Wynn wasn't certain that even the staff's crystal would work. In these tight spaces, all the wraith had to do was slip into a wall, wait for her to weaken and for the sun crystal to go out. It could come again—and again.
Doubt told her that she should've stayed with the Stonewalkers to face it.
As Reine reached the turnoff toward the prince's chamber, a shout echoed from behind them. Chuillyon halted and turned, blocking the way, and Wynn heard the duchess's footfalls fading ahead.
"What?" Tristan called from beyond the elf.
"Take everyone onward!" Chuillyon ordered.
"No!" Wynn countered. "You can't stand alone against it … if it doesn't just slip past you!"
Chuillyon grabbed her tunic collar, ignoring Chane's warning hiss, and jerked her past himself.
"Go, and keep your staff ready. The chamber is the safest place now. I will delay or hinder it if possible … move!"
Wynn stared at him in disbelief. How could the prince's chambers be safer than anywhere else?
But Chuillyon's intense gaze was set in conviction. Wynn backed down the passage as Chane and Shade came through. The captain remained for an instant.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Take them onward, Tristan," the elf insisted, and he stepped out into the main passage, heading back the way they'd come.
The captain backed down the passage.
Shade turned, taking two slow steps toward the exit into the main passage.
Wynn grabbed the dog's neck fur and locked eyes with Chane. They had to remain together in whatever they chose to do. Did they stay to fight, or fall back, knowing the wraith would likely get past and follow? What did Chane want to do?
"We go," he said.
Wynn thought she heard Chuillyon's whisper echoing to her as she pulled Shade and ran on ahead of Chane.
Sau'ilahk rushed into the underworld's main cavern and paused. He looked all ways for a lingering hint of light from a sage's crystal. He saw nothing but the orange glow of dwarven crystals on phosphorescent walls.
Sensing life in the mountain's dense depths was more difficult than in the open, and he was so weary. Hunger obscured his awareness—and Stonewalkers would come at any instant.
An unintelligible whisper reached him, and he turned.
It came from the mouth of the underworld's main passage. Had his prey run for the lift? If they reached further help above, it could slow him more. He surged into the main passage.
A white form stood only a stone's toss down the way.
The elf had his hands clasped, his eyes closed. His thin lips barely moved in a narrow face so calm and serene. Sau'ilahk heard a whispering like prayer—or was it more like a nearly voiceless song?
"Chârmun, agh'alhtahk so. A'lhän am leagad chionns'gnajh."
One life, even so old and spent, would still serve Sau'ilahk's need. He flew at his prey.
The elf's large eyes opened without surprise.
Sau'ilahk slammed against invisible resistance and shuddered as if struck.
It was not the same as the Stonewalkers holding him in this world, barring him from dormancy. He felt as if he had become wholly solid in an instant. He clawed toward the elf beyond his reach, and resistance grew—like being submerged in mud.
"No farther, Sovereign of Spirits, by Chârmun's presence," the old elf breathed. "You end here … Sau'ilahk! We have your true name … for an epitaph no one will ever read. This time, you will be forgotten!"
Sau'ilahk faltered—did this withered old one know him from somewhere?
The elf's clasped hands, with fingers laced, clenched tighter.
Sau'ilahk's thoughts went numb as he looked into his adversary's eyes. Those amber irises appeared to shift hue, brightening to the tawny glistening of bare wood. Every bit of distance Sau'ilahk gained, he lost more quickly, leaving him more drained. And his true quarry was getting farther beyond reach.
Did they have an escape route wherever the other Âreskynna was hidden? Any moment, the Stonewalkers would find him again. They would bind him from dormancy as the elf held him at bay. And then …
This delay had to end!
Two side passages lay beyond the elf, one toward the ocean and the other landward. Which way had Wynn and the duchess taken?
Sau'ilahk shifted left to the passage's landward side. When the elf stepped to block him, he rushed the passage's seaward side.
Everything went dark.
He tried to veer left again inside the mountain's stone, but that hidden pressure still stalled his advance. He surged deeper to the west, deeper into the unknown, his awareness of sight and sound still blinded. As he tried again and again, the resistance began to weaken.
He found the limits of the old elf's reach.
Sau'ilahk broke through, pushing onward in silent darkness, but he wallowed in the mountain's bowels, trying to find his way out.
Wynn had lost sight of the duchess as she ran for the prince's chamber, but she could still see the captain ahead. What had become of Cinder-Shard, Ore-Locks, or the other Stonewalkers—or Chuillyon?
The captain swerved through an open door near the passage's dead end.
Wynn heard a high-pitched screech rise inside the chamber as she raced for the door.
Chane grabbed her arm from behind. Without a word he pushed past, sword in hand, and lifted its broken tip as he entered. In spite of everything, what Wynn saw through the opening still shocked her.
Tristan threw his sword aside and leaped off the pool's rear ledge. The blade clanged against the wall as he splashed down and thrashed toward the commotion at the pool's gate.
Prince Freädherich had one hand latched upon a gate bar as he fought to get Danyel off his back. A line of blood ran down the young bodyguard's left cheek, as he struggled to pin the prince's free arm. Reine was soaked as she pulled at her husband's grip on the gate. Tristan closed from behind, wrapped his arms around the prince, and wrenched the young man around.
Wynn couldn't believe Freädherich's state. He barely resembled the lost man she'd first seen in this chamber.
Shirt torn by his struggles, he craned his head back. His features contorted in horrid misery as he tried to cry out. But his voice broke, and he choked as if drowning, even as he gasped for air. When his frantic eyes opened, they were nearly fully black. His face, his skin, was paler than before—and tinged beneath with the taint of teal.
That taint was almost the color of the sea people.
The duchess collapsed against the gate. Wet hair matted to her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She was too wet for her tears to show as she sobbed.
Wynn began to suspect what had driven Reine to let the world believe her husband was dead—and why she silently suffered lingering suspicion as his murderer.
Reine couldn't think as Frey twisted within Tristan's hold. In the worst times in memory, the hints of Frey's change had come and gone with the tide. And now …
Danyel waded to the pool's edge, catching his breath as he wiped blood with the back of his hand. Reine realized he'd dropped her comb with the white metal teardrop in the water and it was floating. Danyel scooped it up.
"They came," he said, panting. "They tried to open the gate. I shut them out, but …"
Frey thrashed halfway around toward the bars, but Tristan's hold wouldn't break.
"Must go—go now!" Frey choked out. "They wait … for me … and it is coming!"
The pool's chill broke through Reine's anguish.
How did he know what was happening? How had he learned of the black mage? She swiveled, backing toward him as she looked down the tunnel beyond the gate, and then quickly closed on her husband.
"No, we can protect you—"