“If you’ve got something to say, you may as well come out with it,” I huffed as we entered another cave. This one was equally nondescript as the first, but it had three other tunnels shooting off from it.
“I cannot believe you trusted him,” Orin said darkly. “He’s our competition! And the king’s son! After I told you…” he trailed off, looking around, and then his eyes widened. We both seemed to realize at the same time that Ben wasn’t in here with us. No cameras.
Orin went on. “After I told you about what the king did to my family. The Obanstones care only for themselves. No one else. Especially not mortals.”
“Left or right?” I asked, unsuccessfully trying to keep his words from needling me. I was a mortal. As useless as an insect to faeries.
“Let’s go straight on,” he replied, of course, to be difficult. I huffed and skirted around Orin, taking the path in the middle. Seconds later, he’d caught up with me.
“What was it about him that made you fall for his tricks? His golden flyaway hair? His masculine pout? His delectable eyes?”
“Sounds like you’re the one who’s mooning over him, not me,” I snapped. “I thought he was trying to help.” I could hardly admit I’d developed a crush on him. That’s exactly what Orin wanted to hear…or not hear. Who knew?
“Well, thanks to your pretty boy, we are stuck in this hole, and I for one, don’t see a way out.”
“Drop it,” I cautioned. “I was wrong to trust him.”
“Yes, you were. Never trust a faerie!”
“I was wrong to trust him,” I repeated, “but without his talisman we’d both be dead and unable to continue this argument. So let’s get over it and find the way out.” My angry words echoed as we came upon another cave. Like the last one, it had four exits including the one we’d just come from.
Without bothering to ask Orin, I stalked through it and picked the tunnel straight ahead, as we’d had done the last time.
We walked for miles, always taking the middle tunnel. Pain shot through my feet with each step and my stomach was once again growling for food.
“There’s something wrong here,” Orin said as we once again came to a crossroads. “Every cave but the first has had four points of entry or exit whichever way you look at it.”
“So?” I asked. “I figure if we go in a straight line, we’ll eventually find a way out. The ground beneath us is flat, so it’s not like we’re going deeper into the earth.”
Orin shook his head. “I’m not so sure. Pass me your pack.”
“Why?”
“Never mind. Mine will do just as well.” He pulled his backpack from his shoulders and dropped it to the floor. “Let’s go.”
“You’re leaving it behind?” I asked, rushing to catch up with him as he made his way up the central tunnel.
“I really hope I’m wrong,” he replied cryptically. “If I am, I’ll go back for it, but if I’m right, which I hope I’m not, then…” He stopped mid-sentence as we came upon another cave. There, right in the center was a backpack. Orin’s backpack.
Orin let out a roar of frustration before shouting out a list of expletives that almost certainly would have been bleeped out of the show if Ben was still filming us. “This isn’t a normal cave system. There is a reality-bending spell on it.”
“A what?” I asked confused.
He handed me his backpack. “Here, let me show you. Stay exactly where you are. I’ll be right back.” As he walked away from me, leaving me alone in the cave, a sense of foreboding crept over me. For a brief second, I began to panic that he’d left me and when I felt a tap on my shoulder from behind I nearly jumped right out of my skin.
“It’s me,” Orin said as I tried to get my breathing under control.
We’d been walking for hours, and effectively, we’d barely moved at all. Frustration bubbled up as I realized I was just as far away from Cass as I’d ever been. I’d felt so close to getting to her just a couple of hours before, but now here I was trapped in the cave of nightmares with Orin.
“I’m never going to see her again am I?”
“I don’t know,” replied Orin, his voice sounding much lower than usual.
“Now, you decide to be honest! When I want you to lie to me and tell me everything is going to be okay.”
“I don’t know that everything is going to be all right, and I don’t see any sense in pandering to your fear and telling you otherwise. I don’t even know if we’ll get out of this place, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to help my parents and don’t know why I entered this godforsaken race in the first place.” He kicked the dirt beneath his feet leaving a mark on the floor. It gave me an idea.
