Even Shade had not sensed the wraith until too late. Chane had not sensed it at all, not while wearing the ring. The wraith would come back, and he needed to know when, if not where.
Chane gripped the ring with his other hand. "Shade?"
She twisted her head up and back, looking at him. He showed her what he was about to do, but she merely returned to her vigil. In one swift movement, Chane pulled the ring off.
For an instant, the world rippled like the surface of a disturbed pond. His senses sharpened slightly as his awareness expanded, free of the ring's influence.
Chane smelled—felt—Shade's life and the brief twinge of someone else beyond the passage's end. Then it was gone, though the beast within Chane lunged to the end of its bonds.
Shade remained silent though Chane thought he saw her hackles prickle.
Between them, he hoped one would know if—when—the wraith returned.
Chane slid down the archway's side to settle beside the packs and the staff. Hunger kept eating at him, as if it turned upon him with nothing else to sate it. He closed his eyes, thinking of anything else… .
Of Stonewalkers … and their secrets …
Of white-clad, false elven sages … and their secrets …
Of beings of the sea and a prince believed dead.
There were moments he wished none of this had begun. It would have been so much better to slip into the guild library for the brief part of any night with Wynn, even if he spent his days hiding in some hovel. But what he had seen could not be ignored, even as he felt himself drifting at the dark edge of dormancy.
A dead prince of this foreign land appeared to have spoken to people of the sea that Chane could never have imagined. Among other puzzles, that one lingered upon him now. What did it mean? It seemed a very desperate secret, dangerous enough that the duchess might yet kill for it.
Chane found himself standing among the guild library's shelves.
He tried to pick a first book to pull out. He knew there was one he needed to find, but could not think of what it was. When he turned to ask Wynn's advice, he was looking at the pool through the bars of the sea tunnel's last gate. Face-to-face, he stared at a man soaked to the skin, who reached through those bars.
A dream … and even within it, he wondered why.
Dormancy held no dreams for the dead. But a few times before, they had come to him.
He heard something that made him turn, waist-deep in the tunnel's freezing water. But Wynn was not there, nor was Shade. The long darkness behind him, filling the tunnel to its round walls, seemed to twist … like black coils with soft glints of light.
Crushing cold … suffocation … pure darkness that brought utter silence …
Wynn felt stone's chill over her whole body and couldn't move. The pressure threatened to grind her into nothing as the heat in her flesh rapidly leached out.
She was buried alive.
In terror, she tried to scream, but her mouth couldn't open. Even her jaw and lips wouldn't move. Her lungs began to burn, wanting to expel used-up air.
"It will pass quickly," someone said.
That sudden voice in the silence made her flinch in panic, and she collapsed. Her left arm felt instantly strained, but the darkness began to lighten.
"Breathe," someone ordered in a gravelly voice. "Open your mouth and breathe, fool!"
Wynn did so, in one tearing, heaving gasp. She grew faint, but something held her up by her left wrist and wouldn't let go.
"Do not succumb to what you feel, or it will linger!"
Wynn opened her eyes.
In the dimly lit dark, Cinder-Shard was watching her. Her left shoulder ached, and she finally realized he held her up by her wrist. The few items she'd brought lay on a damp floor of dark stone below her buckled legs. She struggled to regain her feet.
"Let go of me," she said, but it came out hoarse and broken.
"Not until you can stand," he answered.
Ore-Locks stepped into view, blocking off more of the surroundings.
"The first time is the worst," he said, "though few have ever traveled this way."
Wynn wheezed and coughed, and Ore-Locks glanced at Cinder-Shard, as if in concern. She finally planted her feet firmly on stone.
"She will recover," Cinder-Shard said.
When he released her wrist, her arm flopped numbly against her side.
"Come for me when she is finished," he added, stepping around her.
Wynn slowly wobbled around, still shivering, but all she saw behind her was the cave's rough wall. Cinder-Shard was gone, and she was alone with Ore-Locks.
"Why did he … bother coming," she got out between breaths, "if you're staying?"
"I cannot yet take another with me … as he can."
Wynn began to breathe normally and turned back, trying to make out her surroundings.
She found herself inside a large, slanted pocket of rough stone. The ceiling was low, but she could stand upright. And half blocked by Ore-Locks's bulk was a pool near the cave's left side.
There were no other openings besides the pool in the floor, its water likely held down by air pressure of the pocket itself. She had no indication of where or how far she might have come—only that she was still under the earth and near the ocean, by the smell of the water.
She froze upon seeing what waited at the cave's far end.
Three small chests were stored in a space below a set of short stone tiers. Something very familiar lay on the first deep shelf. It was a sheaf of stiff hide plates bound between two squares of thin, mottled iron. It was the first text that she and Chap had discovered, the night Li'kän had caught her amid the blizzard and dragged her to the ice-bound castle.
Wynn was still in too much shock to even feel relief. Digging in her pocket, she pulled out her crystal. It didn't even start to glimmer upon her chilled hand.
She rubbed it clumsily, until its light began to grow. When she bent slowly to retrieve her fallen items, Ore-Locks was quicker and picked them up. She took them, ignoring him, and stumbled across the cave. She was halfway to the shelves when she heard a soft splash.
Wynn teetered as she turned.
Rippling rings spread on the pool's surface as a white-tipped spearhead rose at the center of the water. It was quickly followed by a row of spikes upon a hairless, teal-tinged scalp.
Large, round black-orb eyes broke the surface, and Wynn stared eye-to-eye at one of the sea people.
In the crystal's light, she saw the slits for a nose and translucent membranes spread between the ridges of head spikes. He rose enough to expose webbing between clawed fingers, and between the spikes running along the outsides of his forearms. His stomach muscles appeared strange, different somehow, and he had no navel.
Then his lipless mouth parted slightly over interlocked needles of teeth. Without distinguishable irises, it was impossible to follow his gaze until he actually turned his head toward Ore-Locks.
Ore-Locks crouched and patted the floor, nodding. The sea man sank until the water covered the slits of his throat and his mouth—but not his eyes.
"Why is it … he … here?" Wynn asked.
"He is a guardian," Ore-Locks answered. "I cannot speak to him, but I reassured him that your presence is sanctioned."
"Who are they … and where are they from? Why did they come to the prince?"
Ore-Locks left her, heading to the shelves. "Where do you wish to begin?"
Wynn hesitated, still watching the hairless head of webbed tines and those round black eyes. She backed away toward the shelves.
"Bring all three chests out, so I can use one as a desk," she said, buying a few moments.
Until seeing this place, she'd entertained a few notions. Perhaps she could steal a few crucial pages or even one whole text. Or maybe she might spot another way in—or at least gain some sense where the texts were located, so she could find them on her own and retrieve them.