Lotus

Chapter 24

The sound of our labored breathing echoed off the walls of the tunnel around us. None of us dared speak a word, fearing what might come if we did. Instead, we hurried down through dark caves, with only the pale blue light of Tombolo's illuminated scales to guide us.

We then stumbled into a large cavern, one almost as large as the Great Hall. Disoriented, we took in the stalagmites and stalactites as we searched for the other way out of it.

"Over here," said Shadowglide. Though he whispered it, the reverberation of his words made it seem like he was almost shouting.

"Quiet," Sunbreaker hissed through clenched teeth. He was clutching his shoulder hard. The bleeding had slowed down a bit, but was still flowing. I needed to clean that for him, and soon.

Just as we were moving closer to the exit Shadowglide had found, Tombolo stopped dead in his tracks. We stopped with him, watching as his light fluctuated, while his face scrunched in concentration. His ears twitched slightly, then froze.

"Hide."

Without a word, we quickly scrambled behind a few of the stalagmites, pressing our bodies up against the rocks. Tombolo stopped illuminating his scales, and everything went black. I could feel my heart pounding against my chest, but I ignored it the best I could.

We sat in the dark for several minutes, listening for even the slightest sound of someone else. I heard the sound of talons scraping against the rocky floor, and I clamped my own talons around my snout to keep myself from making any noise.

After a few moments, the scratching sound went away. I wasn't sure if it had been the sound of a dragon coming into the cave. For all I knew, it could have been an echo from another one. The others seemed to think the same, because Tombolo lit his scales again, and we all came out of our hiding spots, looking around.

We were lucky. There wasn't anyone else in the cave.

We all breathed out a silent sigh of relief. Then, a look of worry came over Sunbreaker's face. "D-do you think it could have been Sulfur?"

We grimaced at the echo, waiting for it to fade before continuing on. "No," said Shadowglide. "I saw it before. She's..." he faltered, then looked down. Realizing what he meant, we all followed suit. I felt a stinging sensation on the corners of my eyes, one that I hadn't felt for a while.

We all took a minute to silently thank our irritable science teacher. We didn't linger long, though. We knew she wouldn't want us to just stand here when we could be getting out. I could almost hear her shouting at us to get a move on.

We found the correct tunnel again, and moved down it quickly. We stopped every so often to listen for a sign that an IceWing had found us, but we didn't hear anything.

It felt like hours before we finally reached the exit. When we smelled the fresh air, we all quickened our paces, and burst out at the base of the mountain. There were several hills in front of us, and beyond that, the desert stretched out towards the western horizon.

"Let's rest," Sunbreaker said, his voice a little strained. "Please."

Shadowglider nodded. "The Scorpion Den is closest to where we are now. We can head there, but we should wait until the sun sets, so we can travel under darkness, without any IceWings seeing us."

I wanted to say something about how that wouldn't work for me because of my white and pale pink scales, but I knew it wouldn't make a difference. Instead, I found a few leaves and a small pool of water, and cleaned off both Sunbreaker's and my wounds, and then wrapped his to help stop the blood.

We then found a good hiding place in some thick bushes and sat down to rest. While no one said it, we all earnestly hoped that none of the IceWings would find us before we had the chance to escape.