Roran Vottier's Arc

Chapter 5 of 10

The dark swallowed them whole. Roran turned back toward the way in. The doorway was gone. Rot had crawled across the opening and hardened, black and slick, sealing the passage like a scar. He pressed his palm near it and felt the cold. "It's shut," he said. "We can't go back." Kaia touched the runestone at her belt. Its blue glow flared bright, then brighter. "It knows we're here," she said. Her voice stayed level, but her hand shook. "There's no digging out. Not through that. We go deeper or we die here." Roran nodded once. He lifted the golden sword to light the tunnel and led them down. The air grew thick and wet. Bones jutted from the walls. Then the runestone screamed with light, and the shadow rose. It uncoiled from the far wall like smoke taking shape. A tall body, thin and black, with two red eyes burning in a skull-like head. The thing that had killed Kaia's family. The heart of the blight. It reached for them with fingers of curling dark. Roran swung the golden blade. Gold light bit into the shadow and it recoiled, hissing. He struck again. This time the light was weaker. The creature flinched but held. "Kaia, it's not cutting," he said. He swung a third time. The blade passed through smoke and did nothing. The gold along the edge had dimmed to a dull glow, like a coal going gray. "The sword's spent," Kaia said. She pulled him back by the arm. "It needs the shrine's light to burn again. We can't kill it now." The wraith drifted closer, red eyes fixed on her. "It remembers me," she whispered. "It's always remembered me." Roran scanned the wall. Behind a fallen slab, a crack split the stone, narrow but open, and cool air moved through it. "There," he said. He shoved Kaia toward the gap. "Go. Now." She squeezed through. Roran followed, sword first, its light nearly dead. The wraith struck the stone behind him and howled. The narrow tunnel bent and climbed. His shoulders scraped rock. Ahead, gray daylight leaked in. They crawled toward it and burst out onto damp forest ground, gasping. Roran rolled onto his back. Trees stood over them. Real trees, real sky. He gripped the dead sword and breathed. "We're out," he said. Kaia knelt beside him, shaking. "We didn't beat it. We only ran." Behind them, at the crack in the earth, the runestone flared blue again. Neither of them saw it. A thread of shadow slid from the gap and slipped into the trees. The wraith had followed them out. For the first time in hundreds of years, it was free of the barrow, loose in the woods Roran had sworn to protect.