Raven Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

The freed villagers scattered up the beach. Raven turned back to the broken door. The stair behind it fell away into black. She could not see the bottom, or what waited there. She had come across the sea to end this curse. But rushing down blind would only feed her to whatever the maker had set below. Lyra knelt at the top step. She pressed her palm flat to the cold stone. Her purple eyes lost their focus. For five years she had waited for Talon, and soon she would be queen at his side. Right now she only listened through rock. "There's a chamber below," she said. "One heartbeat, slow. And traps between us and it. The walls are hollow. Something waits in them." "An ambush," Armin said. He stood apart, arms folded, mist curling off his shoulders. He owed Raven his help, and he gave it grudgingly. "Charge down there and you die on the third step." Raven crouched by the doorway. Cold air rose from below and brushed her face. She felt it slip through cracks in the stone, thin threads of it. Years of hunting had taught her to read moving air. "The hollows breathe," she said. "I can feel where the gaps are. Lyra, mark the heartbeat. I'll go as a cat and find a path around the traps." Lyra caught her wrist. "If the walls open, you'll be alone." "Then don't lose me." Raven shrank. Fur and small bones took her shape. She slid onto the first step as a black cat, low and silent. She followed the cold threads, testing each stone before her weight touched it. Twice she felt air hiss from a seam and went around it. Behind her, ice light spread from Lyra's hand, lighting the way just enough. Halfway down, a stone shifted under her paw. She froze. The wall to her left groaned. Raven leapt back as a slab swung open. A gray shape lunged out, all reaching hands. "Left wall!" she yowled, and the sound came out a girl's voice as she snapped upright. "Down!" Ayla shouted from the doorway above. White light shot past Raven's head. Her cousin looked drained and pale, but the beam struck true and burst the sand-thing to dust. Ayla gripped the frame to stay standing. "That's the last of my strength for a while," she called. "Make it count." Raven found the floor at last. The stair opened into a low chamber. At its center a figure sat wrapped in gray cloth, one slow heartbeat under it, waiting. She had crossed the traps. She had reached the maker. But she stood alone in the dark, her cousin spent above, the stair yawning between them. Whatever sat before her had let her come this far on purpose. Now she had to learn why.