Chapter 18

Ishrieked as my bells filled the air with their song. The cavern walls rushed past me. I reached out to grasp at something—anything—but then my feet hit the ground. My teeth snapped shut; stars dotted my eyes. Shaking my head, I looked around. I hadn't fallen particularly far. If I were twice as tall, I might be able to reach the ledge above with a little jump.

"Tormund, I think you might be tall enough to reach that ledge. You could hoist me up on your shoulders, then follow me back up. What do you think?" I turned toward him, but…no one was there. Frowning, I tipped back my head. "Hallo! Looks like you missed the bloomin' hole! Lucky you! Mind helping me back up again?"

"I am afraid I did not miss the hole at all," called Tormund—from the opposite direction in which I looked.

"Oh no," I muttered, then looked down. Just to my left, the hole continued, opening up to an almost impenetrable darkness. Tormund's horns, cutting through the shadows, were the only thing I could see of him. And from the distance between me and him, it did not look like he could climb back out.

"I'm surprised you sound so worried," he said with forced laughter. "You're well and truly rid of me now."

"Are you all right?" I knelt beside the hole and peered into the depths. He'd fallen a lot further than I had.

"I'm fine. My shadows helped slow me. Too bad they couldn't stop me from falling in the first place."

"I'll get you out," I said matter-of-factly, dropping my pack to the ground. I rummaged around inside and pulled out the rope.

"You brought a rope with us?" he asked.

"Of course," I replied. "Dwarves never venture into the mines without proper supplies. The better question is, why didn't you bring one?"

"I didn't anticipate falling into a hole," he said flatly.

"Well, that was your first mistake. The second was not looking at where you were walking."

"Very smug for the girl who also fell into a hole."

"I fell into the smaller hole, so I can be as smug as I bloomin' like, thank you very much." I grinned, unwinding the rope, the rough surface scratching my palms. Truth was, I had no idea how I was going to get him out of there, and joking seemed like the best way to keep both of us from panicking. Sure, I could toss him the end of the rope. It was plenty long enough to reach him. Just like I'd told him, us dwarves liked to be prepared. The problem was, he was twice as big as I was. How would I find the strength to pull him out?

So before I could talk myself out of it, I tossed one end of the rope into the hole. It hit the ground only a second later, and I felt a tug as Tormund tested the weight of it.

"There's a stone there," he called out. "You could tie it around that."

I frowned at said stone. I'd noticed it before, but hadn't considered it as an option. Like us, it had fallen here some time ago and only came to my hips.

"It's loose," I told him. "And I don't think it's large enough to hold your weight. I'm afraid it will go sliding into the hole and fall on your head if you try it. You'll turn into smashed demon."

"That's a mental image I could have done without," he said, his laughter tense. Then his laughter died. "Wait a moment."

"What is it?" Frowning, I peered over the side of the hole, but I could see nothing but darkness.

"Forget about saving me. You need to come down here and see this," he said, his voice now sounding a little further away.

"You want me to jump in there with you? Have you lost your bloomin' mind? We'll never get out of here if I do that."

He chuckled. "No jumping. Just climb down the rope. You're lighter than me. I'm sure the stone will hold your weight. And if it doesn't, I'll catch you."

I squinted down into the darkness. "This sounds like a terrible idea."

"Which part?"

"All of it."

He laughed, the sound echoing all around me. A smile quirked my lips, and I shook my head. "Only you'd find this funny. You do know these tunnels are so far from the mines that it'll be a long time before anyone comes through here."

"Just come down, Astrid. I promise you'll be happy you did," he said in a deep voice that seemed to curl around me and beckon me toward the hole.

"Did you just use your shadow demon powers on me?" I asked, tossing my end of the rope around the stone and tying a dwarven knot.

"It worked, didn't it?"

"No, I'm only doing this because my curiosity won't let me do anything else. I want to see what's gotten you so excited."

"There's quite a few things in these tunnels that's gotten me excited."

I shook my head, finished tying the knot, and threw him a look. I might not be able to see him, but I knew he could see me. "Are you just constantly waiting for someone to say something that you can turn around and make a suggestive joke about?"

"No." A pause. "But I do look for any opportunity to make you smile."

Heat burned my chest, right around my heart. I knew it was probably just another one of his jokes—a way to keep us both distracted from the fact we were stuck here without any help coming our way. And I would just have to keep joking right back.

"Well, I hate to disappoint you, but your remarks aren't particularly funny," I said, sticking my tongue out at him.

"Could have fooled me," he said, his voice growing quiet. "Your eyes do this thing when you smile—genuinely smile. I wish you could see how happy you are when you're not focused on trying to escape the mountain."

My hands fell to my sides. "I know I'm happy here. This is my home."

"Then why are you trying so hard to leave?"

"I…" My thoughts evaded me. I shook my head, trying to recall the reasons I'd repeated in my head all these years. I wanted to see the sun and the grass and the trees. There was so much life outside the mountain. But there was so much inside it, too. "I don't know. I just want to see what's out there."

"I can tell you what's out there. A big, beautiful world," he said.

"All right." My brow furrowed. "I'm not sure what your point is, Tormund. You tell me I'm happy in Steingard and you don't understand why I want to leave, but then you say how beautiful the world is."

