Stone Heart (The Cursed Seas Collection)

by Pauline Creeden

  The monkey eyed Kane while moving closer to me. When it finally made it to my legs, it set a strange red fruit on my lap.

  “No more red,” I whispered.

  The monkey hooted twice softly and then scurried back up into the trees.

  “That’s actually a really nutritious fruit,” Kane said, reaching for it. “It will help rehydrate you and give you some energy.”

  “Really?” I asked, shocked a monkey would know that.

  “Maybe the monkey will show me where the fruits are, so I can get more,” Kane mumbled.

  “I can always ask him,” I said. “I don’t know how intelligent they are, but he seems pretty smart.”

  Kane brushed something out of my hair. “You really gave me a scare,” he whispered.

  “What was that thing that snagged me?” I asked him.

  “That’s a Red Bearded Lily. They’re a weird mixture of plant and predator. They inject their victims with a toxin that ultimately kills them, and then the plant absorbs your decaying body into its roots.”

  “Yum,” I mumbled.

  “You asked,” he reminded me with a chuckle.

  “Is your shoulder doing better?” I was glad to see that both his eyes were open and the swelling had subsided.

  He pulled back his shirt and exposed the wound which had scabbed over but didn’t show any signs of infection. The medicines I’d brought with me from undersea had worked to stave off the bacteria that had to be on that rusty old sword. I was glad for that much.

  “Did the big panther give you trouble?” Four days out in the open must have put him in a lot of danger.

  “I’ve heard it moving around, but it hasn’t been close yet,” he answered.

  Yet. That meant he expected it to come soon.

  “How long until I’m not defenseless?” I asked, trying my hardest to move any part of my body aside from my mouth.

  “At least a few more hours,” he said. “Though, I’m not really certain.”

  Wonderful. I was going to have to rely on Kane for at least a few more hours. Not that I didn’t trust him. I just didn’t want him to have to take care of me. Especially when he looked so haggard. He really needed to rest, himself.

  The monkey screeched and rushed over to us. It jumped up and down, making gestures.

  “I think he’s trying to tell you something,” I whispered, but my hairs stood on end. This couldn’t be good.

  A boom and a crack came from the direction the monkey pointed. Leaves and branches fell toward the ground. Then another loud boom. I blinked. “Was that a whole tree falling down?”

  Kane picked me up and held me close to his chest. I could feel his heart thundering in his chest. My fear rose at the sound rather than finding comfort there.

  The monkey screeched again. Then it climbed up a tree and swung to another tree to the right. It turned back and gestured toward us, making constant panicked sounds.

  “He wants you to follow him,” I told Kane. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I was fairly sure.

  “Well, he’s going in the opposite direction as the falling trees. So, I’ll follow the monkey for now,” Kane said. He started jogging and then shook his head and laughed. “I never thought I would follow a monkey to escape danger.”

  “I never thought I’d be paralyzed and carried through a crazy island jungle by a mage. Life is full of surprises.”

  He chuckled, but I could still feel his heart beat against my cheek through his chest.

  “Where’s your staff?” I asked, my brows furrowed in concern.

  “Strapped to my back,” he answered immediately.

  “Good.” That much was a relief. I’d hate if we lost it.

  “I wouldn’t leave it behind,” he said, his voice rumbling in his torso as he held me close. “I also have your knife in your bag on my back.”

  For some reason, that meant a lot to me. The knife wasn’t a family heirloom or anything, but it was important to me. “Thank you.”

  The monkey swung to the left, and Kane followed. “Where is this monkey taking us?” he asked out loud.

  The sound of falling trees grew closer, and Kane’s grip on me tightened.

  The monkey kept leading us deeper into the island, and then it stopped, and jumped up and down, hooting softly.

  Kane paused beneath the monkey’s tree and looked ahead of us. “Well, it looks like our little friend is a friend after all.”

  “What is it?” I asked, unable to see.

  “A cave opening,” he said.

  “What if it is leading us to our death instead?” I asked.

  “It could be.” He looked around then leapt up into a nearby tree. I was surprised he could make such a high jump, but I didn’t have time to appreciate it, as he tossed me up onto the next highest branch and left me dangling over the limb. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t leave me here!” Tears stung the backs of my eyes, and though I should have been tensing, my body remained flaccid.

  “Monkey, protect her,” Kane said, looking at our friend, who was already moving towards my branch.

  “Maybe he is coming to push me off!” I hissed.

  The monkey sat on the branch next to me, and patted my butt, which was sticking up.

  “He’s not going to push you off,” Kane said. “I’m going to check out the cave, then come back for you.”

  Before I could argue, he disappeared from my view.

  Freck!

  The monkey wrapped his tail around the tree branch and swung until he was upside down, his head next to mine.

  “Keeping me company?”

  Instead of answering, he began picking through my hair, looking for bugs.

  “If you find any, you’re welcome to eat them,” I mumbled.

  The crashing grew closer, and the monkey swung back up to my branch, and then climbed to a higher one, where I couldn’t see him.

  “Don’t you leave me, too!” I called to him.

  Another crash, and then this time, I heard the growl of something that was very unlike the wolfcupine’s growl.

