Page 116 of Reaper's Quest

We made slow and steady progress in silence, questions and conversation replaced by intense awareness of our route and surroundings. I pressed my hand against the tunnel wall, as if to pull strength from the unwavering structure, and listened for every minute sound. At each junction andturn, Winter marked our path with a chalk arrow on the wall.

Although we descended no stairs, I had the odd sensation that we traveled lower and lower beneath the ground. As if the path we followed had become a shallow ramp. Or, as the gradually warming air might suggest, a slow-rising ventilation system out of Hell.

I scrubbed my arm across my forehead and forced my feet to keep moving. I didn’t want to admit that a shower and a bed now sounded like the best idea. My body dampened, my muscles complained, my still-healing wounds ached, and my energy dropped to near depletion. Nevertheless, I held my shoulders firm, refusing to let my blooming exhaustion show.

Another intersection divided the path, this time the passage splitting three ways. The darkest tunnel, located at the center, tugged me forward.

I twisted toward Winter to verify he would accept my choice without argument but paused, taking in his lack of perspiration.

“Do you not feel the heat as I do?” I asked. “Or are you too pretty to perspire?”

I could only imagine how I looked after all our time traveling in the warm tunnels. My hairline had become more than damp, and sweat trickled down the center of my back and between my breasts.

“You think I’m pretty?” His eyebrows arched, and his eyes heated as his body shifted closer.

Averting my gaze, I hid my emerging scowl. “You know you are.”

“You’re quite stunning yourself.” He hooded his eyes.

“Stop it. I look like a drowned rat.” I waved his compliment away with a flip of my hand. “Just answer the question. Why do I look like this?” I raked my fingers along the length of my body, indicating my moist and sticky condition, then I swung my arm toward him. “And you look like…?”

He tilted his head toward his shoulder with a slight shrug. “My body has always self-cooled.”

Pressing two fingers to his lips, he appeared to consider me. All of me.

A cooling breeze, seemingly from nowhere, swept around me, circling. The elemental stay was short-lived, but oh so appreciated. The chilling kiss and caress against my skin… I closed my eyes and savored the moment.

The tunnel atmosphere returned to as it was prior. I opened my eyes and stared at him, unable to pull my gaze from his pale-blue eyes. They brightened and turned the vivid blue with which I’d become most familiar.

Pale blue and a breeze. Bright blue and no extra cooling. I started to put things together.

“That breeze just now. That was you?”

The edges of his eyes crinkled. “I have a few tricks at my disposal.”

“I thought magic disappeared when your city became cursed?” I brushed wet, clingy strands of hair from my cheeks and forehead.

It would take more than a cooling breeze to sort out the terrible mess of my body. I desperately needed a soapy bath.

He scratched the back of his skull. “That’s not what I said. I said magic changed, not disappeared.”

“Right.”

Magic still existed in the citadel; it merely presenteddifferently than it had before. But different how? If Winter could summon a cool breeze now, what had he been able to do before? And if Kira had sped up my healing, or Myla had seen Chace’s location without having physically been there…

This citadel and its situation contained so many things to consider.

I turned toward the center path and motioned my intentions. Winter responded with a tight nod.

Several strides down the tunnel, the lights of the torches fought with the darkness of our chosen path. Every step felt heavier and hotter. And every step had me wishing for more of Winter’s magical breeze.

“Raven,” Winter said, sounding distant.

I turned, expecting to find him a foot away. Instead, he stood several yards back, his gaze unfocused as he appeared to search for something.

“What’s wrong?” I swung the torchlight in his direction and searched for what might have caused him to stop but noted nothing.

The path appeared unblocked and empty.