Gareth looked around, bewildered. The field was flat, no cave in sight. “I don’t see—” Niall pointed down, at a hole in the ground barely wider than his shoulders, and the hair on Gareth’s neck rose along with the panic in his belly. “That?”

  “It opens up once you get inside.”

  Gareth swallowed. “Comforting.”

  Bryce handed them several energy bars and a canteen each. “You have to be careful not to contaminate the ecosystems of these caves. Don’t leave anything behind. Don’t mar any surfaces. Don’t—”

  Niall slung the canteen over his shoulder. “Believe me, Bryce, we know how to take care of the environment.” He lifted an eyebrow at Gareth. “After all, we’re both fae.”

  The cave antechamber was smaller than Niall remembered. Or maybe it seemed smaller because he was sharing it with a still pissed-off bard. The anger fairly rolled off Gareth in palpable waves. The ethera were disturbed by it, twittering in distress without offering any intelligible remarks.

  Fine. If Gareth didn’t want to speak, Niall would indulge him. It was the least he could offer in return for his betrayal. If he’d been guilt-ridden over lying to Gareth when they’d met, it was nothing compared to the crushing weight of knowing what a shambles he’d made of Gareth’s life by letting the deception go on.

  But his vow of silence lasted perhaps ten minutes. He sighed. “We’ve got a long road ahead of us. Why not just pretend?”

  “Pretend?” Gareth’s voice was rough.

  “Yes. I don’t hope for lovers or, gods help me, even friends. But at least pretend that we’re . . . companions, seeking a common goal. Pretend you don’t hate me. You’re a performer. Surely you can manage that.”

  “Didn’t do such a good job last night.”

  “Is that where the black eye came from?”

  “Not exactly. That was afterward. I pretty much trashed our concert. More fights broke out in the audience than in the last battle of the Oak Wars.”

  “Bit of an overstatement, don’t you think? That battle was bloody awful.”

  “You weren’t at the concert.”

  “No.” Niall forced himself to keep his voice level, his gaze fixed straight ahead into the depths of the cave illuminated by his headlamp. “I wasn’t.” It was probably for the best. If he had been, Gareth’s voice would have entranced him again, and he’d have been tempted to do something stupid like fall on his knees and beg for forgiveness.

  He might still do that anyway, not that it was likely to do any good.

  They reached a rough wall. Gareth stared at it. “Dead end. Now what? If we don’t—”

  “Shush.”

  “Shush? Seriously?”

  Niall glanced from his study of the wall back at Gareth. “You spend the last however many hours giving me the silent treatment, and now—when I actually need the silence—you decide to pipe up?”

  “I—” Gareth snapped his mouth shut and crossed his arms. “Fine.”

  “Thank you.” Niall ran his fingers lightly over the wall, listening for a change in the ethera’s distressed chatter. When it came at last, he bent closer. There. The mark he’d scratched in the wall when he’d passed through before. He looked up, and there it was—the gap that led to the next cave, nearly hidden in the shadows of the cave’s irregular ceiling and trailing roots from plants overhead.

  Gareth peered at the mark. “That’s an ogham N. Like my tat—” Gareth stopped and cleared his throat. “Your initial. You’ve been here before.”

  “How else do you think I knew about it?”

  “I don’t know. You and Bryce are the ones who plotted this adventure. For all I know it was a druid spell, and you’re just as much bound to him as Mal.”

  Niall shot him a disgusted glance. “For one thing, Bryce would never cheat on your brother, even with another familiar. For a second thing, what makes you think I would cheat on you?”

  Gareth blinked. “You— When you went with Eamon . . .” He clenched his eyes shut. “He’s your brother. You didn’t fuck him.”

  “Too right. I’m not a bloody Welsh elder god. They’re the ones who were all about the incest.”

  “That was nothing but post-Christianity propaganda, and you know it.”

  Niall shrugged. “Not like it was unheard of in other pantheons too. But I’m not an elder god, and I never cheated.”

  “You expect me to believe that? Two hundred years in the Unseelie court, and don’t think we haven’t heard stories about the orgies.”