“Stop moping and follow me,” I said, a bit harshly, as it had been me that had started the moping in the first place. “I have an idea.”
Where Orin had kicked a line in the dirt, I used the tip of my shoe to put another line through it, making it into a cross. Instead of going straight forward, I took Orin’s hand in mine and took the left-hand tunnel. As I had hoped, the next cave we came to had no mark on the ground.
“There is a way out of this place after all. We just need to figure it out.” In this cave, I drew a circle in the dirt and took one of the tunnels which lead us right back to itself. Without stopping, we took another until we came to a cave with no markings.
With trial and error, we wove our way through the strange cave, making different markings each time we entered a new cave. Some of the caves took three attempts before we entered a new one, but if we stuck to the plan, we’d find a way out eventually…in theory.
Hours later, I was beginning to think that maybe I was wrong and there was an endless supply of these virgin caves. Maybe this whole place was designed to give you false hope and keep you going until the despair finally kicked in, leaving you wondering if you should just fall to the floor and give up entirely. I had it in the back of my mind to articulate this to Orin for a while, but then a little voice in my head told me if I gave up now, I’d never know if the exit was in the next cave.
But even my voice of hope left me when, after hours and hours and hours of walking we entered a cave with a cross. It was the cross we’d drawn with our feet. We’d walked for what felt like forever only to come round in a circle.
I collapsed to the floor in despair and let my head fall into my hands. If Tristam was here right now, I’d happily rip his gorgeous head off his shoulders and drop kick it down a tunnel. I’d do it with a smile on my face too. At least, that would make my death that bit more palatable, for that’s what Orin and I were facing.
Tristam’s pendant had taken away our quick, painless death and replaced it with one that would be long and drawn out as dehydration overcame us.
“Will you be quiet,” hissed Orin, pulling his forefinger to his lips. I hadn’t even been aware I was making any noise…not unless I’d been expressing my thoughts out loud.
“I can hear something.”
I froze. He was right. There was a voice calling out to us in soft feminine tones. We weren’t here alone after all. There was someone down here. And it knew our names.
25
I scrambled to my feet, grabbing a sharp rock in my sweaty palm. “What is that?” I whispered.
Orin’s face was pale in the dim light. “I don’t know.”
“What kind of faeries live in caves?”
He shook his head. “Not ones that you want to encounter.” He took a step forward as the lilting voice called out, “Orin, come here, Orin.”
I grabbed his bicep and hauled him back. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
He didn’t look at me, his eyes fixed ahead. “I’m going to check it out.”
“Going towards the mysterious, creepy monster voice? I don’t think so,” I said, trying to keep him beside me as he pulled forward again. Did this creature have some sort of hold over him?
But he turned back to me, and his dark eyes were clear. “Whatever that is may know the
way out of here. We have to try.”
“It could be dangerous,” I hissed. “Attack us.” The memory of the Red Cap biting into Duncan’s leg with razor teeth filled my mind.
“Feel free to slowly starve to death in this circular hell cave, but I’m going to check it out.” He pulled his arm from my grip and stalked forward, through the tunnel toward where the voice was floating from.
I bit my lip, indecision warring at me. I felt like I was in the worst kind of choose-your-own-adventure. Whatever page I turned to, I would end up dead. The End. I shook my head, hurrying after Orin. When had I become such a scaredy-cat? I chided myself. I used to be fearless. This place hadn’t taken that from me completely, had it?
The tunnel opened into a cave unlike any we’d been in before. It had a soaring ceiling that glittered with clear crystals and winked with more of the faint blue light. Instead of the packed dirt and rock we’d been walking over, this huge cavern was covered with dark, cool water, a massive subterranean lake. Across the cavern was a tinkling river pouring sparkling water out of a dark recess in the wall. And next to it was the source of the voice. A woman.
