Hounded [Wild Hunt Series: 2]

18: Melt

Down in the depths, through the darkness and the dust, the King's outraged roars as he wrenched himself free were nearly lost against the blood and sweat sleeting off my exhausted body. My pulse hammered, the walls behind me were flash-painted in frost, jagged explosions along the stone to mark every bump, scrap and tumble taken. I leaned one shoulder hard against the surface, feeling faint, feeling sick, feeling everything but relieved or victorious or safe. My hair was stuck to my neck. This didn't matter, shouldn't matter, but it was all I could think about in those first moments. My knuckles glanced off a rock on the way to assessing my semi-frozen tangles. I swore, instinctively held the tiny, small scrape to my mouth like I could suck the pain away, and was rewarded with the bright tang of blood.

The power was fading, I realized, breathing in and out, in and out, in and—

My last, faint puff of chill evaporated against deeper, hotter exhale.

The darkness beyond, the end I'd been stumbling toward, swelled and seemed to press against the sides of the walls and though I couldn't see one lick of its form I felt the massive presence just before me. There was a rustle of scales sliding over stone, and then I couldn't hear anything over the sound of my slow, terrible run back toward the entrance.

I went down hard about ninety feet later, smashed my knee then chin into a boulder and couldn't find my way upright. For several seconds I was so dazed couldn't hardly move, but I knew it was coming, could hear the serpentine rustle. I found my footing, frost pulsing up the side of the cave in time to my heart, and heard the thing stop in the yards behind me.

My eyes strained against the black, past the water-stained walls as the frost melted and the last distinguishing mark of shade vs monster dissolved.

Just as I prepared to run a great black thing settled down with a dusty whoomph and skittering pebbles. My palms were slick with sweat and blood; the last of my magic fading as a seam of light opened in the darkness. For a moment there in the gloom hung a wide, fanged smile, then it pulled back into a grin, into a yawning cavity of twinkling light and galaxies of colors. The maw stretched open from near floor to ceiling, the curved fangs that jutted out like boulders in a sea of light disappeared into that brilliant vision, a flickering twilight of foreign lands with fireflies and rolling hills. 

The thought came across my mind that this was another universe, that if I just walked into it I would be somewhere else, away from this all forever. 

Warmth, the bright scent of lavender and sliced lemons, a soft breeze that rustled my damp hair.

That's what I wanted, isn't it? To escape this hell. Anything was better than where I was.

Anything was better. Everything would be better. All better. Every step forward felt So. Much. Better...

"Tay!" came a voice. Real, present, here but somehow an echo. An echo of darkness, an echo of what I was running from. Hearing that voice would make me cry. I didn't want to cry. 

"Tay!"

So familiar, so, so beautiful. What was this place beyond? Could I get there, could I climb over these stones, past the false danger of teeth, and reach a blissful forever? Just a few steps, a few small seconds left in this world and I would be somewhere else. I would be okay. I just wanted, just needed to be okay.

"Devil damn us all," said the speaker, and knocked me sideways."Look down, you idiot! Look away if you want to live!"

 I looked down in time to catch myself from hitting the ground. In that horrifying instant the spell was broken. It was the King's claws scraping my arm as he rushed past me, no longer a dragon but a decaying giant of a man. He moved eyes shut toward the creature, an animal of thick scales whose features I couldn't make out from the strained periphery.  Hefting a sizeable chunk of rock that with all my might I don't think I could ever have even tipped, he threw it into the glistening light. The creature's jaws closed hungrily around the object, and then, and it only took a half second for it to realize the first fang had been snapped in half by the projectile, it let loose a hideous shriek and thrashed its head from side to side. The cave shook. Rocks and dust poured from the ceiling. 

"Tay!" the King said, one bright orange eye turned toward me, his twisted jaw clacking. "Are you alright?"

 And as he looked at me the thing's jaws closed around his nearest arm. It dragged him back through the darkness like a rag doll and he called then suddenly for help but I would never give it. 

"Freeze it!" he cried, kicking at the darkness, holding his place by sheer strength. "Freeze it, Tay! I can protect you, I can keep you safe! Freeze it! You won't survive out here alone! There are things you don't know! You need me!" 

He wasn't some brooding animal cursed by a witch but kind hearted deep down past all the juvenile assholery and misunderstanding. One little save of my life (maybe two, if you considered he gave me permission to join the hunt as a lady) was not enough. And he would survive. Not one bit of me believed anything here would kill him.

"I need to be alone," I said as the brilliant smile dragged him away. I needed to get the hell out of here while I still had any part of me left. Not just out of this cave, out of this place.  I needed for things to stop moving so fast. I needed a break. There were too many thoughts swimming around my head, and a big wide world of danger ahead of me.