Nether

8. A Brighter Light

Roane and I hide behind tangles of overgrown shrubs and watch the girls walk toward the wrought iron gates surrounding Convent. Roane isn't happy about letting them go in alone, but there's no way we can sneak inside. Though she had been blindfolded, Gia told me she smelled mildew and sewage when they took them earlier in the night. At one point she said she stumbled and held onto a pipe. Whoever is taking the girls has access in and out of the school grounds and the sewer system seems like the ideal place.

Problem is, we couldn't find the outflow pipe. With Roane being a Troll, I refuse to take any chances at sneaking in another way. It's best to send the girls ahead, entrusting Gia with a message for Caleb to meet me alone and not to reveal my identity to anyone.

"Do you think they'll tell anyone else your message?" Roane asks. The girls grow smaller the further they run from us.

"I didn't say anywhere in specific. Only Caleb knows of our place. He won't tell anyone of it."

The guards open the main gates and run out to meet the girls. They look up to the woods from whence the girls came and I hold my breath as if somehow it'll give Roane and me away. The guards turn and walk the girls inside. Roane nods, and we slip back into the forest. If my suspicion is right, they won't get to see Caleb for a while, until after they're questioned. That's enough time for us to get to our destination. The simple thought of being at our place again flames my core and energizes me. I've missed him so much.

It was my second trip to Convent the day Caleb first took me to our place. The year before Crossing, all pre-magics are made to visit Convent and meet with the leaders of each branch of magic. It was a weeklong visit, but with Caleb more interested in our extra-curricular activities, he bumped my name to the top of every list. I was done with all my meetings by the second day. The rest were spent with him where he showed me around Convent grounds... and outside of them.

We slipped away one night and he took me to a small cave that was hidden by a waterfall about an hour away. Speaking a spell against the stone, a doorway appeared. Inside was a room within a cave lined with bookshelves and scrolls, his mother's life work.

I remember it being damp and cool when we walked in, but it was the first time we'd been alone-really alone, and the attraction that already existed between us expounded. It was there, with the hush of the falling waters as our backdrop that we fell into one another, promising ourselves to each other, body and soul. It was there he had asked me to rule at his side.

"Tell me you're mine," he had whispered, planting sleepy kisses at my eyes, my nose, my lips.

"I'm yours and nothing will ever change that," I vowed against his mouth, the words of a naïve mind, an inexperienced soul, and a heart not yet broken.