Bloodrose

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Not my first fight.”

  “That bear hit you hard.” He touched her cheek.

  “I can take it.”

  He smiled. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  Shay’s nose pressed against my jaw. You okay?

  Yeah. I shouldered into him as we stood up. Thanks for the help.

  My pleasure. His green eyes sparkled with mischief. I’ve been looking for some bear-type payback for a while now.

  I wagged my tail, sending my laughter into his mind.

  “Time for the main feature.” Connor was standing beside us. He looked at Shay. “I think you’ll need your hands for this.”

  Guess the fun’s over. Shay licked my jaw and I laughed again.

  Fun?

  Of course. You didn’t have fun?

  He was still watching me when he shifted into human form. I rested my chin against his palm, licking his fingers. Fighting with Shay at my side was more than fun. It was everything.

  SEVEN

  “SO THIS IS TORDIS,” Shay murmured as if we’d entered a holy place.

  Haldis had always been imposing. Its maw-like opening acted as a warning, never inviting exploration. Tordis couldn’t have been more different. The claustrophobia-inducing, dark passageway into the mountain kept a secret carved into the silver-blue glacial wall before us. A secret that might have been the most exquisite place I’d ever seen. The ice-filled cavern wasn’t just beautiful, it was breathtaking. Each frost-covered surface captured light, reflecting it back into the space. The tunnel was bright, covered by a glimmering net of sunbeams, delicate as lace but far more captivating to the eye. The dancing web of light was broken only by a small, dark opening on the far side of the cavern.

  Shay pointed at the crawl space. “Looks like that’s where we’re headed.”

  “How do you know?” Ethan asked.

  “Haldis was in an antechamber off the main cavern,” Shay said. “I’m guessing Tordis is the same.”

  “Fair enough,” Connor said, despite Ethan’s deepening frown. “Let’s go.”

  I lifted my muzzle, opening my jaws to let the frigid air slide over my tongue. Nothing. No alarming scents. No off-putting tastes that might alert me to danger.

  Shay was watching me. “Any sign of mutant spiders, Cal?”

  I barked and wagged my tail.

  He frowned. “Really? Are you sure?”

  It does seem awfully appealing for a Keeper lair. Sabine’s voice carried an edge.

  I know. I glanced at her, then back at the cave. But I can’t pick up anything.

  So what now? Mason asked, pawing at the ice.

  We keep going. I trotted forward.

  “I don’t like it,” I heard Ethan grumbling. “Something’s in here. It has to be.”

  “Yeah . . .” Connor drew a long breath. “But if there’s no creature feature waiting . . .”

  I twisted my neck around, impatient with their hesitation. I wanted to get Tordis and get the hell out of here. If the Keepers hadn’t left something hideous to guard this place, it was my best guess that our arrival had triggered some sort of alarm and soon this place would be swarming with nasties. Just like when we’d rescued my packmates from the dungeon below Eden. But in Tordis, I couldn’t see or smell anything that signaled we weren’t alone. Other than the bear, I hadn’t spotted any sentinels or stone gargoyles hidden in the clefts of rock, waiting to alert their masters to our intrusion upon the sacred site. Even so, I didn’t want to linger here—the best strategy was for Shay to grab the piece of the Elemental Cross that was hidden here and for us to get back to the Academy as quickly as possible.

  I was about to growl at my lagging companions when Connor’s eyes, which had been flicking around the tunnel, suddenly went wide.

  “Calla, stop!”

  My growl became a whimper as his warning came a second too late. My front right paw came down and met—nothing. There was no longer an ice-covered floor beneath me. Gravity and my own forward momentum propelled me into the empty space. A hole that I still couldn’t see, even as I was falling into it.

  Even my hind legs desperately scrabbling against the ice proved useless. My body tumbled over the invisible ledge.

  I howled, but my cry of terror became a squeal when pain jolted through my limbs, traveling from my tail and rocketing up my spine. I hung in the air, kicking and snarling.

  “Damn it, girl!” Ethan shouted. “Hold still.”

  It finally registered that I wasn’t falling. The pain had resulted from Ethan catching me . . . by the tail.

