Dawn's Light

Chapter 28

Celia woke in a dry cubical cavern with a blanket thrown over her shoulders. Her muscled cried out in minor soreness as she sat up and looked around. Her memories felt blurry, and she struggled to remember how exactly she got to her current position and subconsciously moved to remove her bag from her back.

"The sunlight!" With wide, frightened eyes, she felt her pack-less shoulders as if tapping them would make her backpack magically appear. "Where is it?" She frantically glanced around her, then found the small pack where her head had been using it as a pillow. She slowly released her breath, then pulled the bag closer to her and opened it, revealing the glowing spherical object of her panic.

"We actually did it," she released a joyous laugh as the bright ray of sunlight illuminated the room in its whiteish glow, "we did it! Verbena! We actually did it! We retrieved one of the rays of light! We can do this!" Her heartbeat fluttered in excitement. As a colossal grin spread across her face, Celia turned to locate the dragonet, then noticed her still-sleeping white form on the other side of the room.

"Oh, right," her voice softened to a saddened whisper as she rewrapped the ray of light in cloth and gently slipped the precious object back into her pack and retrieved the small bottle of fire magic to use as a gentler light source in case the brighter sphere of light woke Verbena. "You definitely deserve as much rest as you need." A small, grateful smile formed on her face.

Since Verbena was still asleep, Celia silently stood up and surveyed her surroundings in the rectangular room as she adjusted the pack on her shoulders. As she studied the walls, she noticed the uneven smoothened stone seemed to be chiseled completely by hand and then sanded down either over time or also by hand. The floor had been patched to be smooth with a strange sort of grey gravel that clung to the floor and together instead of remaining loose.

Celia turned to face the doorless exit of the room, then blinked as she spotted the saddlebags near the doorway. "I guess I need to find Xan and Irin now and thank them for helping us," her voice remained a soft whisper as she slowly walked out of the room and into the tunnel system.

Under the soft glow of the bottle of fire magic, Celia began to walk down the level chiseled passageway. The grey walls seemed featureless in the low lighting, and the floor also seemed to lack a noticeable slope.

Though she originally thought navigating to the exit would be simple, she found herself lost in the manmade tunnels. Though the unnaturally straight tunnel seemed simplistic at first, many large dead-end rooms branched off of the main path.

When she finally reached the first true intersection, the human female exhaled a large plume of her warm breath into the cold air through the cloth that covered and protected the lower half of her face from the cold. Then, she held her breath and watched the swirling miniature cloud for any kind of disturbance or movement that would indicate a draft from a nearby exit.

Sadly, the vapor offered no answers as it dispersed into the ambient air. Celia swallowed, then glanced around at her four options. She could either go back the way she came or go down one of the other two branching paths.

"Xan?" Her voice rang out into the empty expanse, and echoes acted as the only immediate reply to her cry.

"Xan?... Xan?... Xan?..." Celia's voice echoed back from all three directions. Celia remained petrified in place until after the volume of the echoes descended into a soft whisper. Though the actual echoes faded to nothing, Celia's ears rang with the whispers of Xan's name.

Celia took deep breaths and shielded the mindlink from her fear in case they reached Verbena and woke her. "I—I can do this," Celia whispered so softly not even echoes picked up the sound.