  “If that’s what you’ve heard, whoever made up the tale had a better imagination than a bard. The Unseelie court is about as boring as I expect the Seelie court is these days. Intrigue and one-upmanship and power plays, all for nothing. Besides, I wasn’t there.”

  “You weren’t . . . Then where were you?”

  Niall didn’t miss the hurt accusation in Gareth’s tone, the question obvious: If you weren’t there, why weren’t you with me?

  “Someplace else. Now give me a boost. We need to go up.”

  Gareth scowled, but braced his back against the wall and laced his fingers together. Niall placed one booted foot in Gareth’s hands and pushed off with the other, managing to grasp the rough edges of the opening, thanking Bryce’s forethought for the leather half-gloves. One foot in the indentation in the wall that had allowed him to descend all those years ago, and he was up and through, straining to lever himself until he could sit on the edge of the hole.

  He sat for a moment, catching his breath, and looked around.

  The ceiling of this cave was like a stone wave breaking overhead, the floor cobbled like a sun-baked riverbed. At the far reaches of the light, the ceiling was low enough that they’d have to crawl on hands and knees until they got to the entrance to the central cavern. Then they’d have to slither on their stomachs like a couple of tunnel snakes.

  Niall’s newly healed back twitched when he remembered the roof of that long stretch, covered with jagged rocks like hag’s teeth. It had scraped him even rawer in his last visit. At least this time he was wearing a shirt and one of Bryce’s tactical vests—although they’d have to empty the pockets. Crawling along on their bellies would be painful enough without the pressure of their lumpy supplies.

  He peered down at Gareth’s anxious face. “See that recess? Put your foot there and take my hand. I’ll pull you up until you can grab the ledge.”

  Gareth clenched his jaw and nodded, then took Niall’s offered hand in a strong grip. Musician’s hands. Niall braced himself to take Gareth’s weight, but Gareth had no more trouble scrambling up the wall than a mountain goat.

  When he was perched on the ledge, Niall raised an eyebrow. “Impressive.”

  Gareth shrugged. “Hamish likes rock climbing. I go with him sometimes.”

  “Good to know.” Niall stood and brushed off his pants, nodding toward the back of the cave. “This is phase two. We’ll follow this to nearly the end, crawl through another low tunnel, then into the central cavern and down.”

  Niall began unloading batteries and a pocket knife and energy bars from his vest. “While we can still stand upright, better transfer all your gear.” He slapped the pockets on the outside of the legs of Bryce’s loaner pants. “I don’t recommend having anything under your chest when you crawl through here.” He glanced down at the pockets on the vest. “In fact, I’d suggest turning this around backward, except the ceiling is likely to catch on the fabric of the zippers and we’d get stuck.”

  “Stuck? In here?” Gareth’s voice rose on the last word.

  “Not here. At its lowest point, we can still get by on hands and knees. But in the next bit, it’s barely the height of our bodies. The floor is sand, though, so we can dig out a bit.” He might need to dig out a lot. The last time he took this route, he wasn’t nearly as developed through the chest and shoulders. “I’ll go first. You’re smaller than I am, so if I can make it, so can you.”

  Gareth’s eyes were wide in the light from Niall’s headlamp. He clutched the pocket of his vest, where the spare batteries lay. “I—I’m not sure I can—”

  “Hey hey hey.” Niall gripped Gareth’s shoulders. “It’ll be all right. After that bit, the cavern opens up. The path is a bit narrow and the pit it circles is deep, but at least we can stand. You’re not bothered by heights, are you?”

  “Not heights. No. But this.” He gestured to the walls around them, the ceiling so close overhead. “No escape. If our lights were to fail, we’d be in the . . . in the dark.”

  Gareth trembled, his headlamp wavering, and Niall couldn’t help it—he took Gareth in his arms, holding him close. Gareth kept his hands fisted at his sides, not returning the embrace, but at least he didn’t pull away.

  “Tell me what you need to make this better,” he murmured. Gareth’s hair, so different with the curls gone, feathered against his cheek. “I’ll do anything you want.”

  Gareth chuckled weakly. “Go back?”