  My heart was pounding, my pulse deafening as it roared through my veins. Even as Ethan pulled me back up, each moment agony when he tugged on fur and tendons, I still couldn’t see where the floor had ended and the hole began.

  And then I was back over the ledge. My weight collapsed against the frosted stone of the cavern floor. Ethan released my tail and dropped down, resting on his heels as he let out a huge breath.

  I scrambled up, snapping my teeth at him.

  “What the hell?” He glared at me.

  Shifting forms, I returned his ferocious stare. “That was my tail.”

  “Well, sorry,” Ethan said. “I guess I should have let you fall.”

  I stared at him; an abashed smile finally won out over my humiliation.

  Ethan shook his head, laughing. “Some thanks.”

  “Yeah,” I said, knowing I should offer him a real apology, but my butt still hurt. “I guess I owe you.”

  Connor scanned the cavern, eyes narrowed. “’Twas beauty killed the beast.”

  “What?” I frowned.

  “The cave.” Shay followed his gaze, shaking his head in frustration. “It’s the death trap. That’s why there’s no mutant spider.”

  “Fascinating.” The scratch of Silas’s pencil on paper echoed in the cavern.

  Connor glared at him. “You know, this would go a lot better if you didn’t talk.”

  Silas ignored him, lost in his furious note taking. He inched up near the invisible lip of the pit, trying to peer into its depths. “Impressive.”

  Ethan set off another flare, tossing it into the space where I’d fallen. For the briefest moment I could just barely make out the shape of the abyss. A perfect circle, probably four feet in diameter. The flare fell and fell and fell. Its red gleam finally disappeared, but there was no sound of it hitting any surface. Just silence that settled into my bones, making me shudder.

  “Oh God,” I whispered, trying to press back the vision of myself falling. I glanced at Ethan, swallowing hard.

  He just nodded. He lit another flare, chucking it ten feet ahead of us. It bounced once on the ground and then it too disappeared into another invisible chasm.

  “Damn it.”

  He did it again. This time hurling the flare twenty feet beyond our group. It didn’t hit anything, vanishing from sight almost instantly.

  Mason whined. He and Sabine circled me nervously, their fur brushing up against my skin.

  “Fantastic,” Connor said, crouching down. He turned his head back and forth. “How are we supposed to get through?”

  “How many crevasses do you think there are?” Shay asked.

  “No way to know,” Ethan said. “The flares hardly make out the holes. This cavern was built to trick the eye. Even with the change in light it’s tough to know how well we can mark them.”

  “Let’s throw Silas in another one,” Connor said. “Maybe they aren’t all that deep.”

  “Hey!” Silas moved away from the edge.

  Shay took a knee next to Connor. “You guys brought ropes, carabiners, and pitons, right?”

  “In case we had a climb in store,” Connor said. “You got a plan?”

  Shay was already pulling the axes off his back. “I’ll have to climb, all right, but on my belly.”

  “What do you mean you?” Ethan asked as Shay handed him an ax.

  “How often do you guys climb?” Shay asked. He?
??d taken a rope from Connor and was looping it around his body.

  “When we have to . . . ,” Connor answered, his brow furrowing.

  Shay grimaced. “That’s what I thought. That means I’m the most experienced. I’ll set the line.”

  “No way,” Ethan said. “You may have the most experience, but you’re also precious cargo. We can’t risk you.”

  Shay smiled. His canines were sharp. “How many of your friends, and mine, do you want lose because we got stuck here? You or Connor will take forever to get across. I know how to do this. I’ll be fast.”

  I’d begun trembling at the thought of Shay crawling between crevasses none of us could see. I also wondered if he realized he’d just numbered Ren among his friends.

  Connor ran a hand through his hair, agitated. “How can you be sure about that? We don’t know how far this trap goes.”

  “See how the cavern narrows about fifty feet out, leading right to that crawl space?” Shay pointed to the far end of the glittering space. “I’d put good money down that the trap ends there. Tordis is on the other side of that next passage.”

  “You don’t know that,” Connor said.

