into my shirt. It’s enormous and would take several men to move it.
The coffin scratches, and Markos jumps, jostling me.
“Sorry,” he says.
I look across and the coffin on my other side has a similar rock. As we step forward, I see each one has something to weigh the lid down. “We’re safe,” I promise them. “Someone’s already been down here to do damage control. The dead can’t get out.”
“Safe,” Solat snorts. “How do you kill something that’s already dead?”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to find out, all right?” I say cheerfully and walk a little faster. “Look for a statue of Aron. An ugly one.” I pause then add, “It might not be that ugly. That just might be his vanity talking.”
Someone snorts.
We walk. And walk. I can’t go too fast or the candle will blow out, but I really want to get out of this crypt, and it seems like it snakes along for forever. We pass row after row of coffins, some with dried flowers left in vases by the floor, others covered in such thick dust that they’ve been here for forever. The scratching dies down the farther in we go, but I’m hyper-aware that Aron’s outside, getting pummeled just because he can’t die. I don’t want him hurt. As silly as it sounds, I worry about him. For all that he’s arrogant as hell and a god, sometimes he’s clueless. There’s a lot of things they can do to a man without actually killing him…and then I shake those thoughts out of my head because I don’t even want to consider it.
Then, the passage changes. It turns into a larger chamber, and at the far end is a statue of a man holding an axe, his head bowed. The entire thing is a little…stumpy and the expression on the man is downright constipated. I can’t help but laugh, because this had to hurt poor Aron’s huge ego. “All right, I think we’ve found our man.”
“How do we get inside?” Kerren asks, curious.
“No freaking clue,” I admit, and hand him the candle so I can run my hands along the wall itself, looking for a hinge mechanism of some kind. I run my fingers over the cracks, and I find a narrow, straight line between the large stone bricks that has to be our secret door, but no amount of pushing or pulling will open it. “Is there a lever somewhere?”
“Faith,” Markos warns. “Hurry up.”
“We can all look, you know,” I snap back at him, studying the floor. Is there a panel we step on? I push on one tile experimentally but nothing moves.
He readies his sword, and Solat does, too. “Someone just came in,” Markos whispers.
Then, I hear it, too. Voices. Distant, but definitely in the crypt. Fuck. We have to get out of here, and soon, because we’re cornered. Frantic, I run my hands over the wall one more time, but when I find nothing, I turn to the statue. Maybe our answer is here. I run my hands all over the ugly dwarf-Aron made of stone, checking the mouth, the crotch, the hands, but it all seems to be entirely one piece. Even as I move, I hear footsteps approaching, the clank of armor, and then shouting.
“Come on, Aron,” I whisper. “Help a girl out.”
I jerk on the axe, hoping that it’s the key I’m missing, but when it doesn’t move, I glare at the statue itself, frustrated.
And stop. The eyepatch covering Aron’s left eye looks strange. I run a fingernail under the patch itself and it flips up. Inside Aron’s eye socket is a pupil, which shouldn’t be there if he’s missing an eye, right? I shove my finger inside and push it, and it clicks like a button.
Stone rumbles, and the wall slides open in a cloud of dust. A new, dark passage opens.
Fuck yes! “Let’s go,” I tell the others, flipping the eyepatch down and snatching the candle from Kerren. I lead the way, down a second narrow passage, and the men file in behind me. The stone scrapes behind us a second later, indicating that the secret door is closing once more. My candle blows out at the rush of air.
Then, all is silent.
“Did they see us?” I whisper into the darkness.
“I don’t think so,” Markos murmurs. “Where are we?”
“Hell if I know. No choice but to go forward, right?” I put a hand out and take a few steps into the dark. I don’t hear the dead scratching, so