I lean against the dungeon wall and try to breathe. The pulsing air of the dungeon licks about my ankles like an inquisitive creature and the damp of the walls cools my forehead. I can’t let the others see my hands shaking so I hold them against the stone to still their tremble.

  “Lo.” Mela’s voice is sharp. She commands me back to reality with the lash of her tongue.

  I turn and focus. We’ve moved deep enough into the dungeon that we’re out of sight and sound from the surface and the other Heightened stand close behind Mela. Two men and another woman. All stern faced when we’d first entered and now their bravado has waned and their eyes shift to any moving shadow or leap to any sound.

  “Lo, Mela.”

  “Are you done?”

  “I think we all are.”

  Mela steps closer and presses her finger against my chest as she had earlier. I let her push me back until my spine is against the damp stone and there is nowhere else to go.

  “No. We didn’t volunteer to come in here to give up before we’ve tried.”

  “No? I thought you came in here because you were the brave and stupid ones.”

  Her slap cracks across the same cheek that Cadil struck and I snarl, catching her wrist before she can land another blow. I push her back, roughly, and she stumbles into the others. Her eyes widen at my strength but she bounds back and rushes to me, her hand raised but halted by my glare.

  “Brave? We didn’t want the rest of our people to die because of your stunt.”

  “Stunt? You wanted your friend to live, right?”

  “You’re so naive. You thought you were doing good when you freed Will? Of course not, there’s always a price and you don’t get that.” She lowers her hand and shakes her head as she turns. “It would have been better if you’d never come.”

  I push myself away from the wall and smooth back my hair; it’s still too long. If I make it out and back to my pack I will cut it short and be done with the wispy pieces. “If I’d never come you’d still have been sent in here sooner or later. Maybe you’d have a Marked, maybe not. Maybe you’d have been broken in hard labour or anger a Marked and would have been taken apart. You can’t lay your ills at my feet and expect me to tread on them.”

  “I can lay this one in particular.”

  I press my tongue against my teeth and tense my jaw until my words break through the dam of my lips. “I was rash. I’m sorry, Mela. I thought what I was doing would help your friend, I didn’t realise the depths of Cadil’s depravity.”

  “It’s not Cadil. It’s all of them. Do you know how many Marked tried to protect us when the architects removed our protections? Two. It was two. One was killed the moment she protested and the other fled as far and fast as he could. But we couldn’t run. We have been marched across segments, warred with other tribes and lone Marked, and now we are here. What kind of life is this that the architects allow for us?”

  “Not a life at all.”

  “Not a life.” She nods. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours, stranger.”

  “You never asked.”

  “Until now I didn’t care.”

  “Pik.”

  “What an abrupt name for a rash man. Pik. These men are Luckil and Fren and the other is Jeary. We’re all River tribe, from where do you hail?”

  “Recently? I’ve been traveling.”

  She shakes her head. “Before the breaking of vows.”

  “The breaking? I’ve not heard it called that before. I was from another sector, a tribe called the fifth.”

  Mela frowns. “Scattered?” Her eyes widen. “I remember you. With the wandering warrior, Aviela. But tribe five was…that was the same tribe as the fiery Marked.”

  I nod.

  “Did you know Oran from before the breaking? From before you were scattered?”

  “He was one of two Marked in my tribe. He protected us, though I don’t think it was because of altruism, our sector was harsher than here. We didn’t have as much, and no statics.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Her eyes flick to my scars, face and hand, and she sees them anew. “Your burns.”

  “He gave them to me, yes.”

  “I had wondered whether you were one of his people, sent to infiltrate us and…” She shakes her head. “I didn’t think that after you freed Will. Foolish as you are, that was not the act of a man sent to undermine us.”

  “I’m glad you reached that conclusion.” I tap my knuckles against the stone and barely make a sound. “Do you have any idea how we get out of this dungeon alive?”

  She looks sheepish and fishes something out of her shirt. It’s small, the knife that we’d used to skin the monster. Not a blade fit for combat, but better than bare hands and teeth. “I know it’s not a weapon, not really, but it has to be better than nothing.”

  “I can work with that.” I reach out to take the knife and she pulls it into her body and half-turns away.

  “What? Why do you think you should have it?”

  I run my hand over my face, the damp its collected from the walls is refreshing and it wipes away some of the bloody remnants from my gnawing. “I’ve been through dungeons a few times, I can fight better…probably. I’m stronger. I know that much.”

  “I felt that.”

  “So can I have the knife?”

  “No.”

  I throw up my hands. “Fine. Choose death, whatever works for your pride.”

