Shadow Games (The Collector Chronicles Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

Carth crawled along the edge of the rock, her back to the cliff as she stared at the water. She glanced up but saw no sign of the platform. Whoever had stolen it from her had left no trace of it. It was possible that one of the constables had returned to the gear house and noticed it was missing. If that were the case, then it was possible that they would return and find her here. She hadn’t decided what she would do with the constables if she encountered them again, but she didn’t want to get into a fight.

  The only other option was jumping, and that left her nervous.

  Could she clear the froth?

  It would require a powerful jump, one that would carry her out and away from the rock and let her have a chance of swimming.

  From there, she would have to swim to Keyall and try to reach the port. At least the water would be less violent there, but she would be going against the current.

  She glanced up and saw the platform moving.

  She didn’t want to get into a confrontation with one of the constables, not when she needed to discover more about the city and see if there was anything that might explain what had happened to her friends.

  She pulled on the shadows and connected to the S’al, binding them together, exploding them through her as she pushed off.

  Carth sailed through the air, streaking ten, then twenty, then thirty feet before she started to descend. She plunged into the cold water.

  She pulled on her connection to the shadows, using them for strength as she swam. It seemed as if her connection was weaker than she thought it should be, making it so that even with her magic, she wasn’t able to swim nearly as quickly as she thought she would.

  Was that related to Keyall’s resistance to her magic?

  Carth swam against the current as she made her way toward Keyall.

  She popped her head above the water and took a gasping breath before diving back down. If she stayed too close to the surface, the waves would attempt to throw her down.

  The water was murky here and she couldn’t see well. Would the shadows cooperate with her at least for that? Could she peel them away so that she could see into the darkness?

  She focused only on the shadows around her and tried to push them away, but as she did, the magic once again seemed to dissipate. Carth shifted her focus and attempted to draw the shadows into her rather than push them away.

  There was a different response. The water began to clear, and she could see fish swimming nearby and could see the rock of the cliff.

  It was much closer than she had anticipated.

  Carth surged shadows and flame through her, exploding away. It propelled her through the water, sending her gliding away from the rock, but with each moment, and with each wave, she was sent backward again. She had to pulse on the shadows and the flame over and over, each time sending herself gliding away from the rock and each time using the shadows and flame together to keep herself from being bashed by the waves and the stone.

  As she went, she pulled on the shadows around her, clearing the water so that she could see. As she went, she encountered a place where the water seemed darker than she had expected. She pulled on the shadows again, but it remained dark. She was slammed backward, toward the rock, and she sent the shadows and the flame through her, thinking to propel herself forward, but it failed.

  Carth was thrown back, but she didn’t strike the rock.

  She was pushed into a cave.

  She tried pushing off using a combination of her magics, but they were ineffective. She tried swimming conventionally but could not get enough strength to drive herself forward. She was pushed back and back, into darkness thick enough that even her ability to peel back the shadows was not able to penetrate it. She tried drawing the shadows into herself, demanding that they swirl into her, but came up with nothing. The darkness lightened, but barely dissipated more than that.

  Unable to fight her way out of the cave, Carth redirected her attention and tried to spin. The water was a constant pressure, driving her backward, and she managed to spin around so that she could at least have warning if she were going to crash into something at the back of the cave.

  The first time she tried, Carth smacked her head on the side of the cave and water drove her backward, scraping her head along the stone. She fought the urge to pass out from the pain.

  She drew on her shadow connection again, pulling the shadows toward her, using that connection to help her fight her way around.

  When she spun again, her leg banged off the stone. She suppressed the urge to cry out.

  Eventually, she would lose consciousness. She couldn’t hold her breath indefinitely, even drawing on the strength from the shadows and the flame as she did.

  She tried again, and her shoulder rammed against the wall. Carth forced herself to ignore it, pushing off with a small explosion so that she could spin. Now that she was no longer fighting the current, she was thrown into the cave, and she drew the shadows toward her.

  She could feel her strength fading. She wouldn’t be able to hold her breath for much longer, and the moment she attempted to draw in a breath, she would suck in a lungful of water and would drown.

  Carth pushed through the waves, letting the water send her forward.

  As she felt her strength begin to wane, she knew that she needed to give one last effort. If she could use her magic, maybe she could get free of the cavern—unless it continued to drop lower and lower, eventually plunging her to her death. If it did, there would be no rescue. No one would know what had happened. Whatever had taken place with Jenna and Alayna would go unresolved. And Boiyn would never have the vengeance he deserved.

  Carth drew as many of the shadows as she could toward her and then surged through that connection, adding an element of S’al to it. She slipped forward, moving faster and faster, the explosion carrying her deeper into the cave.

  She had a vague sense of a change in altitude. Was she going up or was she going down?