  “That’s not good,” I whispered.

  Couldn’t cats climb trees? Could a giant panther climb trees?

  Kane called out, “I’m coming.”

  “I’ll just wait for you here,” I whispered back.

  The monkey returned, sitting beside me as Kane climbed up the tree.

  “The cave looks clear, but there’s a pretty big drop off, and I’m not sure if it will be safe to go down it or not. It’s too dark for me to tell,” Kane said as he climbed.

  “I’d just like to get somewhere that the giant panther can’t eat me.”

  Kane climbed onto the branch beside me but froze when he reached me. The monkey had frozen as well. I looked behind me and the blood that had rushed to my head from being bent upside down, was suddenly gone.

  The panther stood just at the edge of my vision, its golden eyes narrowed and focused on us. It definitely saw us.

  “Plan?” I asked softly.

  “Thinking,” Kane whispered.

  “It can climb, can’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Monkey, you should leave,” I whispered. “Get to safety.”

  The monkey didn’t hesitate. He swung away, heading back the direction it had led us from.

  The panther looked after the monkey a moment and then focused on us again.

  Not good.

  “We’re going to make a run for it,” he told me.

  “Won’t it just follow us into the cave?” My voice squeaked at the end.

  “It’s our only option. It can get to our current spot in one leap.” He picked me up, gripped me tightly, and dropped to the ground.

  The panther roared and charged at us.

  Kane took off at a sprint, running straight towards the cave I could now see. It wasn’t much taller than he was and looked to be just wide enough for us both to fit through side by side. Kane stumbled over some tree roots but righted himself and
continued on.

  I couldn’t see behind us but judging by the way the pebbles on the ground before us kept trembling, I was fairly certain the panther was gaining on us.

  Kane ran into the cave, pressing my head close against his chest, which turned out to be totally necessary, since the passageway narrowed considerably only a few feet in. He continued forward, and the narrow pathway opened to a room wide enough for us to lie side by side on the floor in.

  “I think we’re—”

  A massive paw reached through the darkness, clipping my shoe, but thankfully not catching it. I squeaked, and Kane backed up more, his eyes focused on the entrance way.

  “No way,” he whispered.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s squeezing its way in.” He glanced behind us, and said, “I think I’m going to have to jump into the hole.”

  “You have no idea how deep it is, or what’s at the bottom, or if we can get out!”

  “It’s that or die,” he growled.

  “Not dying sounds good.” My breaths grew shallow as fear gripped my chest.

  He turned, faced the dark hole in the ground, and our eyes met.

  The panther growled, the sound echoing off of the walls of our current chamber, and that was all Kane needed.

  He jumped.

  Chapter Seven

  Had I been able to move, I would have clung to Kane like a barnacle to a ship. As it was, I just had to pray he didn’t drop me. He pressed my head against his chest, wrapping his large hand around the back of my head to protect it against any rocks we might hit. My stomach felt as though it had risen into my throat and my heart pounded as we waited for the landing. The light from above slowly disappeared, until everything became pitch-black. I couldn’t even see Kane, despite being pressed against him.

  “This is a pretty long fall,” I whispered, my words echoing around us.

  “Yeah,” he whispered back.

  “Are we going to survive it?” I squeezed my eyes shut tight. Really, how long had we been falling now? It had to be several minutes.

  He chuckled and whispered, “We stopped falling a little while ago. Now we’re sliding.”

  “What?” I opened my eyes again, but it made no difference. I still couldn’t see.

  “We fell for a bit, and now we are sliding down a really long tube.”

  I wanted to reach my hands out and feel the sides, but they still wouldn’t listen to me. I wished I could find a way to slow our descent, as the feeling in the pit of my stomach was turning into nausea. “Is that any better? If it’s a tube, we still won’t have a way up.”

  “Stop talking,” he ordered me. “I need to listen.”

  Listen? To what? The sound of us falling, or sliding, to our deaths? We could be falling into a pit where there would be no way out and no food. Or, into a den of monsters. But I did as he asked and stopped talking. Now that I wasn’t talking, I could feel the sliding movement. We weren’t just sliding straight, there were twists and turns as we went. It didn’t feel like a very steep slope, but it was long.

  We slid and slid, and then, we plummet again.

  I squeaked, but when we landed, it was only slightly jarring. The temperature had dropped, but not uncomfortably. Somewhere water dripped, but I couldn’t figure out which direction the noise came.

  “You okay?” Kane asked.

  “Yeah, you?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to set you down a second, so I can try to feel my way around.” His grip loosened.

  I didn’t want him to let me go. If my stinking arms were working, I would have gripped his shirt, but they remained limp. “What if there are—”

  “I’m not going far,” he said and set me down.

  I couldn’t fight him, even though I wanted to. I wanted to yell at him and tell him not to leave me alone, but I chewed my bottom lip instead. It was bad enough that I felt weak and helpless, I didn’t need to admit it. The cold from the ground beneath me seeped into my shirt, making the skin on my thighs feel damp. Wet earth was the only smell that made it to my nose. Everything down here felt damp and dirty. I kept waiting for my eyes to adjust and for me to be able to see something, anything, but no change came. Things remained black.