  “Yes, I do.” Shay lowered his gaze, suddenly quiet. “I can feel it.”

  Connor snorted. “Well, at least the Force is with you.”

  “Shut up,” Shay growled. “Let’s get started. Give me the pitons.”

  Adne tossed him a backpack.

  “We shouldn’t endanger the Scion,” Silas said, turning to Adne. “What about opening a door?”

  “A door where?” Adne said, gesturing toward the invisible death traps. “Even if we found a ledge out there, who knows how wide it would be? Someone could step through the door and fall right in a hole.”

  “Which is why I’m going out there,” Shay said. “I need to get to the gap on the other side of the chamber. If this setup is like Haldis, this is the trap; the other side should be clear sailing.”

  “If you fall before you get there—” Ethan began.

  “The piton will catch me and you guys can haul me back up,” Shay cut him off, hammering one of the pitons into the floor with the blunt edge of his ax and knotting the rope around it. “I’ll make my way across, set the rest of the pitons, and secure the line at the other side. Then you guys hook safety lines on and get across quickly. No one will fall. Or if they do, they’ll only drop a few inches before the line catches them.”

  “I don’t know . . .” Connor looked uneasy.

  Adne sighed, kneeling down to help Shay locate the remaining cams and carabiners. “It’s a good plan, Shay.” She met Connor’s warning glare. “You know it’s a good plan. And the only plan. Pascal is counting on us and we’re already well over time. We didn’t plan for that second group of Guardians.”

  “Fine.” Connor handed Shay another rope. “Attach this one too. We’ll hang on to it in case the piton gives.”

  Shay gave him a hard look. “My piton won’t give. I’m not a moron.”

  “Just take the second rope,” he said.

  Managing not to take a swing at Connor, Shay secured the second line to his body and moved a foot from the spot where I’d slid over the edge. He dropped to his hands and knees. I wanted to call out for him to be careful, but I worried that I’d only undermine his confidence.

  Fifty feet doesn’t sound like much of a distance, but watching Shay making steady progress through the cavern verged on painful. He had an ice ax in one hand, at times swinging it down and burying it in the ground in front of him as he inched forward. He placed the cams at regular intervals, threading the rope through. A zigzagging path began to emerge as he crossed the cavern. Even with the rope outlining our route, the crevasses remained impossible to see. To the naked eye it looked as though a deranged, or very drunk, climber had charted his nonsense course along a flat surface. Only the memory of the floor dropping out from under my paws reminded me that I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  Shay suddenly swore, the sound echoing through the ice-coated chamber.

  I screamed. Shay was falling. And then he wasn’t. He’d swung his ice ax up, burying it in the side of a crevasse he hadn’t found soon enough. He hung from one arm, but the safety line he’d placed had already pulled taut. Just as he’d predicted, he only dropped a few inches. But that didn’t stop my heart from trying to break free of my rib cage.

  “You okay?” Connor’s call was strangled.

  “Yeah,” Shay yelled. He also sounded a bit breathless. “This part is going to be a problem. These two holes are only separated by about three inches.”

  “Damn,” Adne said. “That’s narrower than a balance beam.”

  “And I’m no gymnast.” Mason’s laugh was tight. He and Sabine had both switched back to human form when Shay began his crossing. Wolves might have good reflexes, but if we were strapping into climbing gear to make the passage, we’d need to be human.

  Shay placed a piton, securing himself to the side of the crevasse. “I’m going to carve out some holds here,” he shouted. “We’ll have to climb across the side at this point.”

  “Climb?” It felt like cotton had been shoved down my throat. Scurrying along the edges of the pits was one thing, voluntarily dropping down into one was another.

  Mason leaned over, elbowing me. “That was pretty damn sexy—did you see what he can do with his shoulders? Shay’s the wolf to beat, I think. I may need to give Nev better odds.”

  I growled at my packmate, but Mason just laughed.

