***
Emily was seriously freaking out.
Jason and her had run the whole length of the plain and found a giant hole in the ground on the way. Yes, a giant hole. It sounded crazy to Emily but her eyes didn’t lie.
And what made it worse was Jason found one of Jazell’s arrows sticking out of the ground. But there was no Jazell. An arrow without its shooter was never a good sign.
Emily twirled the arrow in her fingers while Jason paced back and forth. Emily had offered to be the one who paced but Jason had waved away her offer and started pacing. So all Emily could do was sit there and twirl the arrow in fear because right now it wasn’t looking good for Jazell and Seth.
“What I don’t get,” Jason said, “is how the arrow managed to stay in perfect shape when the ground collapsed. The arrow should be broken and not sticking out of the ground a few feet away.”
“Maybe she shot it after,” Emily suggested, because that meant that she was alive.
Jason rubbed his eyes. “I guess that’s a possibility. Jazell and Seth were always too stubborn to die anyway.” He stopped pacing. “But why would she shoot it up here?”
“Maybe she wanted to show us that she was alive,” Emily said.
“A sign,” Jason muttered and snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Jazell likes to leave clues, check the arrow.”
Emily turned the arrow and saw a sloppy line drawn through two squiggly circles. She squinted closer and saw that Jazell had tried to make the line some sort of sword but epically failed.
Emily showed Jason and he nodded. “That’s what I thought. Now we have to figure out what it means.”
Emily walked up to the edge of the hole and looked down. “I have a feeling that we have to go down there.”
Jason sighed. “I guess we’re jumping down.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Because,” he said and sat on the side, “we don’t have a rope.”
Then he jumped.
Fall of Igneeria: The Half-ling Page 26