The Carnelian Legacy (20 page)

“I am now,” she answered, still groggy.

“Good morning, cousin,” Arrie said. “You’re molting.” He smiled in amusement and pulled a feather from her hair.

“Am I going to keep being your cousin forever?”

“Would you like to be?” He grinned at her. “Come, we need to hurry and get some breakfast and get back on the road. We have a lot of ground to cover today.”

Marisa groaned, falling back onto the bed. “Just give me five minutes and I’ll be down,” she said. “Is Darian awake yet?” She stretched her long frame and brushed her hair.

“He was up and dressed a while ago to go out on his usual morning walk, but he should have returned by now. He is probably downstairs having breakfast right now.”

As Arrie closed the door and left her alone to get ready, Marisa thought about Darian. She kept learning surprising things about him all the time but then quickly remembered that she was supposed to be forgetting about him.

Marisa entered the cheery dining hall downstairs to find Darian and Arrie both engaged in a deep conversation. They stopped as soon as she sat down, and both seemed a bit unsettled. She knew that they were probably nervous about returning home after their failed mission. She adjusted her earpiece to follow the conversation.

“I trust you slept well, milady?” Darian asked.

“As well as can be expected, Your Highness.”

Touché.

He wiped his mouth with his napkin and sipped the last of his tea. “We will be riding all day today, so please make sure you get enough to eat this morning.”

After breakfast, Marisa stepped out into the crisp fall air and threw her cape over her shoulders. She was glad that she had decided to wear it out riding that afternoon and couldn’t have imagined being in Carnelia now without it.

The autumn morning was tinged with the smoky smell of dry leaves, and she counted just six more days until her birthday. She wondered if she’d even celebrate it. There wasn’t much point since none of her family would be there.

Slinging her satchel across her body, Marisa hoisted herself up onto Siena and stroked her silky mane. With everything else that was so strange and new, she was grateful to have Siena as a familiar constant in a sometimes chaotic world.

As they began the second half of their journey home, little was said. Darian seemed subdued and barely spoke at all. Arrie tried to lighten the mood by telling some of his jokes, most of which Marisa didn’t understand.

As they entered a small forest, Darian assured her there would be no rijgen in the woods. He explained that they were taking a whole extra day to travel to Crocetta using a different route in the hopes of avoiding the same dangerous situations they’d experienced on their way to Abbadon.

In the late afternoon, the road wound and twisted its way around some high cliffs. Although Marisa considered herself an experienced rider, she was wary of traveling on treacherous roads with an edge that dropped off down a steep cliff.

Although she didn’t like to admit it, she was afraid of heights. Whenever Siena rode close to the edge, her heart began to race, and she had to look away.

“We’ll soon pass through the Styrian Ice Caves in order to get to the other side of the mountain,” Darian said.

“Ice caves?”

“Yes. They’re a remarkable phenomenon and quite beautiful to behold. Of course, you must be familiar with the trail in order to navigate safely through them, or you might not make it out alive,” he said smugly.

She looked at Arrie. “What’s he talking about?”

He smiled. “The ice caves are areas deep in the rock where ice crystals have formed and grown over the limestone over the course of several centuries. They remain at a constant freezing temperature all year round.”

Marisa stared at him blankly.

“Have you ever been in a cave?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know how stalagmites and stalactites are formed?”

“I think so, but remind me again.”

“Stalactites are formed when calcium carbonate flows through the rock and starts to drip. It hardens into a ring from the top down, growing downward. The liquid that drips to the ground and builds upward hardens to form a stalagmite. When the two of them join, it forms what is known as a column.”

“So why are these caves so dangerous?”

“They are covered in a thick layer of ice, making them extremely slippery. In the caverns, it is extremely dark and exceptionally cold. Unless one knows how to navigate through it, a person can get lost in there and even freeze to death within minutes.”

“Sorry I asked,” she muttered.

Several hundred feet up ahead, they spotted the opening of the cave where hundreds of milky-white icicles hung down. It looked like a dragon’s mouth with its jaws wide open and the icicles appeared as long, sharp daggers. Marisa imagined that they were probably just as dangerous.

As they neared the cave’s entrance, Darian dismounted and unsheathed his sword. In one swift motion, he knocked down the icicles to clear the way. Then he took a rod and cloth from his saddle and used them to make a torch.

After watching Arrie dismount, Marisa followed his lead and climbed down from Siena. “Aren’t we going to ride through the caves?” she asked.

“Too dangerous,” Darian replied. “The ceiling of the cave isn’t high enough. Trust me—you wouldn’t want to brush your head against one of those low-hanging blades of ice.”

Darian entered the cave and the others followed behind. He held the fluttering torch as high as possible to light their way as he led Obsidian with the reins.

An icy gust of wind rushed past Marisa, and she shivered. Squinting as they entered the blackness of the cave, she strained to see anything in the dark. Once her eyes had adjusted, she gasped at the wondrous sight.

The cave was just as Arrie had described, with hundreds of stalactites and stalagmites staggered everywhere throughout the massive cavern. It reminded her of a field trip years ago with her fifth-grade class to the Oregon Caves National Monument. Everything inside these caves, however, was covered entirely with a thick layer of ice.

