A Dawn of Dragonfire - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,67

and if I ever kiss a boy, it will be for love. He would love me, and I would love him, and it will feel like those old days, when I'd sit by the fireplace and read books with maps.

She slipped on some ice, and Bayrin caught her hand to steady her, and she let him hold it as they kept walking. The forest spread cold ahead, as far as she could see. In the distance, upon the eastern wind, she thought she could hear a phoenix shriek.

LYANA

They walked down a twisting tunnel. Its floor was rubbery like skin and strewn with eyeballs like pebbles. Shattered spines rose in ridges along the walls, seeping blood. Fingers rose in tufts from nooks and crevices, nails cracked, snagging at them.

Lyana could see only several feet in each direction; shadows pushed deep around her, swirling and cackling, red eyes blazing in their depths. When the tunnels forked, Elethor did not hesitate, but always chose the path that sloped deeper down.

"Do you know where we're going?" she asked him.

He stared ahead, holding his tin lamp high. The flames flickered. They had oil enough for another day, two days at most.

"This tunnel is steeper," he said. "So that's where we go. Deeper into the darkness."

"You don't know that'll take us to the Starlit Demon," Lyana said. "This labyrinth is vast, Elethor. It might be larger than Requiem itself, larger than the world. According to the stories, the Starlit Demon is locked behind the Crimson Archway, and I haven't seen a single archway here. We need to find a map, or a source of knowledge, or—"

He spun toward her and glared. "Lyana, what map? What 'source of knowledge'? The last creatures we met who could talk were dangling on cobwebs, mumbling nonsense about numbers not lining up, and hairs that grew too slowly, or stars know what else."

"So your answer is to just walk blindly?" she demanded, voice rising now. She swept her sword around her. "Elethor, we are getting lost down here. You have no idea where to go. No idea what to do. No idea how to get back home. You—"

"Well, do you?" He raised his eyebrows. "Do you have answers? You're just as much in the dark. So unless you have suggestions, keep walking."

"Well, I…" She searched for words but found none and fumed. All her life, she had always had an answer to any question. She knew everything about geography, heraldry, warfare, swordplay, history, astronomy. She was the smartest person in Requiem, she was sure of it; yet now she felt so lost, so afraid.

She raised her left hand and shivered. Bandages covered her fingers, hiding the gray, withered flesh. A day ago, only her fingertips had been shriveled and pale. Now lines of rot stretched from under the bandage, spreading across her palm to her wrist. The skin looked old, spotted and wrinkled, the bones beneath it brittle.

Elethor looked at her, his eyes softened, and he sighed.

"Does it hurt?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head. "I can't feel my hand anymore. At least there's no pain."

She shivered and lowered her eyes, remembering the withered creatures back at Nedath's lair. She had hung among them for hours. Most were no wider than snakes, nothing but spines with loose skin, their limbs wilted stalks. Their skulls had long crumbled to dust, leaving loose faces like old rags.

"We are the Shrivels," one had told her, swinging on its cobwebs. "We are the lost ones, the cursed, the counters of the numbers… or maybe the numbers themselves." It grinned, showing toothless gums. "Soon you will be one of us, soon you will help us count, we will count all the numbers, we will line them, or she will hurt us, she will eat us, she will feed upon our sweetest meat."

How long will it be? Lyana wondered. She no longer doubted that their curse infected her. How long until her palm withered completely, and the disease spread to her arm, then her body, and finally left her a shrunken creature that could not die? Would she remain here in the Abyss, mumbling of shattered teeth that must be found, screws to turn, and more ramblings of the dark? Or would they hang her on a post in Requiem, a thing to pity, and she would linger there as the seasons turned, unable to die?

Suddenly she laughed. She couldn't help it.

"Imagine it, Elethor!" she said, tears in her eyes. Laughter shook her. "Me, only a piece