From The Ashes

Chapter Twenty-One

My paws pounded onto the hard ground as the surface began to  change. If it hadn't been for the searing pain of a sharp rock, I wouldn't have realized we had ran so far at all. 

We began to slow our pace and I sensed we were getting close to the safehouse. My mind kept replaying the way Aunt Maddie's eyes had pleaded with me to look away; how she had resigned to her fate in that moment and only wished that I wouldn't see. 

I shook back the tears that threatened to come. I didn't think I could cry anymore tonight. 

I pushed back the dull ache in my chest and decided to observe my surroundings for the first time since leaving the palace. We were far from anything familiar now, deep into the woods and nearing a mountain range. I was shocked. 

I could remember just barely observing the point of a mountain peaking over the forest trees from my room in the palace. I knew it was apart of pack lands, but I had never ventured out this far.

How could we have possibly run all this way in such a short amount of time? I glanced at the sky and realized that the first rays of dawn sun were beginning to break through the black clouds. We had been running for hours. 

It was only then that I became aware of my weary muscles and the ache that was growing more persistent in my bones. My lungs were heaving, trying to gulp in heaps of air and my throat was parched.

How much further could we go along like this? 

Just as the thought hit me, Von veered to the left toward a cliff face and disappeared. Confused, I stopped in my tracks and looked around, but there was no sign of him.

Valen stopped beside me and nudged my shoulder with his snout. I looked back at him and he trotted over to a crack in the wall. He shifted and beckoned for me to do the same. 

"What is this?" I asked him. 

"This is how we get in."

I lifted an eyebrow and he grinned. He dropped down on all fours and slithered his way in between the crack. He was gone in the blink of an eye. 

"Valen?" I called out. 

"It's alright," I heard his muffled voice reply. "Just get down low and squeeze through."

I looked at the crack skeptically, but did as I was instructed. The rock was rough on my bare skin and the shimmying was uncomfortably tight, but it only lasted a moment before I popped out on the other side and unceremoniously fell onto the ground. I stood up, rubbing my back side while I looked around. 

Behind the cliff face, there was an open cave. It was large and oval in shape, with the only light coming from the crack in the front and what looked like a small tunnel in the back.

The stone was light in color and was devoid of any stalagmites or stalactites. It was just bare. Valen stepped up behind me as my eyes adjusted. 

"This is where we're staying?"

My tone held a hint of disbelief. Maybe I'd gotten to used to the posh lifestyle of the palace. He chuckled. 

"Not quite."

He grabbed my hand and led me forward, before stopping and leaning down. He raised an arm up and pounded three swift times onto the ground. 

I was beginning to think he'd lost his mind, when a small door swung toward us and Von poked his head out. 

"Took you long enough," he chided. 

"How did you even get down there so fast?"

I eyed him critically. He waved his hand at me in return.