Page 116 of The Other Side

“Are you going to look for the blood-oath?”

“It’s safe. It should stay where it lies.”

Chapter Nineteen

Drum’s head ached. Not just his head. All of him. The initial terror had burned itself out, leaving behind a cold, numbing resignation. He’d shouted until his throat was raw, but his cries had only rebounded off the unyielding stone walls. He was trying so hard not to give up, but that little voice of doubt kept weaselling into his brain, nibbling away at whatever hope remained.

The only people who knew where he was had no interest in his survival. Every time he exhaled, the sound pressed back against his ears, muffled by the sheer weight of the rock. Darkness had swallowed him so completely that moving felt suicidal—one wrong step and he’d plunge into the void.

He closed his eyes, as if he could erase the absolute, consuming blackness pressing in on him. He thought of everything he’d taken for granted: the memory of sunlight, which only made the cold cut deeper; the sound of rain against a windowpane, which ignited a fierce thirst; the feeling of grass beneath his feet, which brought back thoughts of Osian.

Osian. Drum’s heart ached more than his ribs. His past life felt like a story told to a stranger. Love lost. Love found. It would be so easy to give up, to lie down and let the dark take him. Help wasn’t coming. But Osian would be frantic. He wouldn’t stop looking.

Drum drew a shaky breath. He couldn’t just sit here.

Think, he commanded himself, as if he was capable of suddenly coming up with some miraculous idea to get out of here. He began moving again, edging forward with one hand pressed to the damp rock and the other sweeping the ground. Finally, his fingers touched something different. Not stone, but wood. A plank. Nothing flanked it on either side. A leftover crossbeam from mining a century ago, bridging a gap Drum couldn’t see? A faint movement of air brushed his skin.

Retracing his steps meant heading back toward a drop; there was no point going backward. Should he crawl across? If he fell, at least he’d die trying.

Drum found a loose rock and pitched it down into the dark. It fell for a long, breath-stealing moment before splashing into water. He felt around for another stone and tossed it forward, over the wood. It hit solid rock and bounced.

He made his decision and edged out onto the beam. A sudden, sharp crack echoed around him. Drum froze. His heart hammered violently against his ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. The timber beneath him had shifted. Only a fraction of an inch, but enough to send a tiny shower of loose shale whispering down into the depths. He waited, his entire body rigid, listening for the impact of the stones hitting the water. There they are.

There was no point staying where he was. He couldn’t stay here and wait for the timber to rot through or his grip to fail. Go fast? Go slow? Just bloody go! He crawled as quickly as he could and when he felt rock under his hands, then his knees, he sighed loudly. Though safe was a relative concept.

His fingers were cold and scraped raw. He was tired, hungry and thirsty. He could lick the wet rock, but he didn’t want to. Not yet anyway. He lay on his back to try to ease the pain in his ribs. He’d feel better if he just had a rest.

He woke with a gasp, shocked that he’d fallen asleep, and wincing from the pain in his chest. Only to gasp again when he realised it was no longer pitch black. A single, pencil-thin filament of light shone down. He could make out the wooden beam he’d crawled across. He’d lost track of time, not registering he’d been thrown down here when it was night. No wonder he’d not been able to see anything. His heart, which had felt like a dead weight, gave a sudden, painful thump.

Drum tentatively reached out. His fingers, coated in grime, brushed against the impossibly small pool of light that fell on the wood. It was real. Tears slipped down his cheeks. When he looked up, a wave of dizziness washed over him. The light intensified slightly. He could see dust motes dancing in the beam, tiny specks of life. The rock walls, previously just his solid tomb, were now etched with terrifying, beautiful detail. He could see cracks, crevices.

Could he climb? Was there even a way out at the top? How big was the gap? He yelled for help. Maybe someone would hear him now. Drum wasn’t ready to disappear into the earth just yet. He had to climb. Slowly, painfully, he began to drag himself upwards, each movement a victory against the dark. The light, his fragile beacon, was his guide.

Along with a sense of terror, he also felt hope surge. A stubborn, fragile, desperate hope that he might survive. Except the rock was slick and offered little purchase and every stretch of his limbs brought more pain. When he found a ledge to rest on, he lay down again, breathing shallowly, his body shaking. The surface seemed no nearer. It had to be, but it didn’t feel it.

He stayed there until the tremor in his arms eased. Above him, the tiny ribbon of light shifted almost imperceptibly as the sun climbed higher. It wasn’t much, but it proved the world was still moving. Somewhere beyond the rock was Osian.

“Help!” he shouted again.

His voice struck the walls and came back to him, thinner than before.

“…help…”

His throat was sore. He swallowed against the dryness and tasted dust. Then licked the rock at his side. Mistake! It pulled the moisture from his mouth. Drum groaned, sucked at his dirty knuckles and tasted blood.

Don’t stop trying.

He heard Osian’s voice in his head, urging him on. Drum pushed himself up to a sitting position, crying out as pain flared. He used the rock to help him stand and reached up, searching for a crack. His fingers found one just deep enough to grip. With a boot heel lodged against a knot of stone, he pushed himself up.

Another reach. Another push. This time the stone beneath his left hand crumbled. Without warning his grip vanished and he slid. His boots bounced from the wall. His elbows scraped raw against the rock. Then his body slammed onto the ledge he’d climbed from. The impact drove all the air from his lungs.

For several terrifying moments he couldn’t inhale. He lay twisted, mouth open, convinced this was how he’d die, not from hunger or darkness, but because his body had simply forgotten how to breathe. Then, with a ragged gasp, air rushed back into his lungs. Pain followed.

Drum gave a choked laugh. It came out as a cracked, half-mad sound that echoed around the shaft.

“I’m still here,” he yelled, then regretted it because doing that had hurt.

The words surprised him because he’d expected despair after the fall. Instead, something inside him had hardened. Okay, so he’d fallen, but he was still alive.