  “Pride? No, I have trust in myself. I don’t think you’re a traitor, Pik, but that doesn’t mean I think much more of you.”

  “Lead the way then, honoured Heightened. I can always pick the knife from your corpse once you miss a trap or get your head eaten by a monster.”

  The others chuckle at the ridiculousness of our exchange. They might be terrified, but they were brave enough to volunteer for certain death and we’ve brought enough absurdity into these tunnels that levity breaks free. I smile too, then I laugh, and for a moment Mela glares at the rest of us four as she stands a few feet apart with her dagger clutched to her chest like a child who’s just found a critter to show the tribe.

  I wipe my teary eyes and share a slapped shoulder and playful jostle with the other two men. This is just what we needed; we might be facing death but to be scared of it too? That breeds nothing but disaster.

  Mela interjects, sternly. “I will lead the way. I will look out for traps and you, Pik, should bring up the rear and make sure everyone make it through safely.”

  “I’m really good at spotting traps.” In fact my eye has been working as we stood and has spotted a simple pit not far along the corridor. “I’d be careful about twenty feet along if I were you.”

  Mela grunts, assent and irritation, and stalks away. She pulls up just before the pit, measures the jump by eye, and leaps across. As she lands safely on the other side with plenty of space free, she turns and grins at me. Victory.

  I’m moving before she sees what has come from above her. The gaps in the wet stone hide many crevasses and from one above her has fallen a skittering, biting creature. Mela cries out and flails to remove the many legged thing from her back but it has bitten down hard and has a grip.

  I clear the pit in a bound and bury my fingers in its chitinous, armoured body. The power of my motion punctures its shell and my fingers sink into ichor as I rip it off Mela and dash it against the wall in one smooth motion.

  I push Mela aside as two more of the creatures drop beside us and another two in the midst of the other Heightened back beyond the pit. I capture one quickly and stamp on its central disc until it too cracks under my blows and leaks its life giving juice onto my foot.

  Mela is no slouch; I thought I got her measure and it was somewhere far below my own ability, but she is quick with the knife. She can’t match my strength but she fends off the the sharp pincers with one hand and cuts through the segments of its legs until the creature is nothing but a biting disc with flailing nubs. Finally she puts it out of its misery and stabs the knife down between where eyes might have been had it had any.

  Behind us, the other Heightened have overcome their assailants but not without injury. Fren grimaces as he nurses a deep gash on his thigh. He raises a hand. “I’m fine. Honestly, I’m good. We have to keep going.”

  I crook an eyebrow. Mela has come to stand beside me, her hands covered in monster blood but she doesn’t tremble. I hide my shaking hands behind me and hope she hasn’t noticed.

  “Can you make the jump, Fren?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

  I let out a heavy breath and jump back across with ease. My body is strong enough now that a distance that would have been insurmountable as an Unenlightened is nothing to me. I offer my hand to Fren.

  “Can you trust me?”

  His eyes tell me that he’s contemplating how he ended up in this situation and he certainly doesn’t want to take my hand. He does anyway. He can’t bring himself to say the words but his actions are enough for me to put him onto my back, his legs through my crooked arms and his arms about my neck for security.

  The jump back is harder but I make it with plenty of room to spare. Mela eyes me suspiciously but I ignore her and drop Fren by the wall.

  “Thanks, Pik.” He winces as his leg oozes more blood.

  “If we do this, we’ll do it together.”

  Mela knocks into me and points down the corridor. “Rousing blazing words, but they won’t get us out of here.” She looks at her hand holding the knife and frowns. “I’m keeping this. It looks like you don’t need a weapon for this, so best if one of us has an extra advantage.”

  “You admit that I’m strong then?”

  “You’re not useless.”

  “High praise indeed.”

  Jeary and Luckil bound across the pit too; Luckil almost falls back but is grabbed at the last moment by Jeary and they stagger over to us together.

  We’re ragged, tired, afraid, injured, and yet I feel more confident in our success in this moment than any before. I almost smile again when I stall. There is more to come. A dungeon becomes more dangerous as we delve and we are leaving behind a group of Heightened on the surface, afraid and exploited.

  Worse than the fate of the others is Heric. He’s alone up there on the surface. I don’t know if it is the darkness seeping into his mind and colouring his thoughts or if it is the trauma of losing so many of his people to death and capture, but I am afraid for him. I’m afraid of him as well.

  Hopefully when he comes upon the camp with his creeping darkness this null cycle, he will be able to tell friend from foe.

  I stop walking. If he comes and finds me gone…even if I clear this dungeon, will I be able to escape at all?