"That's because it is. The whole bloomin' thing, as you'd say. It's also a big old place with lands far, far from these shores. One could spend her whole life exploring, and she'd never see it all. Not every corner, every person, every creature. There would always be something just out of reach."

I pressed my lips together. I saw where he was going with this now.

"You're already trying to back out of our deal," I said flatly.

"No, I'm not. It's just…" He sighed.

"Just what?" I demanded.

"You won't like it."

I narrowed my eyes, wishing I could see his face, if only so I could properly glare at him. "Just tell me, Tormund."

A beat passed. "There will be a reason you were cursed, and a fairly simple way to undo it."

A hectic drumming sounded in my ears, and after a moment, I realized it was the thunder of my beating heart. An eerie chill seemed to sweep through the cavern, lingering on the back of my neck like icy fingers. Tormund's words seemed to cut to my very bone. They made me want to leave him in the pit and flee from this place, though I had no idea why they'd caused this kind of reaction.

"I don't understand what you're saying," I eventually said. "I was you know as a babe. I did nothing to cause this."

"Curses don't happen for no reason, Astrid. Whoever did it did so for a reason, especially if you were so young you can't even remember it."

I threw up my hands. "Perhaps I cried too loudly, I don't know. Maybe someone got annoyed by all the noise and wanted to punish me."

"It could be that, I'll admit," said Tormund. "But often, there's some kind of lesson involved. Learn it. Accept it. And I bet your curse will break."

"Let me guess. You think I should stop wanting to go outside."

"You said it. Not me," came the reply.

I was starting to get tired of having a conversation with a pit of darkness. Sighing, I wrapped my hands around the rope and eased back. The emptiness yawned beneath me, beckoning me to leap into its less-than-gentle embrace. Tormund had said he'd catch me if I fell, but what if the boulder rolled in after me, like I'd worried it would do to him?

"You've got this, Astrid. Easily. Believe in your damn self for once," he called up.

He was right. I could do this. Without letting my thoughts talk me out of it, I pushed off the ledge. The ground opened up beneath me. I swung to the left, my feet dangling. Then I twisted the rope between my thighs and began my descent. Hand over hand, I went down. Only seconds later, my feet made contact with the ground, and all the tension flooded from my body. That had been easy. What had I been so worried about?

"See?" Tormund appeared before me, beaming. "You're incredible."

I flushed. "Thank you."

"You can do anything you put your mind to," he murmured.

"Like leave this mountain?"

"You don't like what I said. I thought that might be the case." He rubbed the base of his horns, then sighed. "It would make things so much simpler for you if you understood what I'm trying to tell you, but I suppose that's the entire point. If it was easy, it wouldn't be a curse. No matter. We'll find another way."

"If what you're saying is true, it probably wouldn't even work now. To give up on going outside so that I can then go outside is kind of the opposite of what needs to happen. I would actually have to give up."

"Ah, but there you're wrong." He tapped me on the nose. "It's not giving up anything. It's embracing what you have. Now, come on."

He took off across the cavern. The low cave stretched far in every direction, and over a dozen tunnels forked off from this area. Water gushed from a large crack, pouring into a river that snaked through the room toward a pond. The scent of ash overwhelmed the moss and stone, tempting my attention toward a low crack in the wall, barely large enough for one person if they were on their belly in a crawl. A glowing ember light spilled from it, flashing dancing shadows on the wall.

I pointed at said crack. "There's a dragon through there, isn't there?"

"That or someone has made themselves a camp in the middle of this cave system. Which I suppose is possible, though highly unlikely."

"All right." I squared my shoulders. "Let's go."

"Astrid, wait." Tormund grabbed my hand, stopping me before I got more than a few steps away from him. He pulled me back and tugged me up against him. My hands squashed between my breasts and his chest because I had no idea what else to do with them. I couldn't very well wrap them around his waist, now could I?

"What is it?" My words came out in a whisper.

"This could be dangerous. I don't know if we should go in there without knowing what we'll find."

Right. That was what this was about. Safety. Not kissing me.

I pulled out of his arms. "It's just an adolescent dragon. One of Rivelin's, probably. And his dragons are friendly."

"What if it's not one of his? What if it's something else?"

"What else could it be?" I shook my head at him. He'd been so determined to come down here, I hadn't expected this sudden uncertainty.

"It's just…" He frowned. "I still feel like something isn't quite right about all of this. If the dragon and the Everstone are through that tunnel, then didn't we find it a little too easily?"

I squinted at him. "I'm not sure ‘easy' is the word I would use for falling into a hole."

"But isn't it odd we didn't see the hole?"

Heart constricting, I looked everywhere but at his face. Was he really going to make me say it out loud? So far, neither one of us had commented on the moments leading up to our disaster. We'd simply fallen into a hole that had come out of nowhere! It had nothing to do with the fact we were both staring at each other so intently that we'd missed the very obvious lack of floor.

"Was it odd, though?" I asked, the pitch of my voice going higher. "We were kind of, well, distracted. If you don't remember."

Did he remember? Or had I simply imagined the entire thing?

But then he stepped in close, gripped my chin between his fingers, and tilted back my head. "Speaking of distractions, I still haven't done this."