Reign Shadowfell's Arc

Chapter 3 of 29

The cave swallowed the daylight in three steps. Lux took Reign's hand and pulled him deeper, small fingers cold and dry. Reign meant to yank free. He had spent the whole walk building a hard knot of anger in his chest — anger at the strangers ahead, at the years of silence, at himself for coming. The knot should have tightened here in the dark. Instead it loosened. Something in the air pressed the fear flat, like a hand on a dog's back. His breathing slowed without his say. He did not trust it. He kept walking anyway, because the imp kept pulling, and because turning back meant the guards. Lux stopped so hard that Reign almost stepped on him. The imp's ears went stiff. His head tilted toward a passage that branched off to the left, where the stone breathed a colder air than the rest. "The old one is here too," Lux whispered. He did not look up. "I don't know if she bad or good. But she is here." Reign felt the calm in his chest shift, as if it had a source and that source had turned to look at him. "Who," he said. Lux shook his head fast. "Not them. Older." He tugged Reign forward, quicker now, his bare feet slapping the wet floor. "We have to get to them first. If she reaches you before they do, they can't take you back." Reign did not ask what back meant. He ran. The passage forked and Lux chose without slowing. Behind them, somewhere in the left branch, a low sound moved through the rock — not a voice, not footsteps, but a pressure that made the calm in Reign's chest deepen against his will. He understood then that the quiet in him was not his. It was her reaching. Lux felt it too and cursed in a language Reign did not know. They rounded a bend and the tunnel opened into lantern light. Three figures stood waiting at the far end of a low chamber, hooded, still. Lux shoved Reign across the threshold and planted himself in the mouth of the tunnel, arms out, teeth bared at the dark behind them. "He's here," the imp said, without turning. "Talk fast. She's close."