“Are they pinned?” I asked, afraid of the answer. The lantern illuminated a pile of rocks at least knee height. If they had crushed her legs, they could have shattered her ankle bones. Not even the most talented physics could repair all the little bones in the feet or recreate a proper working ankle.
But she shook her head. “Just trapped,” she said. “If only I had delicate little feet like your city women, perhaps I could pull them out.”
I laughed, relief making the moment funnier. “Hold still.” I moved rocks from the pile, taking care not to cause any falls. “What happened down here? I’ve been worried about you.”
“There is a room here,” she said.
“The Os-Woorin room. I know.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No,” I admitted. “Is it a shrine, do you think? Did you come here to make an offering?”
She twisted over her shoulder to look at me. “You thought Os-Woorin speaking to us was just a story,” she said. “But our ancestors were not such unbelievers. Perhaps they found some way to communicate with the spirit. We are under the lake, I think.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore.” I looked past the piles of rocks. “Did you get caught by a cave-in before you found it?”
“It is not a cave-in,” she said. “The room has been deliberately blocked off. The supports were destroyed and the tunnel brought down. Someone did not want that room to be entered.”
Caslav had told Eliska the caves were unsafe. Had he known more, or had he simply heard that lie from his aunt before him? Was it a lie passed down through their line? I shifted another stone with a grunt. “So you tried to clear the rocks, by yourself? And you call me foolish?”
One more rock, and she let out a gasp of relief and wiggled free. I helped her to her feet and she stamped up and down across the corridor, stretching and shaking. It was strange seeing her in masculine farm clothing: long trousers and a vest over a shirt. She stopped and looked me over. She touched my arm. “Is that blood?”
“Oh. Yes.” I told her what had happened, leaving out the detail of how Marco had died. Perhaps I didn’t want to catapult it from the hazy, dream-like state in my memory to something real. The empty feeling inside made the retelling easier than it should have been. “The physics are with Tain,” I finished. “And we don’t have much longer to hold the bridge.”
“You think we should go back up there and help.”
I opened my mouth to agree, but instead fell silent, staring at the rocks spread out over the floor. The map lay beside my lantern. “No,” I said, surprising myself. “I think we should keep moving those rocks. Whatever is in there, it might have helped the Chancellor hundreds of years ago. Maybe it can help again.”
She smiled, and some part of me hoped I had made the choice for the right reasons. But that part shut up as she stepped closer. Blood pounded in my ears. “Hadrea,” I said. It came out as a whisper. Honor-down, even sweaty and covered in dirt, she was so beautiful.
“I like the way you say it,” she said to me, as she had once before.
For long moments I couldn’t think, only feel, as her hands dug into my back and her breasts hardened against my chest. The salty taste of her made me dizzy. She backed against the wall, pulling me with her, one leg riding up to hook around my thigh. I wanted her so badly it scared me.
My hands shook as I broke the kiss and pulled back, putting some space between us. “What happened before…” I said, guilt at the memories breaking through my desire.
She scowled. “You could have died tonight, Jovan. And above us, the city might be falling. We might both be dead tomorrow in any case. So, what is that phrase you city people use?” With a jerk, she pulled me back in so close I could feel her lips moving against my cheek as she whispered, “Shut the fuck up.”
And I did.
We lay panting together afterward, silent, until the steady dripping of ice water from above drove us from the spot. I didn’t feel hollow anymore, but full, too full, of emotions I didn’t recognize. That had been something more than passion, something more than physical and emotional bonding. Something almost spiritual.
“Did you feel that?” she asked, as if reading my mind. She sounded tentative and her dark gaze searched my face as I considered my reply. I didn’t know how to describe what I had felt.
“That was an offering,” she said. “What you are feeling. That was you—us—opening to Os-Woorin, giving to it. It is here, do you sense it?”
I shifted, uncomfortable, but her words triggered a memory I couldn’t suppress: the strange, echoey feeling of pressure in my head, of delayed response and blurred vision, almost like that sensation I had felt climbing the ladder back to safety when the Speaker woman followed me. I didn’t know how to process the strangeness. Reason, logic fought against it. I cared about Hadrea, and I had never desired anyone, man or woman, in the way I wanted her. Perhaps this was just the heady sensation of infatuation.
“I care about you,” I began awkwardly, and she laughed, a booming sound in the silent cavern.
“Jovan, you are very nice, too. But I was not fishing for a declaration of your affection. I was asking if you were too much of a wooden heathen to feel the fresken.”
“I felt something,” I admitted. “I don’t know what, exactly, but—”
“You do know what,” she said, clearly amused. “But if you would like to pretend that you do not, well and good.” She stretched, and I felt the bumps on her skin under my hands and her tiny shivers. I found myself shivering, too, suddenly hyperconscious of the space—the icy damp air, the distant booms from far above. With reluctance we gathered our clothes from under us and dressed again. My stomach chose that moment to grumble, the hollow ache reminding me how long it had been since my last real meal.
Hadrea had already climbed back on the pile and was tugging at a large rock. I climbed up beside her and dislodged one myself, awkward. Mouth dry, I tried. “About earlier. I’m sorry,” I began. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I was—”
“I know what you were doing,” she said, her tone resigned, not cold. “Blaming yourself. Punishing yourself. But you will not do it this time.” She turned her gaze on me, and I found myself smiling. Who could argue with that look?
“I won’t.” This time, I wouldn’t. Our world might, in fact, be ending, but I wouldn’t regret one moment spent with her.
“Look!” she cried, and I scrambled up beside her, holding the lamp aloft. It shone through, past the rock pile, to the passage beyond. “We are nearly there.”
Enthusiasm lending us greater energy, we cleared the rocks and rubble until we had exposed a hole big enough to crawl through. Far above, a boom sounded, and I eyed the roof nervously. Hadrea made to climb in, but I grabbed her arm. Eagerness aside, who knew how stable our little path might be? “Maybe we shouldn’t do this? At least, not without someone else here who can help us if there’s another collapse and we get stuck on the other side.”
She wiped the hair off her face with a grimy hand. “Jovan,” she said. “There is no time. Everyone in the city is busy either getting ready to fight for their lives, or hiding and hoping for the best. No one up there is interested in an old map and a Darfri spirit. But I can feel a connection to Os-Woorin. It is strong and still open. Perhaps you really cannot feel it, but it is there. I was not entirely honest with you, before. With anyone. Even my mother. We are not supposed to use fresken without supervision of a Speaker, but I was young and lonely and I thought…” She broke off, shaking her head. “It does not matter. What I am saying is there is some chance there is something here—something magical, I do not know, but something—we have to try.”