into the wilderness. Veronyka had already ordered Xephyra to stay with the refugees or return to their own camp, and despite complaining of boredom for days, Veronyka got the impression Xephyra was tired of being pinched and prodded and screeched at.
Take Rex with you, Veronyka said, as she sensed Xephyra drifting back to the Rider camp. Stay out of trouble.
As they picked their way through the trees, Veronyka explained to Tristan in a low voice how she’d spotted the man’s Rider boots, and how he’d fled when he saw her attention.
Before long they found themselves on familiar ground; Veronyka and Tristan had been up and down these paths in search of Doriyan’s hideout before.
Large chunks of rock intruded on the path up ahead—which was where they’d turned back last time.
This time, however, they watched from a safe distance as Doriyan scaled one of the massive boulders. Veronyka and Tristan waited until he was over, then rushed forward to copy him, pausing halfway to the top and peering carefully over the other side.
There moon lit a wide clearing dotted by more slabs of stone like the one upon which they were perched, while the far side was enclosed by a sheer, soaring rock face, shimmering with thousands of smooth cuts.
It was a quarry. Or at least it had been—it looked decades out of use.
Tristan pointed to a dark hole near the bottom of the rock wall where the man disappeared into the shadows. Not just a quarry, but a mine as well.
They climbed down the other side of the boulder—or rather, Tristan jumped and Veronyka followed, only to stagger upon landing and stumble into him. He caught her, helping her to stand upright, and she couldn’t tell if she was more embarrassed about her weak jump or the fact that she enjoyed falling into his arms so much.
The remains of a wooden post-and-lintel doorway marked the entrance, but one side of the crossbeam had collapsed thanks to shifting rocks above, partially blocking the doorway. Tristan climbed across it, squinting into the dark interior.
Surely it was safe if the man had walked straight into it with such obvious ease and familiarity.
Tristan drew back, his expression saying much the same thing. He shrugged. Do we follow? he mouthed.
Veronyka considered. Never mind the collapsed entrance—it was dangerous to follow a stranger to an unknown location, especially a pitch-black one. She itched to light a torch, but that would alert him to their arrival. Maybe they should have hailed him while they were still in the open, but Veronyka had expected their final destination to be a home, not a hole in the earth.
Hoping her eyes would adjust, she nodded and led the way inside—hand on the hilt of the dagger in her belt. Tristan copied her.
There were more post-and-lintel arches holding up the rock that loomed overhead and carving a hallway into the mountain. Water dripped, and a dank, musty smell reached her nose. The passage echoed around them, repeating their every step and breath, but the noise soon grew deeper—more vast. Up ahead the corridor split. To the left Veronyka sensed an expanse of open air and suspected that was where the miners dug deep into the rocky ground. To the right there was a doorway that led into a room. Her eyes had adjusted somewhat by now, and she saw it was roughly the size of the dining hall at the Eyrie—and Veronyka suspected it had served a similar function here.
Tristan tugged on her arm and pointed to a set of unlit torches mounted on either side of the door.
Veronyka considered, peering around. Obviously the man didn’t live here in this darkness—he must have used this tunnel as a passage, a way to cut through to the other side. There were always multiple entrances in any underground space like this, in case of cave-ins, and they wouldn’t have much luck finding them without light.
She nodded and withdrew her striker and flint stone; she lit the first torch and was about to light the second when Tristan waved her off. His hand was steady as he used one torch to light the other, the increasing glow illuminating more of the room around them.
The long tables that had filled the room were pushed together in the center, creating a single, massive surface. Scattered there was an odd mix of objects—cups and cracked pitchers, bits of leather, and nubs of charcoal. An arrow, broken in two, lay near the far side of the table. It