As the yellow limestone shone through the ice, the entire cave glittered and glowed as if it were made of pure gold. Carefully shuffling and sliding across a hardened sea of yellow crystal, Marisa was in awe of the translucent beauty of this natural phenomenon.

“Don’t touch the columns, and be very careful where you step,” Darian warned. “We’re moving along a high ledge in the cave wall, and you wouldn’t want to fall into that.”

He motioned below, pointing the torch downward. She saw that there was only about eight feet of the ledge, and after that, it dropped off into a large cavern and what looked like a deep, dark abyss.

Marisa glanced up at the ceiling of the cave. Thousands upon thousands of dagger-like icicles hung down only a few feet above her head and if just one fell on her, she’d be dead. She was amazed that such a place of beauty could also be just as dangerous.

All of a sudden, her foot slipped and she started to slide away from Siena. With lightning-fast reflexes, Arrie grabbed her arm just before she slid off down into the deep cavern below.

“Marisa, are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded. Her heart was pounding wildly.

“Do be careful, Marisa,” Darian said.

Stupid, stupid!
Embarrassed, she scolded herself to pay better attention. For the next several minutes, she followed behind Darian as they advanced slowly but surely through the length of the cave.

She couldn’t resist the temptation to take a photo of the cave’s interior. She rummaged around in her satchel for her phone. She pulled it out and swiped the menu items until she came to the camera function. Holding it out to the side and angling it toward the ceiling of the cave, she pressed the camera icon.

The flash from the phone bounced around the cave and spooked all three horses. Concrete reared up and backed into her, pushing Marisa off the slippery path.

With no traction on the glassy surface, she struggled for balance. But the momentum was strong enough to send her plummeting over the edge. In a single instant, she dropped out of sight and slid down into the main cavern below.

“Marisa!” Darian and Arrie screamed in unison.

That’s it—I’m dead.

As she raced down the steep wall of ice like a runaway bobsled out of control, she flailed in the darkness, trying to grab hold of anything that could break her fall. But the ice-covered stalagmites and columns were too slippery to clutch. Sharp pieces of ice sliced into her hands and arms and the cold quickly seeped through her clothing all the way to her skin.

Her body slammed into something. She was immediately jolted to a stop, caught by what felt like a large tree trunk between her legs. As she groped in the darkness, her hands encircled the cold pillar and Marisa realized that only a single column of ice was keeping her from plunging into the bottomless pit below. Her arms and legs were shaking as she strained to see anything in the dark cavern. Her body was quickly losing its warmth in what felt like a subzero meat locker.

Arrie and Darian’s voices shouted down to her from somewhere far above. “Marisa! Where are you! Are you still there?”

“Help,” she cried weakly.

Can they even hear me?

As she glanced high above her, she saw a small source of light dancing to and fro and realized that it was Darian’s torch as he paced back and forth across the ledge.

“Marisa, you’ve got to show us where you are! Say something!” Darian shouted.

“I’m here,” she cried softly, terrified of falling at any moment.

With no rope or climbing equipment to speak of, she knew that it would be almost impossible for them to reach her down so deep and her hopes began to fade.

The minutes ticked by, but they seemed like hours, and her thoughts started to drift. She could still hear Darian and Arrie calling to her, but she didn’t have the strength anymore to answer. Her whole body shook from the cold penetrating into her skin. Arrie had said that the temperature in the cavern was low enough to freeze a person within minutes.

Without warning, a monstrous roar followed by a shrill whistle erupted from somewhere deep in the cave. Marisa’s eyes flew open. She peered around in the darkness to detect any sort of movement, but it was no use. Zero visibility.

Danger!
Something screamed inside her.

The roar and whistle came again, but this time they seemed much closer. The sound reminded her of the roar of the rijgen. Knowing they’d probably disturbed some monstrous beast sleeping in the cave, a fresh wave of terror rippled through her.

Garon, give me wisdom,
she prayed.
Think—think!

By some miracle, she had managed to hold onto her phone, which she still clutched in her hand. It was almost frozen between her fingers that had rapidly grown numb from the cold, but it might be her only chance. Shivering, she felt for the power button and turned it back on. Another howl and whistle.

It was definitely moving closer.

Arrie shouted something, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying as the terrifying roar reverberated through the cavern.

The screen illuminated, and she waited impatiently for it to load before swiping her finger across it in search of the flashlight function. She pressed it a few times before it eventually turned on.

Once the light glowed, she raised the phone above her head and waved it back and forth as high as possible.

Another roar and shrill whistle.

Get out of there now!

Suddenly Marisa heard something large crawling down the wall of ice several feet above her. Should she switch off her phone? Was its light leading some horrible beast right to her?

Let your light shine,
said a voice in Marisa’s head.

Her mind was numb with fear as she heard sharp claws digging and scratching into the ice right above her, moving dangerously close.

“Marisa, I see you!” It was Darian. “Stay where you are and don’t move!” he shouted, his voice resonating through the cavern.