But those weren't the words filling her head, the ones that made her small fingers curl in his wet shirt until the fabric began to tear.
Don't you ever leave me!
Sau'ilahk slid slowly down the lift's shaft wall, pausing often to listen and peer into the depths below. He waited until any light at the bottom faded before he completed his descent.
The duchess, her entourage, and their Stonewalker guide were gone, but she had led him far enough. That assistance was all he required, for he was here, in the underworld.
By all Wynn's bumbling efforts to locate this place, the texts had to be here as well. What would be safer for the guild than to hide them in the hands of the Stonewalkers?
Ahead … and see!
At his command, the stone-spider clicked down the passage's roof.
As he waited, he called the stone-worm out of the wall, making certain it had kept up. Once the spider returned, confirming that the way was clear, he slipped onward. But when he came upon a three-way branching of the passage, he halted to study each path.
He could not linger long enough for his servitors to scout all three. There was no knowing when someone might come back or the lift would be called for others to descend. Before long, the outer guards' bodies would be discovered.
Straight ahead, down the main passage from the lift, he spotted a faint glow.
Sau'ilahk turned full circle, examining all ways, and finally pushed on toward that dim light. Finding just one lone Stonewalker seemed the only way to learn what he needed. Soon, the rough-hewn tunnel spilled into a natural cavern.
Aside from the dull glimmer of phosphorescent minerals in glistening walls, there were smaller, steaming orange crystals dotting the cavern. Their light broke upon merging stalactites and stalagmites. Shadows cast every which way made the place a maze of dark columns. He could just make out other black openings to other places.
The underworld looked—felt—so different from what lay in the seatt far above.
Less excavated, it was a realm of natural spaces rather than those expanded and formed to meet the will and need of the dwarves. Some might have found the place unnerving, but it left Sau'ilahk melancholy with its sense of permanence. As if it had been, would be, always here—like him.
He drifted in a straight line, slipping through natural columns toward one opening better lit than the others. The hollow beyond was smaller than the main space, and only dripping stalactites hung from its low ceiling. Some had been broken off for clearance, and the floor had been cleared and leveled. In its center stood a stone rectangle chiseled perfectly smooth. In repose, atop it, lay the corpse of a warrior thänæ in full battle dress.
Sau'ilahk slipped in, briefly lingering over Hammer-Stag's body.
The dwarf had been washed and dressed in clean clothes and a polished hauberk, but his pallid features still held a trace of his last moment of fury and agony. Strangely, his eyelids were open. The great ax that had given Sau'ilahk moments of trouble was clutched to the thänæ's chest in his large hands.
A stone trough filled with murky water rested against the platform's side.
Sau'ilahk spotted a pallet leaning against the far wall, made of a wood frame and interwoven leather straps. Four long iron bars leaned near it. He was familiar with dwarven cairns for their dead, but he had no notion what was taking place here. Did Stonewalkers immerse their dead before final burial? Were they preserving the body?
He needed a live Stonewalker, not a dead thänæ. And whoever had been preparing the body, where had they gone? He returned to the main cavern, but had barely reached its center when a thunderclap rolled through the underworld.
Sau'ilahk froze as it echoed off of stone.
Between glistening natural columns he spotted a hulkish dark shadow. It stood in one of the far openings and stepped into the main cavern. Orange light caught on the dwarf's thick red hair and glinted upon a thôrhk around its neck.
Sau'ilahk rushed at it, straight through the wet columns.
The dwarf drew a wide dagger from his belt. His other hand swung wide and slapped against the cavern's wall.
Another thunderclap rose from stone.
Sau'ilahk halted upon hearing a grating beneath the noise. At a shift of shadow, he whirled to see the cavern wall bulging.
Darkened stone formed into a wide face and a body that followed.
A second Stonewalker emerged straight out of the cavern wall.
Wynn tried to regain her wits as she was herded down the passage. She held on to Shade's scruff and glanced back for Chane. One young Weardas flicked a sword point at her in warning. Beyond him, Chane was disarmed and driven forward by the other bodyguard and the captain.
And the captain held her staff.
Wynn panicked for an instant. To use the staff, she needed her pewter-framed glasses. Her thoughts scrambled back over the wild struggle at the gate before the sea tunnel. She dug into the pocket of her elven pants, and when she felt the rims of her spectacles, she drew a minor breath of relief that she hadn't lost them. Hurrying on, she looked back once again.
A glimpse of white at the rear told Wynn the elf followed, but she couldn't tell whether the duchess was there. The only person ahead of her was the master of the Stonewalkers.
Wynn was lost as to what had happened in the pool chamber. She'd blundered into more than just the hiding place of her texts. A dead prince was locked away in the Stonewalkers' underworld, and Duchess Reine was with him. Foreign beings had risen in the tunnel's water, clearly having some affinity for Prince Freädherich. And the prince had submerged to utter unimaginable sounds.
Whatever it all meant, Wynn realized that none of it was intended for the world outside. And the only reason she still lived was because the duchess had faltered.
Even if she was left alive, she'd be locked away where no one would ever find her. There would be no charges, no trial, no chance to justify how and why she'd forced her way in here. Wynn Hygeorht would simply disappear.
She still couldn't get it all straight in her head.
The duchess had nearly stood trial for her husband's disappearance and assumed death. If she'd known he was alive, why hadn't she spoken up at the time? The answer was partly here, but how was the prince connected to those beings in the tunnel?
A single memory lingered in Wynn's mind. It complicated all other questions.
Half a world away in Droevinka, Leesil had uncovered a hidden chamber beneath the keep near Magiere's home village. There, Ubâd had engineered her unnatural conception and birth. In that chamber, they'd found the remains of those slaughtered for the ritual.
Elves and dwarves were known, one of each present among the desiccated bones. But the others were like no beings Wynn had ever seen—until later. A séyilf, one of the Wind-Blown, had appeared at Magiere's trial before the Farlands' elves. In the search for the orb, Magiere, Leesil, and Chap had been taken into the depths before the Chein'âs, the Burning Ones.
The Úirishg—five races associated to the Elements—were only a myth.
But not to Wynn—not after all she'd been through in the last two years. Elves and Dwarves, Séyilf and Chein'âs races stood for Spirit and Earth, Air and Fire. That left only Water. Even knowing the other races existed, the impact of what—who—she'd seen in the pool chamber's tunnel was more than she could take in.
Wynn had seen the people from the sea, the last race of the Úirishg.
But right now, she had to focus. She, Chane, and Shade were in deadly trouble, and not from the undead or the agents of a long-forgotten enemy. They'd stumbled into a tangled secret, one the duchess seemed ready to kill for to keep hidden.
"Where are you taking us?" Wynn finally asked.