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Crack.
“Oops.” An exhalation by Daisy across from me. I paused and glanced at her, flat to the wall and shimmying. The gentle fall of grains of sand from overhead drew my gaze. Had the fractures increased?
“Move it, Sliver,” Daisy huffed at me.
I danced the rest of the way, light on my toes and choosing the most solid-looking sections. I would have stopped to check on Daksh, only Daisy grabbed my arm once we cleared the weak spot. “Keep going.”
At her admonishment, I ran, heading for the group ahead. Qynn touched a wall, lighting a small section of it.
I gaped. Qynn had magic? And didn’t seem surprised.
Given they appeared to have stopped to observe, I finally dared a glance over my shoulder. Daksh and the last two giants had crossed the weak part and now stood on our side, two giants ready for battle with a king at their back. I didn’t understand until I heard the squealed challenge echoing in the hall.
Monsters.
I reeled away from the sound, stumbling and catching the wall to steady myself. I watched as the giants smashed the ceiling.
Why would they do that?
And what did Daksh do, holding his hands out in the direction of the ceiling? They were definitely glowing, and was it me or did the ceiling and floor glow too?
I saw the first of the monsters appear in the tunnel we’d just traversed. Beetles with a hard carapace, skittering with too many legs, not as big as most but difficult to fight.
“Go!” Daksh yelled.
The giants stopped swinging and jogged up the hall while Daksh held out his hands, projecting a visible glow that encompassed the section of weak hall. As if he held it.
The monsters neared, and Daksh sliced his hands through the air. The glow between him and the compromised ceiling severed. As he whirled, I could see a web of magic remained on the cracked stone. He dashed away from the area, and as he reached me, he raised his hand once more and dragged that glow so it stretched across the tunnel. It formed an almost invisible shield, just in time.
The ceiling collapsed, dumping stone, followed by a torrent of sand, atop the monsters, the weight of it tearing out the floor. A cloud of dust rolled out and hit Daksh’s magic shield, stopping before it engulfed us.
Amazing.
Some of my wonder must have shown, because Daksh smiled at me and winked.
Crack.A glance overhead changed my awe to horror as I noticed the zigzagging lines on the ceiling spreading from the broken section.
“Move!” Daksh yelled even as I turned to run.
My legs pumped harder than they’d ever done. I sprinted until my lungs wanted to burst.
And then I wasn’t the one running anymore, as Daksh darted into me and scooped me over his shoulder. He held me, and his longer legs moved too fast for me to follow. It wasn’t fast enough, as the approaching dust cloud indicated.
“Junction.” The shout from Kya was only a faint noise against the approaching roar.
Daksh stumbled as the stone underfoot heaved in the middle. He hugged the closest wall, which led to him falling sideways into the junction. He recovered only in time to flip me to my feet and press me into a wall. He covered me, using his body as a shield, along with his magic, to protect us from the dust and spray of debris as the tunnel collapsed.
I didn’t know how long we stood there, tucked inside a bubble of magic. When the rumbling ceased, some tension in him eased.
I felt a little more relaxed too. After all, we both lived.
Daksh did something with his hand, and a swirl of magic emerged, spinning in a circle, drawing the dust. I blinked as the little spurt of magic kept spiraling the lingering dust in the air into tight balls of dirt. It cleared enough we could see the passage we’d escaped blocked by a wall of sand with chunks of rock poking through.
We’d found safety in a side tunnel. I glanced around, seeking out my friends, calling their names. “Palla! Qynn!” I named them all, even the giants. No one replied.
When I would have started digging at the mound to find them, Daksh grabbed my hands and forced me to face him. “Don’t be foolish. We can’t reach them this way.”
He spoke as if they lived. “Are they on the other side?” I asked for confirmation.
