Lilith Thornveil's Arc

Chapter 2 of 11

Selene's breathing had gone shallow by the time Lilith risked a look outside. The crack in the earth held them for now, but the cloak at Selene's ribs was soaked through, and Lilith's arms shook from holding her upright. She could not carry the vampire across open orchard alone. She would not leave her. "Stay awake," Lilith whispered. She pressed a whole black fruit to Selene's mouth. "One bite. For the pain. No more than one." Selene bit. Her jaw slackened. Her violet eyes found Lilith's red ones and held on. "I know a place," Lilith said. "Deeper in. Water, stone walls, chambers I can close. I found it a week ago and told no one." She did not say she had meant to prepare it for months yet. "We go now." She whistled, two notes this time, higher. A heavy shape crashed through the branches above and dropped to the moss — a fruitbat as big as a dog, wings folded, ears twitching. It shuffled to her knee and pushed its head into her hand. "I need a ride," Lilith said. She pulled two fruits from her belt pouch and fed them over. The bat chirped and lowered its shoulders. Lilith hauled Selene onto the bat's broad back and lashed her there with the ends of her own cloak. She climbed on behind and gripped fur in both fists. "Low," she whispered. "Between the trunks." The bat launched. Wings snapped once, twice, and the orchard blurred past in stripes of black bark and black fruit. Lilith kept her head down against Selene's shoulder. A shout rose somewhere to the east — a hunter had circled back. An arrow hissed through the leaves above them and struck a trunk. The bat swerved. Selene made a small sound against Lilith's neck. Lilith held her tighter and did not look back. The ground fell away into a ravine. The bat dropped with it. Cold air rushed up. Then stone walls closed on either side, and the orchard was gone. The bat landed on a mossy ledge before a gnarled arch of woven thorns. Lilith had marked this door herself. Past it, the passage opened into a wide cavern lit by a pale pool. Veins of gold ran through the stone. Alcoves cut into the walls. Water whispered somewhere below. Lilith dragged Selene through the thorn arch and laid her by the pool. She cupped water to the wound. The bleeding slowed. Selene's eyes closed, but her chest rose and fell. Lilith sat back on her heels. She had a roof now. She had walls. She had one wounded refugee, no supplies, no beds, no medicine past the fruit — and a master out there who would not stop looking. The shelter existed. Now she had to make it hold.