Leah
Down. Deeper still. The tunnel widened as we descended, the walls pulling apart, the ceiling rising. The enchanted torches burned brighter here, closer together, casting the stone in warm orange that made the moisture on the walls glitter. The temperature climbed. Sweat gathered at my temples, at the small of my back.
The thread in my chest pulled harder with every step. Closer. Louder. A rhythm that matched my heartbeat, Darien's presence growing from a whisper to a pulse to a drumbeat that I could feel in my teeth.
The tunnel emptied into a cavern.
Massive. The ceiling arched forty feet overhead, supported by natural stone columns thick as ancient oaks. The floor was smooth, polished by something that wasn't nature, a vast open space that could have held a ballroom. On the far s