  Kane shuffled around for a short while. I just concentrated on my breathing, trying to slow my heart rate and the increasing panic as I kept feeling like something could come out of the dark and snatch me up at any moment. Finally, he returned, scooped me up, and set me between his legs, with my back leaned against his chest. I let out a slow, deep breath, finally feeling myself relax against him. When did I become so dependent upon another person to feel stronger and safer? I’d never had anyone to lean on in my life, and besides, Kane had already betrayed me once. Should I really even be trusting him this much?

  “It’s a decent sized room,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be another way out, but I thought I felt a breeze coming from an area other than the hole we fell through. I didn’t want to travel too far from you, though, because I wasn’t sure I could find my way back.”

  “That would suck.” My heart skipped a beat. To imagine that would have been just awful. It was enough to be in the dark and unable to move. If I was alone here, it would be unbearable. Tears stung the backs of my eyes, but I swallowed them back.

  He chuckled. “Not finding you would cause quite the delay in escaping if I did find a way out.”

  Panic rose up in my again. He didn’t find a way out and we couldn’t possibly stay down here forever. We’d starve to death. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to sit here, and rest. I’m tired from all the running and holding onto you. And honestly, I haven’t gotten much sleep the last few days. So, I’m going to prop myself up against this wall, out of the way of the hole in case anything else falls down, and rest.”

  “You didn’t find any bones, did you?” If anything had died down here, or used this for a place to eat, there could be bones piled up all over.

  “I did, but smaller animals, and not very many. I think most are smart enough not to jump into the hole.”

  “They probably didn’t have a giant panther chasing them.” I relaxed a little. That was good news, anyway. And at least the panther couldn’t follow us here.

  He shifted us around and quieted, and then his breathing evened out against my back.

  How could he fall asleep so quickly? It just wasn’t fair. I thought with the room being completely black, it would be easy to sleep, but I had already slept for four days apparently, thanks to that stupid plant. So, I sat in the dark, wide awake, and hyperaware of every noise in the cave. I sighed. At least Kane could get the rest he needed. Even though the ground beneath us was cold and damp, it quickly warmed due to our body heat. My back against Kane’s chest warmed as well, and I took comfort in it. His arms remained wrapped around me, even as they twitched in his sleep. My mind continued to swim.

  How were we going to get out of here? Did Kane have a plan? Doubtful. What about food? Because I could hear water dripping, at least there was that much good news, but what if it wasn’t even drinkable? We needed to get out of here as soon as we could, but Kane needed to rest, and I needed to recover control of my limbs. I tried my hardest to get my finger to move. To twitch, at least, but nothing.

  Since I wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon, I focused on my body and tried to get it to move. Kane said I would be able to move soon, so maybe if I focused, I could get it to move sooner. Hours passed in the darkness. It was insane to me just how dark it was in this cave. I understood there was no sunlight, but I had never before been in complete darkness like this. Underwater, our territory usually had bioluminescence scattered about in common areas, so darkness wasn’t a factor. Even in the mages’ cavern, they had the rocks that absorbed light and glowed as well as electricity.

  Without a light source, our chances of survival diminished some.

  “Did you sleep at all?” Kane asked as he shifted beneath me.

  My heart
leapt at the sound of his voice and I cursed it inwardly. I didn’t need to let my emotions rely on him either. “No.”

  “Still can’t move?” He stretched his legs out to both sides of me and pulled his arms over his head, pushing me forward slightly.

  “No, I still can’t even move a finger."

  “Well, I think we should eat a bit, and then just wait until you can move before doing anything else.” He grabbed the pack and pulled it closer. I could hear him rummaging through it.

  “Don’t you have a string or something?” I asked.

  “A rope?” he asked back.

  “Yeah.”

  “I do. Why?”

  “Why don’t you tie one end to me and the other end to yourself. Then you can crawl around the cave, and still find your way back to me. I would rather you find a way out of here for us, than just sit for hours waiting for my body to work again.”

  “Let’s eat first.” He pressed something to my mouth. “Take a bite.”

  I obeyed and chewed on the sweet fruit. “What is this?”

  “It’s the fruit your monkey friend gave us. It should help speed up your recovery.” He took a bite himself, and I could feel his chewing motions.

  “It tastes pretty good.”

  “If we had been able to find more, it would have been a sure-fire way for us to stay alive down here. This fruit lasts a long time and is super nutritious.”

  “Monkey!” I yelled.

  Kane flinched.

  The word echoed around us, sounding scary after a moment.

  “What are you doing?” Kane asked.

  “Trying to see if he can save us. It’s worth a try, right?”

  He sighed and shuffled around a moment. “Okay, go ahead and yell.”

  Had he plugged his ears?

  “Monkey!” I yelled as loud as I could. “Send fruits!”

  I repeated those three words, a dozen more times, and then stopped since my throat became dry.

  “Drink.” Kane put the canteen against my lips.

  I did and then exhaled. “He probably ran really far away when he saw the panther. No doubt, he’s too far to hear us.”

  “Probably.” His voice sounded dejected. I wasn’t the only one disappointed.