Letters. Those were letters he was drawing into her palm.
Emmery’s eyes widened and she memorized each drag of his finger. As he saw the recognition in her eyes, his thumb slowly traced a—
D.
Her cheeks reddened as she stared up at him incredulously. Was he spelling his name? How arrogant and fitting. But he wanted to get out of this damn place as much as she did.
“You must answer,” the Guardian bellowed. “I will count down from ten.”
He drew anR. Alright, so not his name.
“Ten. Nine. Eight.”
Emmery involuntarily shivered as the letterEtingled across her skin. Destonne shut his eyes and trembled as if it worked through him too, and when he opened them again, they held his promise:I will never let you drown.
“Seven. Six. Five.”
Her blood rushed, hot and thick, like she was dying, bleeding out, and nothing could staunch the flow. The panicked ring in her ears stifled her hearing, and everything blurred in her vision.
“Four.”
Everything except Destonne.
He was the only thing in the room that kept her knees from giving out. And he did what he said. He held her above water and didn’t let the tide sweep her away. Because Destonne kept his promises.
“Three.”
Her brows drew together as he traced the next letter.
A.
The word struck her like a shove to her chest. Emmery opened her mouth, and her answer croaked out, “Dream.” She cleared her throat and summoned all her confidence, every stubborn, stiff, defiant thing inside her. She turned to the Guardian, and said, her voice steady, “It’s a dream.”
An impossibly heavy silence blanketed the room. Because maybe she guessed wrong. Maybe Destonne had too. The sound of her ragged breaths and the crackling flames wove together as the fiery basins flared back to life.
The Guardian bared its teeth in a snarl, but ambled aside like a lumbering beast. “You may pass.”
A wave of relief nearly knocked Emmery to the floor. Destonne squeezed her hand and released her. In her gaze, she willed a silent,thank you. He seemed to catch the words and nodded.
Behind the Guardian, a stone door ground open in the same way the entrance to the labyrinth had. A path filled with the same darkness lay ahead. As if the floor would give out and plummet them to their deaths, they silently tiptoed past the Guardian, not willing to meet its eyes, though Emmery could feel them boring into her, hungry for her failure. Ravenous, really.
As they crossed the threshold, out of earshot from the Guardian, Brennen said,“That was too easy.”
Emmery’s cheeks still burned with shame. “Speak for yourself.”
“It gave you the hardest one, angel,” Destonne murmured. His gaze darted around the shadowed hallway, his breath disjointed once more. “Don’t beat yourself up over it.”
But she certainly would. She’d needed Destonne to come to her rescue yet again and she didn’t love the feeling. The last thing she wanted was to need his help. To need him.
Brennen said, “Keep on your toes. I fear the next game won’t be so simple.”
The door slammed at their heels and the darkness swallowed them once more. Emmery summoned herkhaosflame and illuminated Destonne and Brennen’s fatigued expressions, as she was sure hers was, too. Destonne clutched the crystal around his neck like it would ward off the terrors in this dank, narrow hallway. His breaths thinned further.
As they walked on, their echoing footsteps mixed with guttural growls coming from behind either side of the wall. Emmery recognized those sounds as they rattled her bones.
Hollowhounds.
The ground crunched under their feet, and pebbles made the ground increasingly unsteady. Her foot slid out from beneath her, and she only just caught herself on the wall. She blamed her unsteadiness on hunger, but then the stone rumbled beneath her fingers.