Solara Moonwhisper's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

Solara stood in the lower hall and could not see across it. The dark swallowed the light. Somewhere ahead the huge thing turned in its den. The hum pushed behind her teeth, hard enough to hurt. It knew she had come. It waited between her and the last stair. Her betrothed rose beside her, wet hair heavy on his shoulders, the red phoenix pressed close for warmth. "We can't cross blind," he said. "If it's waiting, it picks the moment." "Then we don't cross blind." Solara knelt and laid her palm flat on the wet stone. The hum flooded up her arm. She pushed her power down and out, past the flood, toward the field she had left far above. The black sunflower at the water's edge answered first. Its blue heart flared. Then the ground trembled, and more stems broke through the cracks in the floor, thin and pale, opening blue faces in the dark. She told them to feel for heat. The blooms turned like small compasses. One by one their glow bent toward a shape at the hall's far end. Warmth, huge and slow. The entity. The flowers drew its outline in light. It filled the whole right side of the hall, low against the ground, one great limb stretched across the floor she needed. "There," she whispered. "It's blocking the stair." But the flowers showed her more. A gap ran along the left wall, cold and narrow, where the limb did not reach. A path. She traced it with her eyes. "Left wall," she said. "Stay low. Don't touch it." They moved. Solara went first, hands brushing wet stone. The blue blooms lit each step and darkened behind her, so no glow reached the sleeping mass. Her betrothed followed, breathing slow. The red phoenix folded its fire tight, a dull ember, giving no light. The limb shifted. Stone ground under it. Solara froze. The hum spiked, then eased. It was dreaming, not woken fully. She waited three breaths and moved again. They reached the wall's end. The stair to the last level opened ahead, going down into deeper dark. She had crossed the hall she could not see. She had passed the thing that hunted her. Then her foot struck loose rock. It skittered across the floor and cracked against the stone. The sound rang through the hall. The entity woke. A sound rose from it, low and vast, rattling the flowers to gray. The great limb pulled back and swept toward them. Solara grabbed her betrothed and threw them both onto the stair. They fell down the first steps as the limb slammed the floor above. They scrambled up, bruised, ahead of it now, on the final stair. Behind them the entity heaved its bulk toward the opening, too large to follow fast. "It's coming," she said. "But the heart is down there. One level. We beat it to the hall." She did not say the rest. It was awake now, and but frozen when it saw Solara