Orin was picking his way around the stones that skirted the lake, heading towards the woman. She stood with a pitcher on her hip and called out again. “Come, Jacqueline,” she said, motioning gracefully with a hand.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose, but I followed Orin. As I approached, I got a better view of our hostess. She was exquisitely beautiful, with long blonde hair that flowed almost to her waist. That would be a bitch to brush through, I thought. Her creamy, flawless skin was pale and almost glowed in the eerie light of the cave. She wore a dress that looked like spun silk, in the color of the sky on a cool winter’s day. Her appearance, though lovely, didn’t set me at ease. It was always the pretty girls in the stories who had sharp teeth and swallowed you whole as soon as your back was turned. I wasn’t about to let that happen.
“Orin Treebaum,” the woman-faerie-creature said. “Welcome to my cave.” She set down her pitcher and took his hand. Thoughts of the other creatures that had already tried to mislead us entered my head. Orin had been the one to warn me against them, so why was he giving her his hand? It made no sense. I resisted shouting at him not to touch her, but thankfully, nothing seemed to happen when they touched.
“How do you know us?” Orin asked.
“This is my home,” she said. “It has no secrets from me.”
“You…live here?” I asked, looking around. Seemed kinda lonely. And depressing.
She inclined her head towards me, a smile twitching on those perfect plush lips. “I am a xana. Caves such as this one give us life. Imbue us with their magic. And so we act as guardians.”
“A xana?” I asked. Orin exchanged a glance with me, but his expression was unreadable. He recognized the term, but I wasn’t sure if he was relieved or struck with terror. “Do you have anything to do with the spell back there?” I asked. “The one turning us around in circles?”
She shook her head. “Such mischievous magic is not mine. That cave is not a part of my home, for I would not have allowed such an enchantment. But I heard your voices, and so I opened a passage here so we could speak.”
“So, we’re out of the loop?” I asked, with hope. “Can we get to the surface from here?”
She wrinkled her perfect brow. “But why would you want to? Everything a person needs is here.”
“Everything a xana needs, perhaps,” Orin said gently. “But not a human. Or a faerie. We need food. And sunlight.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, that does make sense.”
“Can you help us get out of here?” I asked, and Orin shot me a dirty look. “Not…that it’s not lovely here…in your cave. But we…we have important tasks to complete.”
One slender eyebrow rose. “A quest? You are adventurers on a quest?” She seemed delighted at the prospect.
“Yes,” Orin said. “A very important quest that we must complete or lives will be lost. Please, my lady. We are at your mercy.”
I wanted to snort. That was laying it on a little thick, but the xana seemed to eat it up. She clapped her hands. “If I am to aid you…”—she drew a finger to her lip, considering—“you must grant me a token…or a boon. Yes, that is the way of quests.”
Orin and I frowned at each other. She wanted something? I wracked my brain, and then a thought occurred to me. I pulled Tristam’s necklace out of my pocket and held it out to her. “This necklace was given to me by the crown prince of all of Faerwild. As a sign of his affection. It has great power. But I shall give it to you, in exchange for your aid.”
The xana flowed towards me, taking the necklace reverently. Up close, she was even more beautiful, her irises like refracted crystals, her eyelashes long and fair. The girl didn’t even need mascara with those lashes, I thought to myself darkly. No wonder Orin was lapping this up.
The xana fixed the necklace around her throat and turned to Orin. “And what boon shall you give me, brave Orin?”
Orin was fishing in his pockets. I could see him considering what he had. The dragon sword. We really needed that. I shook my head to him. He needed to come up with something else.
“Might I suggest…” the xana said coyly, stepping up to him, “a kiss?”
Orin’s dark eyebrows flew skyward, and when he spoke, his voice cracked. “You…” he cleared his throat. “You would take that? As payment?”
“It has been long since I have enjoyed the kiss of such a young, virile, faerie male. I would,” she said, her fingers playing with the button on the front of his shirt.