  She couldn’t tell. Everything began to blacken around her, though she wasn’t certain how much of that came from the darkness of the water and how much from the darkness within her.

  Something changed.

  At first, she wasn’t certain what it was, but then she realized that the darkness had receded. She began seeing more and more light, everything practically glowing around her.

  Was that her dying mind playing a trick on her, or did she actually see that?

  Carth attempted another explosion, and this one carried her into the brightness.

  She was moving up. There was no doubt about it now, and as her remaining breath faded, Carth tried holding on but wasn’t sure that she could. Another surge, and she managed to pierce through the surface. She took a gasping breath and treaded water, holding herself steady as she tried to focus on where she was and what had happened to her, filling her lungs with air.

  It was hot. The glowing that she had seen in the water was real, and it seemed to infuse everything around her. A lip of rock was nearby and she reached for it and managed to drag herself free of the water. As she sat there, trying to take stock of where she was, she saw she was in a massive cavern. All around her were other dark inlets, openings from other tunnels like the one that had dragged her in here.

  Would she be able to use one of those tunnels to get herself free again?

  What was the glowing?

  It seemed to come from everywhere, from the walls and even the water. That couldn’t be real, could it? Could the water actually have taken on some of the glowing?

  She sat for long moments until her strength began to return. When it did, she stood and started to look around. She needed to find a way out. The pool here seemed to have a pretty uniform level, and she assumed that it was sea level. Surprisingly, there was no sense of the current that she had detected when she was thrown into this cavern.

  She looked for tunnels that seemed to be angling up and out of the chamber.

  There were a few, but they were all high above her. If she could reach one, s
he hoped that she could reach another. From there, she could try to find one that might lead her back out.

  What had Alistan said about these? They were all naturally formed, but she had a hard time believing that these were natural. Maybe the story about the Elder was true. Maybe there was some powerful being who had created this place and who had left an Elder Stone here. Could she find it? If she could find evidence of the Elder Stone, she might be able to use that with the Collector. At this point, she was willing to trade something like that for her friends, especially if that was what it took.

  Carth jumped to the next tunnel and started into it. After crawling for some ways, it became quite dark and her attempts to use her connection to the shadows to peel out was ineffective.

  She could feel the tunnel narrowing and decided to back out rather than getting stuck. When she reached the central chamber with the pool, she jumped to the next ledge. She slipped a little and frantically grabbed at the rock, instinctively trying to use her magic to propel her before giving up as it slipped away from her.

  She managed to get a handhold and dragged herself into the tunnel. She hesitated for a moment, taking deep breaths as she slowed her breathing, trying to steady her pounding heart, and then started into the opening. Much like in the last one, the darkness began to overwhelm her, and she crawled until she felt the walls of the cave closing around her. She backed out, and when she reached the pool, she looked for another opening.

  The next one was quite a bit above her, and she took a moment to compose herself before attempting to jump. When she thought she was ready, she surged off with an explosion of magic. She reached the lip of the tunnel and slipped.

  Carth swore as she plummeted back into the pool.

  She crawled back onto the rock lip that had previously given her a place to rest and gathered herself before jumping from opening to opening and trying again. This time, she managed to reach the entrance to the cave and pulled herself in. She crawled longer than she had in the others before needing to back up.

  Carth looked up, searching for how much higher she could try before the entrances were no more. The top of the cavern was dozens of feet overhead. There were nearly as many openings that let in here.

  She would keep trying. Whatever else happened, she had to keep trying and somehow find a way to get herself free.

  23

  Carth was exhausted. She had tried over a dozen different openings, and each of them had closed around her, forcing her back. She had plummeted back into the water several times, and each time she did, she had to start all over, forcing her to use even more strength. She was quite aware of the fact that her connection to her magic was not as potent as she thought it should be. It was different than simply not working when it came to attempting to use it on the stone that comprised the city below her. This was more that she had a reduced connection to her magic.

  Maybe this far into the rock, whatever it was that influenced her ability was more potent.

  She crawled forward, expecting nothing different than she had found in each of the other locations. This tunnel sloped upward more than some of them had, and she was thankful that it didn’t narrow quite as much. After a while, the sides began to squeeze around her, but she continued longer than she thought she should, determined to find some way to get free.

  There came a point where her shoulders brushed against the walls and she pulled them in, continuing forward. She dreaded the idea of getting stuck here, knowing there was nothing her magic could do to get her free, but she was determined to find some way out.

  The tunnel narrowed again, and she knew she had to back up.

  As she started to, she noticed something was different.

  There was a hint of a breeze.

  None of the other tunnels had had a breeze, and certainly none that blew against her, toward the central chamber.

  Did that mean this one opened up to the outside?

  If it did, could she push herself forward a little more and somehow manage to get out?