  “Well, almost anything.” He pulled away so he could meet Gareth’s gaze. “We have to keep going. For your brothers. For mine. We have no choice.”

  “I know. And Goddess knows I’m used to having my path dictated for me. But what if—”

  “No what ifs. Once we’re through here, we won’t be in the dark entirely. We’ll be able to see the flames of the Abyss. Will that help?”

  Gareth shrugged. “It’ll have to. Let’s get it over with.”

  Despite his obvious fear, Gareth kept pace with Niall until they had to drop to their hands and knees and go single file. When they reached the tunnel entrance, Niall stopped and turned sideways.

  “This is it.”

  Gareth’s mouth dropped open. “You call that a tunnel? I’d call it a fucking mousehole.”

  “I’ll talk to you as I go, all right? You’ll know exactly what I’m seeing, what I’m doing, how far I’ve gone. Will that help?”

  Gareth nodded, then dropped his gaze, which meant that suddenly their hands and knees were the only fully illuminated things in the cave. He raised his chin again with a gasp. “Yes. But—” The wild way his eyes darted around the shadowed recesses of the cave belied his words.

  “All right then.” Niall tried to put as much reassurance in his tone as possible. “No point in hanging about, eh?”

  Gareth shook his head. “None. Good . . . good luck.”

  Niall made himself grin, the same way he’d have done in centuries past before he embarked on one of his usual harebrained schemes. Like falling in love with a Seelie bard. “Not needed. I’ve done this before, remember?”

  Niall wiggled headfirst into the tunnel. Danu’s tits, had it been this shallow when he’d last passed through? None of that. Have to reassure Gareth. “Nothing to worry about. I’ll just push the sand aside. Open the way for you to slide through, slick as you please.”

  He heard Gareth’s laugh, echoing weirdly in the outer cave. “Are you talking about the tunnel or sex?”

  “Could be both.” He used his forearms to shove sand away and to the side. Please don’t let me hit rock. Please don’t let me hit rock. “Preparation. That’s the key. Not that the channel won’t be tight.”

  “How tight?”

  “Tight enough to hug you.” Shite, it better not be that tight, because those spikes on the ceiling were worse than Niall remembered, snagging on the fabric of his vest. Gareth wouldn’t appreciate that. “But deep.” He shoved more sand out of the way, increasing the clearance. There was one spike longer than the others, directly in his path. He remembered that one: it had gouged a bloody slash in his back.

  Could he change direction? Detour around it? But if he did, there was no telling whether he’d get them lost for good.

  “Niall? Are you all right?” Gareth’s expressive voice couldn’t disguise his panic.

  “Oh yes. Fine. Just catching my breath, you know. Wouldn’t want to finish too soon.”

  He squirmed forward another few inches and scooped sand away from under the overlong stone tooth. He eyed the clearance and scooped some more. And more. And more. It was one thing for his back to be lacerated—he was used to it. But not Gareth. “Just dealing with a . . . protuberance.”

  He squirmed onward, the stone scoring his back but not too badly. He could smell the distinctive scent of the Abyss now, although it had a fainter, smokier tinge than he remembered. Was it because they were so far away from it? Think about that later.

  He emerged onto the path, panting, and scrambled around to call back through the tunnel.

  “I’m out. The path is clear enough for you. Just beware of—

  “The protuberance?” Gareth’s voice seemed so far away. Faint. Was that fear? Niall wished they could have gone through side by side, but if wishes were granted, he’d have spent the last two centuries with Gareth.

  “Exactly.”

  He could hear Gareth humming softly, although the melody was jerky. Sounds like a man crawling through a twelve-inch-high tunnel on his belly.

  “Keep going, Gareth. It’s not too far. I’m right here. If you—”

  “Niall?”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Right.”

  Niall stood and studied the cavern. The pit was as wide as he remembered, but the path that circled it down into the earth was narrower. He hoped Gareth was telling the truth about being inured to heights, because Niall couldn’t see the bottom of the pit, not even the distant glow of the fires. He sighed. They had long trek ahead of them.

