Chapter 36

I cried out in surprise, but the sound was lost as the figure shoved me, hard.

Without even a few seconds to register what was happening, I found myself tumbling to the stone.

Instinct took over, and I scrabbled to my knees, stopping myself from rolling. But my assailant was too quick. A boot landed hard in my stomach, and with enough force I was forced over again.

Arms flailing, I reached for a statue as it rolled into my view. I wrapped my arms around the base of it as the boot connected again with my shoulder. My torso and legs swung out, and for a heart-stopping second, I felt nothing but clear air beneath my body.

I summoned my strength, pulling myself back up using the statue. Pain burst through me as the boot began to kick at my arms and hands. I swung my body, ignoring the pain as best I could as I tried to swing my legs back up to the platform.

There was a loud screech, and the kicks to my arms stopped abruptly. A hiss reached me as I finally managed to get my foot back onto the stone hand.

Heaving myself up, I saw the white wings of Voror as he pecked wildly at the black-cloaked figure.

“Pull off the hood!” I yelled at the owl as I shakily crawled further onto the platform. Voror dove again for the figure, but they swiped at him with something metal and shining. He let out a squawk as it connected, then veered off out of sight.

“Voror!” I jumped to my feet, but pain lanced through the wound in my foot, making me stumble. I caught myself on the nearest statue, stumbling again as my vision turned gold.

Shit.

I’d grabbed the exposed gold staff.

As I let go, I saw a flash of metal and leaped to the side just in time to avoid the knife the figure had swung at me. I got a glimpse of a black mask covering the face under the hood.

“Who are you?”

They didn’t answer but kicked out at me again. They connected with my hip, and I staggered backward. I grabbed for the statue, everything turning gold as I gripped the staff top. But the gold was too soft to take the force of my weight hitting it, and the part I’d exposed broke away in my hand. My stomach lurched as everything seemed to move in slow motion, momentum carrying me backward, straight off the edge of the stone hand.

* * *

I didn’t scream as I fell.

The sound of water crashing filled my ears as my hair whipped up in front of my face. A weird calm came over me, and I felt strangely lucky I could the see the spiky ceiling of the cavern, instead of the certain death I was plummeting toward. It was all gold. I was still clutching the staff top, and it somehow seemed fitting that I would die with the gold-vision.

Something slammed into my side, and I spun in the air.

A cry of shock escaped my lips, but my breath was too hard to catch, I was falling so fast. A dark pool flashed into view beneath me as I turned in thin air, then a blur of white crashed into me again.

Voror?

What was he doing?

Again he hit me, and when I spun, I saw the water below me again, only this time, a patch of it was darker. And closer. Nausea churned in my gut as I kept spinning, and I squeezed my eyes closed.

Any second now, I was going to hit the surface of the water. The impact was sure to kill me. And if it didn’t, the rocks below would.

Voror slammed into the side of me again, just a second before I hit.

Only, I didn’t hit water. All the breath left my body as my back connected with something soft. Time froze as I desperately tried to get air into my lungs, then water began to seep through my clothes.

I was sinking.

Air finally made its way down my throat and I flung my arms out, trying to clear the daze.

I was on a bed of weeds. A thick coating of moss floating on the surface, that had cushioned my fall.

I kicked my legs, the water freezing. I was seeing everything in gold. Shoving the piece of staff into my pocket I pushed myself into the water, fearful of becoming tangled up in the weeds and dragged down.

I looked around dazedly for Voror.

He’d pushed me so that I’d fall on the weeds. The owl had saved my life.

I spotted him, hovering over a dark crack in the cavern wall, on the opposite side of the rocks the waterfall was crashing down onto. The noise was deafening, and I felt like I was living some sort of surreal dream. Every part of me ached, and each kick of my legs drained more energy from my body.

The current was moving me toward the crack though, and I let it, trying to conserve what I could. I glanced up at the stone hand, but it was so high it was just a dark speck against the cavern ceiling.

Who had just tried to kill me? How had they even known about the cavern? Not only known about it, but known to drink the water, had a way to open the secret door, and cross the pool to the wrist without being carried over the edge.

Voror hooted as I reached the crevice in the rock. I didn’t have his feather, so I couldn’t hear him speak, but he ducked into the dark crack. Assuming I was meant to follow, I swam after him.

The current intensified, and a shriek of surprise left me as I was carried along much faster than I expected. The passage curved and twisted through the rock, barely wide enough for me. My limbs caught constantly on the rough rock, scratching and tearing my skin.

All my attention was on keeping my head above the water as I was tossed along the tunnel for what seemed like an age. I was running on pure adrenaline, fatigue threatening to drag me under. Every time I thought my body might give up, I heard a hoot from above, and redoubled my efforts, kicking my aching legs and flailing my scratched and bleeding arms.

When my body was just about ready to give up the fight, the passageway bent sharply. I was thrust against the cold, sharp rock wall, and then I saw light. The tunnel through the rock was opening.

First relief, then fear, washed over me as I was ejected from the mountain into a huge river below. The fall was not as far as I thought, but it was enough that my whole body was submerged. I opened my eyes in shock as I was engulfed by the cold water, and they immediately began to sting. I dredged up all the strength I had left, forcing my way back to the surface.

Hooting reached me the second my head was clear of the water, and I blinked, looking for the owl. He was the only fleck of white in my blurry, gloomy surroundings, and I swam half-blind toward him. Blessedly soon, my feet kicked something below the surface.

The ground.

I stumbled, my foot throbbing and my knees scraping the stony surface as I practically clawed my way onto dry land.

Collapsing on what I thought was sand, I rolled onto my back, panting.

My limbs felt like they weighed as much as a horse. A white feather drifted down beside me, and I made myself lift my hand enough to grasp it.

“Voror.”

“Reyna. Are you well?”

“No. No, I’m not well. But thanks to you, I’m alive.”

“It is my task to assist the copper-haired gold-giver ,” he said proudly.

“Top assisting,” I breathed.

“Do you know who just tried to kill you?”

“No. Do you?”

“No.”

“Do you know where we are?”

“No. I can smell and hear predators though.”

I was outside the palace.

The realization forced a tiny bit of energy through my body, and I made myself sit up.

I was on a small shore on the side of a wide river. Gnarled trees rose on each side of the waterway, the twilight sky twinkling with stars overhead providing the only light. The mountain loomed behind me, and I had to crane my neck to see the palace at the top, glittering towns dotting the ridges on the way back down.

If the shrine was under the palace, in the middle of the mountain, then I must have fallen all the way to the bottom and then the channel had carried me out. I was a long, long way from where I had started.

A distant howl made me turn to look behind me. Dense trees, fortunately not as twisted or creepy looking as the ones we had ridden through the day before, loomed.

“What kind of predators can you smell?” I asked Voror.

“Wolves. Bears. Some I can’t identify.”

It wasn’t just predators I needed to be wary of outside the palace. If any human of the Shadow Court found a rune-marked, they would kill them instantly.

“Any humans?”

“I don’t believe so. You are bleeding though, and that will attract carnivores attentions.”

I looked over my arms, and wished I’d been wearing something sturdier than cotton. The sleeves of my shirt were shredded and torn and stained with blood from dozens of small scratches. My thick woolen trousers had fared better, only a few tears around the knees, and my leather boots and body-wrap had held up well.

“I need somewhere safe to clean up and rest. Any ideas?”

“I would suggest, up a tree.”

“That’s because you are a bird.”

“It is also because wolves can’t climb trees. There is a pack nearby, and I think they are coming closer.”