  She had to try. Even if it meant she risked getting stuck, it was the first time she’d had the sense that she could get out.

  Carth crawled forward. Now she had to pull her shoulders all the way in, and doing so limited her movements. She pushed forward with her toes, scurrying forward. Each movement was difficult, limited by the confined space.

  She began to struggle to catch her breath, not fully able to take a deep breath.

  Carth considered turning back, even if it meant that she would have to scratch her way along the stone, but another gust of wind came through, and this time it was unmistakable. She noticed the scent of salt on the wind, and it mixed with the familiarity of the sea.

  She had to be close, didn’t she?

  Another push, and this time she was jammed into the rock, unable to move.

  She swore to herself and gathered the shadows and the flame, wrapping them around her and sending them through her feet, trying to trigger an explosion that would propel her forward, regardless of how much it might scrape her along the stone. She needed to get free and feared what might happen if she were unable to do so. It would be a horrible way to die.

  The explosion managed to push her forward enough that she was able to grab at the stone, and she crawled. The opening seemed to widen here, and she found that she could move a little better.

  She pulled again, and again she managed to get a handhold so that she could pull at the stone, dragging herself along.

  She saw light.

  It was an encouragement, and she hurried forward even faster than she had before.

  And then she reached the outside.

  Carth rested there, gasping in a deep breath, letting the salty air fill her lungs. Far below her was the water, and now that she had experienced it once before, she didn’t think that she could risk trying to survive another plunge. Not only did she not have the strength, she had barely survived the last time.

  She rolled so that she could look up at the smooth sheet of rock comprising the cliff high overhead, an impossible distance.

  She had managed to get mostly free, but she was still trapped here.

  24

  Carth lay in place, trying to determine what she needed to do. She lost track of how much time had passed but figured it must’ve been several hours. It had been midday when she had first emerged from the cave out into the opening, and now it was nearly dark.

  She would need to make a decision. Would she be willing to jump and risk herself, or would she try to find some way to climb?

  None of the decisions were palatable. Either option left her with danger. If she attempted to climb, she ran the risk of falling into the water, regardless. And if she attempted to jump into the water, she might be high enough to be able to dive far enough out, but there was no telling whether the water was deep enough to survive from here.

  Dusk turned into darkness.

  As it did, Carth noted a soft creaking.

  What was that?

  There was a rhythmic nature to it, and it took a moment for her to recognize that it was the platform being lowered back down.

  Where was the platform?

  It was dark enough that she couldn’t see easily. She pulled on the shadows and saw the outline of movement near her. Surprisingly, the platform was coming down only twenty feet away.

  She couldn’t make out who was on the platform, though perhaps that didn’t matter. All she would need to do would be to reach it.

  The platform stopped slightly above her.

  She heard the sound of feet on the wood of the platform, and the person stepped into the cave.

  Was this one of the constables?

  Could they have captured Jenna and Alayna? That might explain why they were missing.

  No. They had been taken when Linsay had disappeared. This was something else.

  An opportunity.

  Her rest had helped her regain her strength, and Carth jumped.

  It was a controlled jump, not l
ike an explosion that dragged her across the stone. The distance was not so great that she didn’t think herself capable of reaching it. The only challenge for her was the darkness, which made gauging the distance a little more difficult, but even that was not insurmountable.

  She reached the edge of the platform and used it to throw herself up, using the shadows to muffle the sound of her landing. Carth glanced into the cavern, looking to see who might have gone ahead of her. There was no light and no sense of movement. She sent a pulse of S’al into the cave but came up with nothing.

  That wasn’t quite right.

  There was something, but it wasn’t quite what she had expected. There was movement near the back of the cave, and Carth thought that she could detect someone—maybe even someone familiar, but she didn’t dare remain too long. If she were here when whatever constable—or whoever it was in the cave—returned, she would have to decide whether to fight or to flee, regardless.

  Carth chose to climb and hurried up the rope, leaving the platform alone.

  Once back at the top, she backed away from the rock edge and tried to steady her breathing, calming herself, but it was difficult. She had survived. Not only survived, but she had made it back to Keyall, and she could get herself to safety now.

  She would berate herself later for choosing to try and investigate alone, and for risking herself needlessly.

  She figured that she’d been gone for two days, long enough that Alistan might have found something out about her friends, but first she would need to return to the tavern.

  The platform began moving, the ropes making their way back up and into the gear house. If she stayed where she was, she could discover who had lowered the platform—essentially saving her.

  She wanted to know. If nothing else, she thought she needed to know whether someone else had been imprisoned.

  When the platform appeared at the top, a familiar figure appeared.

  Carth remain hidden in the shadows until Talia approached. “How long have you been following me?”

  “What makes you think that I’ve been following you?”