut.
With care, I climbed over the ruins until I stood before the wall of wreckage. Placing my palm against the cool rocks, I closed my eyes as I sought some way to reach out to my friends, but I didn’t possess telepathy. I had a strong bond with Ryker, but it wasn’t strong enough to mentally speak to him.
I ran my fingers over the wall, searching for some weakness, but there wasn’t any. I could try to pull it away or destroy it with my lightning, but more rubble would fall to replace it; that could squash or kill anyone in between.
Not to mention, if they started digging down from above, I could end up trapped in the shifting earth.
A sense of helplessness enveloped me, and I almost fell to my knees, but giving up now wasn’t an option. I had to get above where I could do more good for everyone.
However, it would take me hours to run to the gargoyle cavern, and then I’d have to destroy the thick slab that hid the cavern from the temple. Once finished, I’d have to figure out a way to climb out of the hole. The wreckage from the slab might create a pile for me to climb, but I couldn’t count on it.
What am I going to do?
And then it hit me. The trees!
Before we set the gargoyles free, I was certain they’d never take me from the tunnel like they’d brought me into it, but they might now. It was worth a shot at least, and what other options did I have?
I clambered back over the pile of broken bits and sprinted back the way I’d come. I’d gone a few thousand feet before skidding to a stop in a section where the roots slithered through the earth like worms crawling from the dirt during a rain.
Their faint, scraping movements surrounded me. While they didn’t acknowledge me, I was certain they knew I was here. The forest was aware of everything within its domain.
“Please take me out of here,” I begged. “I have to help them, and I can’t do it from here.”
And then another idea occurred to me. I couldn’t open a portal in the alcove, but maybe here, free of anything having to do with the palace, I could.
And I’d far prefer a portal to the trees dragging me up through the earth. When some of the roots broke free of the wall and weaved across the distance separating us, I knew they would help me, but first I had to try a portal.
“Please hold on,” I said.
One of the roots brushed my cheek, but it didn’t encircle me. Instead, it rested against my shoulder while waiting for me to decide.
Lifting my hands, I waved them before me and almost screamed with joy when a portal opened. So, it was the Heart of Stone that kept us from opening a portal within these tunnels before. Now that the gargoyles had it again, the magic encapsulating this place went with them.
I couldn’t open a portal out of my alcove, but I was also surrounded by remnants of the palace and buried beneath the land it once stood on. The palace was bespelled to keep immortals from opening portals in or out of the structure and surrounding land.
With a way out of here, I rested my hand over the root. “Thank you, but I’m all set.”
The tree caressed my face again before retreating; as it did so, I ran through the portal.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Ellery
When I emerged in the woods near the palace, the bodies of countless, butchered guards and amsirah surrounded me. The dead soldiers, in their uniforms and armor, outnumbered the amsirah, but it was a bloodbath for our side too.