  True to his word, Shay was chopping at the wall with his ax, creating small fissures in the rock where a foot or a hand could be placed. He moved forward, placing another piton, making more holds. He’d almost reached the dark gap in the shimmering ice wall. Finally he found the other side of the crevasse and climbed up, setting a piton and hauling his body over the lip of the pit, the force of his push propelling him straight into the crawl space. Then he tumbled out of sight.

  “Shay!” Connor yelled. “You all right?”

  I held my breath until Shay’s head poked out of the darkness.

  “I’m good!” He was on all fours, unable to even kneel without hitting his head on the roof of the tunnel. “The ceiling’s low, but we’ll all be able to squeeze in. And there’s light on the other side. I’m pretty sure we’ll find the hilt where that glow is coming from.”

  “Nice work!” Connor called. He was already threading a line through Adne’s belt. “You cross first,” he said to her. “If something jumps out at the Scion in that little cave while most of us are still crossing, you get him out of here.”

  She nodded, biting her lip.

  “The line’s secure over here,” Shay yelled, waving and pointing at the final cam he’d fixed into the far wall. “Get started!”

  Adne moved stiffly, as if she had to force herself toward the edge of the first crevasse. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t want to go anywhere near them either. Silas picked up the rope and was about to hook himself in when Connor snatched it away.

  “You’re last,” he said.

  “What?” Silas’s eyes bulged.

  Connor grinned, handing the rope to Sabine, who started after Adne. “This seems like a thrill-a-minute episode in your marvelous history, doesn’t it? I think our crossing deserves your best writing endeavors.”

  Silas stared at him before slinking backward. To his credit he did begin to write again immediately, though I couldn’t have guessed whether he was describing the cavern or lodging another complaint against Connor.

  I hung back with Silas, not because I craved his company but because I wanted to wait until I absolutely had to make the crossing. Adne was already on the other side, squirming past Shay into the narrow tunnel. My stomach clenched as I watched Sabine swing down into the crevasse. Her lithe form seemed to take naturally to climbing as she easily found Shay’s holds. Ethan was behind her, followed by Mason.

  “You’re up.” Connor was clipping a carabiner onto my belt and sliding the
safety line through it.

  I managed a nod. Words, even thoughts, wouldn’t surface as I moved to follow Shay’s rope. I’d never really thought I was afraid of heights, considering I’d spent my life in mountains. Somehow this was different. The slopes around Haldis were soil and rock. Even when it was snow-covered, it was familiar. This cavern, hidden in the heights of the Alps, full of ice and light that wove a wickedly beautiful web in which to snare its prey, made my blood as cold as the mountain air I breathed. The cave’s deception unnerved me in ways I’d never experienced. I didn’t want to go farther into its depths. I wanted out.

  I gripped the rope, willing myself to start across. Looking at the far side of the cavern, I met Shay’s eyes. He was waiting for me, hovering on the lip of the crawl space. He lifted his hand.

  Get to Shay. Get to Shay.

  I forced all other thoughts out of my mind. The only thing I wanted more than to escape this death trap was to be with him. If I could make reaching Shay my goal, I could do this. An ice-edged wind swirled through the cave, its sounds bouncing off the walls in millions of whispers, murmuring in my ears about slipping, falling. I pulled myself along the rope, trying to shut out the wind’s voice, knowing it was more Keeper magic trying to seize on my fears and manipulate me into making a fatal error.

  “It’s all right, Calla.” Shay’s voice broke through the whispers. “You’re almost there.”

  But almost there meant I’d reached the final crevasse. I stared at what appeared to be a solid, sparkling ice surface. I only knew it wasn’t because of the way Shay’s rope line suddenly dipped well below it.

  “Get a move on!” Sabine squeezed beside Shay at the entrance of the crawl space. From her vantage point on the other side of the pit she stared down at me, flashing a challenging smile.

  Anger flared and I seized on it, swinging down into the crevasse. My feet scrambled against the sheer face and for a moment I panicked. But then my foot slipped into one of Shay’s holds and I could breathe again.

  “You’ve got it!” Shay’s voice was both warm and relieved. “Just a few more feet.”

  I pushed myself from hold to hold. My arms were burning. It felt as though the crevasse was trying to pull me off the wall, sucking me down into oblivion.