Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [26]
“Why do you hesitate?” she asked, her tone stiff and cool, but controlled. “Can the great champion of the arena be afraid?”
Her scorn stung like salt in an open wound. He gestured for her to be silent and eased cautiously into the dark tunnel.
She followed without a word. He could sense she feared him almost as much as she feared the demons, but he forced himself to concentrate on what lay ahead.
His own breathing sounded harsh and ragged in his ears. His heart was pumping too fast. He kept straining, listening to sounds that might be real or imagined. The menace around them could be felt; it slid through his consciousness like a great, undulating serpent.
There was something very wrong in this passageway. He could smell a pervasive rottenness, a rank corruption that made him gasp. The air felt heavy against his face. He seemed to push against something he could not see, and it crumbled and shredded around him like something long decayed.
“Please stop!” Elandra called out from behind him.
He turned back to look at her. She was breathing short and hard.
“We cannot go this way,” she said. “We must turn back.”
“It is the only way out of this trap,” he said.
“No. There is something wrong. I feel it.”
“We must keep going.”
She shook her head. “I’m going back.”
When she turned around, he gripped her elbow from behind and drew her to him. She struggled, twisting around to face him, but still he would not let her go.
“Release me!” she cried, striking at him with her fists. “You impertinent oaf, I’ll have your hands cut off for—”
“Don’t make threats you don’t mean,” he said, holding her fast. “You can’t go back, Majesty. You’ll be lost forever if you do.”
“This is not the way out.”
“Legion said it was.”
She gasped aloud. “You take the word of—of demons? Are you mad?”
“I sense it is true,” he said.
She grew very still in his grasp. Hesitantly he released her and stepped back.
“You sense it,” she said after a moment, disbelief ripe in her voice.
“Please don’t ask how.”
“I can’t accept this,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t accept any of this. I—”
“Stop it!” he said sharply, afraid she might grow hysterical. “We were supposed to go through the hidden ways with Kostimon. But no matter how fast I hurried, never could I catch up. Some trickery was done to us. We have journeyed for hours, far too long. I think we were never meant to escape this place.”
She drew in her breath audibly. “You think this is Lord Sien’s revenge?”
“Yes.”
“Kostimon might come back. He might search for us.”
Caelan frowned. “Do you believe he will, Majesty?”
Her eyes filled with tears that did not fall. Pretense and false hopes leached from her face, leaving her cheeks drawn and pale. She shook her head.
“The emperor is well on the other side and safe by now,” Caelan said. “Do you honestly think otherwise?”
She wiped her face. “How could we become lost?”
“We are in the realm of shadow, where nothing is as it seems. I think we have been walking through an illusion. According to what Legion said, we weren’t supposed to cross the river.”
“Then we should go back across it.”
“No,” he said.
“But—”
“I will not swim through it again, and you should not.”
“I can swim—”
“That isn’t the issue,” he said in exasperation.
“No, it isn’t,” she snapped. “It’s about your refusal to accept my authority—”
“Do you want to swim through damnation?” he asked, losing his temper. “That is Aithe, river of the damned! Is it such an insult that I seek to spare you from experiencing thatl Gods, I would not put myself willingly through such horror again, much less you.”
She blinked at him, looking abashed. “Oh,” she said in a small voice.
“Majesty,” he said, calming down slightly, “we must do what we can to escape the realm of shadow. While you were under the spell you were safe, but that is no longer the case. I do not think we have much time to find a way out.”
She sighed. “Very well.”
“Do I go on?”
“Yes.”
Caelan ventured deeper into the passageway. He could almost imagine he heard something breathing ahead of him. It was too close,