  He turned, listening for Gareth’s hum, but heard nothing. Terror spiked through him and he dropped to his knees next to the tunnel mouth. “Gareth? Are you all right?” No answer, and the terror spiked higher. “Gareth? Say something? Are you stuck? Can I—”

  A hand thrust out of the tunnel mouth, and Niall, giddy with relief, grasped it to pull a panting Gareth free. He toppled onto his back, his head over the edge of the path, Gareth on top of him.

  Gareth’s eyes popped wide. “Gwydion’s bollocks.”

  “It’s all right.” Niall wrapped his arms around Gareth, steadying them both, although the rocks in the path were cutting divots into his arse. He stroked Gareth’s spine. “Just breathe for a moment and then crawl backward. Slowly.”

  Gareth clenched his eyes shut for a moment and nodded, his chest expanding in a singer’s breath. Was it Niall’s imagination, or was he lingering with their bodies pressed together from chest to knees—

  And Niall’s shoulders with nothing under them but air. Not the best time to hope for a reconciliation.

  Gareth eased back onto his knees, then onto his arse, his back against the cavern wall. He held out a hand and helped Niall sit up.

  “Well. Let’s never do that again.”

  So much for that hope. “Sorry. I just thought you needed a little assistance—”

  “I meant the caves, you twit. Now. What’s next?” The ground trembled beneath their feet, and they both steadied themselves against the cavern wall. “Uh . . . is that normal?”

  “We’re in the fucking underworld. I don’t think there’s any such thing as normal.”

  Gareth hated being weak enough that he craved Niall’s touch. It’s only because of the cave, the descent. It couldn’t be because he still craved Niall. Not after the lies. Not when he was a gods-bedamned Unseelie prince. Although when Niall had pulled him out of that tunnel, and Gareth had fallen on top of him—

  Stop it.

  He followed Niall down the path, keeping his eyes firmly on Niall’s feet in front of him and not on the pit they were circling. Despite his declaration about not fearing heights, even a glimpse of that vast void turned his insides to jelly.

  One step after another. That’s all it takes. But he needed a distraction. He’d sworn not to talk to Niall, but it wasn’t as if he had a lot of other options.

  The further down they traveled, the warmer the air grew, until Gareth’s hair stuck to his sweaty forehead and his shirt clung clammily to his back.

  “So. You made this trip before, did you?”

  Niall glanced back at him over his shoulder. “Yes. The other direction though. Trust me, going up was way harder than going down.”

  “Then why do it?”

  Niall turned back, and his shoulders moved in a half-shrug. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the only one I’ve got.” He trod closer to the edge of the path and peered over. Gareth wanted to grab him and pull him back. “I don’t understand. Why are the fires so low?”

  “You want them to be hotter?”

  “It’s not a question of want. It’s how things ought to be. And something’s wrong.”

  “Well we knew that.”

  “Something in Faerie, yes. But the underworld isn’t part of the Faerie sphere, nor the Outer World. It exists outside of both. Last month the fires reached—”

  “Wait.” He grabbed Niall’s arm. “You made this trip last month?”

  An odd expression flitted across Niall’s face. Guilt? Regret? “No. But I was in the underworld last month. Granted we’re not quite at the bottom yet, but the fires are still too fucking low.”

  “What should—”

  An eerie wail echoed through the cavern, as if some giant were mourning at the bottom of the pit. Even in the reddish light of the cavern, Gareth could see Niall blanch.

  “Shite. Come on. We have to hurry.”

  He broke into a run, rocks skittering under his boots, and Gareth had no choice but to follow. After another three circuits of the cavern, the flames were visible below them, and sweat was running freely down Gareth’s chest.

  He could do nothing but pound after Niall, praying that neither one of them would slip and tumble over the edge.

  Suddenly the ground leveled out, and Gareth nearly ran into Niall, who’d stopped in the middle of a sort an antechamber off the main cavern, its floor worn smooth as if from eons of foot traffic. A huge anvil stood in its center, an equally gigantic bellows lying abandoned on its side, with jumbled heaps of scrap metal lining the walls and piled in every crevice.

  It dawned on Gareth where they were: the underworld forge, realm of Govannon. But where—

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25