Orin looked at me, his eyes a question I didn’t fully understand, so I couldn’t answer. There was no way he was going to do it. Not Orin. I couldn’t imagine him kissing anyone. I expected to see his face color at the suggestion, but it was I who was surprised as he leaned down and kissed her.
I’m not sure what I was expecting. Her arms to turn to tentacles, her face into a sucking maw that would swallow him up. Well, that didn’t happen. But I also didn’t expect them to wrap their arms around each other, Orin taking her head with his hand as he deepened the kiss, as they pressed against each other. Jesus, he was really going to town!
I was frozen to the spot, unable to look away, unable to combat the uncomfortable whirlwind of emotions that were rushing up to meet me. And the heat that washed over me, pooling deep in my core at the sight of Orin literally ravishing the xana—his lips and hands navigating her form with expert attention. The xana moaned softly and my face flushed red as I realized what I was feeling. Oh god. Jealousy. Surely not. Not for Orin.
I cleared my throat loudly, shoving the unwelcome realization down ruthlessly. It wasn’t Orin I wanted. I just hadn’t been kissed by anyone like that in a long time. Maybe ever, a voice in my head said, and I swatted at it.
Orin and the xana were untwining from each other, and he wiped his mouth, unable to keep a languid smile from creeping onto his face. I wanted to smack it off. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to punch him right in his smug perfect face. If I didn’t want to get out of this damn cave more, I might just have done it.
“Well,” the xana smoothed her hair, adjusting her gown. She looked like the cat who had just eaten the canary. “That was quite a boon. More, I think, than is necessary in exchange for my aid.” She crossed a few stones and began picking her way across stepping stones through the babbling river. “Come,” she said.
Orin and I fell into step behind her, and I shot him my most powerful scowl. It did not feel up to the task.
“What?” He shrugged, still wearing that incorrigible grin. “Just doing what’s necessary for the team.”
I twisted a fake smile at him, narrowing my eyes. “Your sacrifice is noted.”
The xana stopped and bent over, reaching into the water. When she stood, she turned and held out a tiny crystal vial to Orin. “This is a love potion. A gift from me, in thanks for your kiss. Though a male with as passionate a soul as yours
need no potion, it is all I have to give. Perhaps it will serve you along your journey.”
“The potion, and the way out?” I clarified. “Right? You can get us out of here, too?”
Orin shot me a look. “Thank you, beautiful xana. I shall not forget you or your generosity.”
“Nor I,” she murmured, looking him up and down. I glanced away in mortification. Get a room, lady!
But she motioned forward, towards a dark opening in the cave beyond the stream. “Follow the lights. They will lead you home.”
26
Orin leaned over and took the xana’s hand, kissing it lightly the way any gentleman would in a black and white movie.
At least it was like an old movie until I nudged past him and accidentally sent him splashing into the shallows of the water.
“Oops,” I said as he trudged back to the rocks, his dark eyes glittering furiously. “My bad!”
Of course, the xana just had to help, pulling him out of the water and using her magic to drain the water from his pants and boots. Did she want another boon for that too?
“You pushed me on purpose!” Orin snarled as we left the crystal cave and the xana behind.
“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”
Orin strode past me, nearly knocking me over in the narrow tunnel. “Oops.”
I guess I deserved that. I rubbed my arm where he’d barged past and followed him out into the open air.
The pair of us stood, our hair fluttering in the wind that had picked up during our time in the cave. We were undoubtedly on the same mountain we’d been climbing before I invoked Tristam’s stupid talisman, but judging by the view, we’d walked right beneath the mountain and were now on the other side.
Elfame was way behind us now, and even though we were closer to the end of this stupid race, I felt like I was heading further and further away from the reason I’d come here in the first place…Cass.
“Now what?” I asked, looking out into the distance. The light was fading, and all I could see was miles and miles of meadows ahead of us. There was no sign of the others still left in the race, no campfires, nothing. I wondered where they all were. Were they all done? Had we lost this trial?
The Sorcery Trial (The Faerie Race Book 1) Page 17
