Ever by Gail Carson Levine

Author:Gail Carson Levine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

42

KEZI

SOMETIMES I HAVE TO crouch to continue down the stairs. Sometimes the tunnel ceiling is so high that I can’t see it, not even when I raise my branch, which glows steadily. The air is cool and wet and sad. I feel I am breathing in and out sadness.

The steps are uneven. I slide my palm along the wall for balance. Keeping from falling takes most of my concentration, which may be why this realization is so slow to come: I don’t know how long I’ve been in the tunnel. Down here there is no difference between day and night. I won’t be able to count the days until my sacrifice.

But I must! I stop. My time is so precious. I have to know how much is left.

Even if I lose my chance at immortality?

Maybe. I can’t think in this gloom. Carefully, I turn and try to climb back, but I can’t lift my foot. It will not obey me.

Down is possible, if not easy. Up is impossible.

I begin to count the steps as a way of keeping time. Slow and cautious as each one is, five steps may fill a minute. Ten steps. Twenty-five. One hundred. Six hundred. Two hours, more or less.

One thousand steps. My legs ache. I’m hungry and thirsty again. The stairs never end. I sink down to rest but drag myself to my feet immediately. While I’m idle, there is no way to mark the time. I try to picture the blue sky, Olus’s face, my home in Hyte. But the images belong to the upper air.

Two thousand steps. