Page 54 of In Darkness Forged

Her heart hammered in her throat as she heard scuffling in the dark, then a hand seized her arm.

“We have to run.” It was Talyn, but his voice sounded off. Shaky, with fear or exhaustion. “My magic is all but gone, and I cannot hold that thing at bay for long with steel alone.”

“And I can’t see to run,” Aislin said, her honesty leaving the acrid taste of fear on her tongue. “If you leave me, you’ll have a better chance.”

But the offer only seemed to enrage him.

“Do not test me, human!” Talyn snarled. “I will carry you if I have to.” And he did. Swept her off her feet and continued to run.

In long ago daydreams, she’d imagined being swept off her feet just so, and saved from some enemy by a kind and handsome suitor.

This wasnotthat dream. There was no relief, no safety, no admiring of his strength or courage. There was only the unyielding surface of his chest beneath her injured ribs, the iron grip of his arms, and the harsh sound of his breathing. Only the sick certainty of danger that stalked them, and the bleak recognition that both of them were near the end of their strength.

And then, a few moments later, Talyn simply stopped, and Aislin felt him wavering in the dark before he set her down.

“Dead end,” he said, to her unspoken question, his voice grim as death.

When she quieted the harsh sounds of her own breathing and the hammering of her heart, Aislin could hear it—the rush of water far below them. They’d reached an underground river.

“Can we cross?”

“I don’t know. It is too wide to jump.”

Something hit her out of the dark, and then she saw Talyn’s sword again, glowing faintly, his jaw clenched with the effort.

Crow had caught up once more, and there was nowhere for them to go.

Aislin drew her hatchet from her belt and wondered whether it might be better to jump. Of all the ways she’d ever imagined dying, this had never been on the list. But then a flailing leg knocked her to the ground, and she jumped up to swing her hatchet with a desperation born of both terror and fury.

She didn’t want to die here. She didn’t want to be a meal for a monster, or have her bones added to that grisly collection far from the touch of sunlight.

So she swung with every bit of strength in her body, aiming straight for the place where that hideous leg joined its body.

It was almost easier than beheading a chicken. As the blade cleaved through the leg and left it hanging by a gruesome string of connecting tissue, Aislin reminded herself that spiders, no matter how big, did not have bones.

The monster seemed to pause for a moment to regard her as it curled in against the pain of her strike. And then, in the midst of its distraction, Talyn’s sword bit deep, and yet another of its eyes went dark.

A horrible, burbling screech echoed through the cave, and Talyn turned to Aislin, his face barely visible in the waning glow of his blade.

“I’m done,” he said hoarsely. “We will have to jump.”

“Wewhat?”

“Can you swim?”

“A little…” she started to say, but he’d already grabbed her around the waist, clamped her tightly to his body, and thrown them both into the dark waters below.

CHAPTER15

The drop was not long, but the waters were icy, and the impact drove the breath from Tal’s lungs.

But it also awakened the last of his senses from the sluggish uncertainty left behind by whatever the old woman had done to him.

He was still weak—weaker than he could ever remember being. Where the vast well of his power usually lay was now nothing more than a dark, hollow well of pain and frustration.

She’d stolen his magic. Lured him in and then somehow drained him of nearly every drop. All of the strength he took for granted—gone in an instant, leaving him at the mercy of a bent old woman who could barely walk.

It was Aislin who’d saved them both. His tenacious, impossible human, whose lack of magic probably meant the old woman had left her unguarded. Unnoticed. Because she had not considered her a threat.