Page 96 of Into the Abyss
Her name became a mantra in my headcompelling me to continue as the world narrowed to a pinprick oflight and thought around me.
The bars broke in half as they finally gaveway beneath my weight and my determination to be free. Momentumcarried me across the rubble spilling out of the cell and into thehallway. I had to keep my head bowed and my shoulders hunched toavoid smashing them off the ceiling. When my cell collapsed, theshockwave of the force lifted me off my feet. I curled into a ballto avoid breaking my neck on the ceiling as I flew across thehall.
I saw the wall coming but was helpless to doanything to stop myself from being slammed into it. My entire bodyjerked and twitched when I collapsed onto the rising debris. Lyingthere, I inhaled large gulps of dust and sand while the thunderousnoise dimmed and a few rocks clattered into place.
Opening my eyes, I blinked away the thickcoat of dust caking them. The layer of rubble coating me fell apartas I rolled to the side and rose to my hands and knees to surveythe destruction. In this position, the ceiling scraped the tips ofmy horns. The debris packed the hallway, and closer to where mycell had been, it rose until it was impossible to tell the ceilingfrom the floor.
Wren!
I should have expected this kind of boobytrap, but I was so focused on getting to Amalia that I hadn’tstopped to think the fae might have worked into place somethingdesigned to kill their enemy should they discover a way to breakfree.
Tricky little extinct race, and more viciousthan I’d believed.
But then, I suspected they were pushed tomore brutal means in an attempt to keep their home. And those meanshad failed.
Crawling forward, I made my way towardWren’s cell. My heart battered my ribs with every passing second asI made my way across the unsteady ground. When the area narrowedfurther, I slid to my stomach and dragged myself through thedestruction. The stones abrading my flesh, smeared more of my bloodacross the Abyss as I battled to reach Wren.
She has to be alive. I would neverforgive myself if I’d killed her. I liked the feisty ex-mortal, andI couldn’t be the one who entombed her under a mound of ruins. Ididn’t let myself consider that I might also be buried in here; itwasn’t an option.
I listened for any sound from Wren. Afootstep, a breath, or a call, but all I heard was my laboredbreathing as dust billowed off the rocks before me with eachbreath. I didn’t dare yell out for her; the jinn and horsemenalready knew something happened up here, letting them know I’dsurvived it by calling for her would only bring them herefaster.
The bars of Wren’s cell came into view, andI slithered toward them at a faster rate. The ceiling pressedagainst my back and rocks dug into my chest as I pulled myselfforward to peer through the bars. My heart sank when I saw the wallof debris ending only inches from the ceiling all the way aroundher cell.
It would take days to dig her out, but ifher head had been crushed, there would be nothing I could do.
A flicker of something on the other side ofthe cell caught my attention. From the way my face was positionedagainst the bars, the debris looked as if it stretched all the wayacross the cell. When Wren moved again, she broke the opticalillusion, and I spotted her on top of a two-foot mound of rubble.She stood with her back pressed against the bars opposite mycell.
Despite the destruction wrought on my celland the ring of rubble around hers, the rest of Wren’s spaceremained remarkably untouched by dirt and rocks. Not one pebblemade it beyond the symbol on her ceiling.
I suddenly understood why the three-storysection of runes had remained intact. The symbols had protectedthis area of the structure from collapsing until I broke one ofthem.
“I’m coming,” I said to her.
She gave me the finger.
Smiling, I pushed myself away from the barsand wiggled through the wreckage toward the corner of her cell. Itwidened out again when I neared the bend, and on my hands andknees, I scuttled around the side of Wren’s cell.
When the rubble dropped off dramatically, Islid down the rocks to stand on the smaller pile outside her cell.Her eyes swung toward me, and though she grinned, she looked asgray as a ghost.
“Were you trying to kill me?” she asked.
“No, and thankfully I didn’t.”
“Yeah, thankfully, dumbass.”
I smiled at her before inspecting the bars;I hoped they would give way from this side without her having todestroy the marking. Neither of us would survive more ruins fillingthis place. However, I suspected the symbol was only meant to makeit impossible for those inside the cell to breakout.
The booby trap was more malicious than I’dexpected from the fae, but they wouldn’t make it so their prisonercould never exit once they were inside.
But what if they’d made it so the only waysomeone could walk freely out of the cell was through the door? Iglanced at the scant foot of space available between ceiling andfloor where Wren’s cell door was located.
If that were the case, I’d find out soonenough as I didn’t have enough time to dig through all of that andget her free before the jinn returned.
Gritting my teeth, I ignored the pop in myshoulder as my muscles strained while I worked to separate thebars. For a second, they didn’t give, and then, with a low squeak,they began separating.
“Oh,” Wren breathed.
I pulled the bars more than a foot apart andstepped aside. “Hurry,” I urged. “They’ll be coming for ussoon.”
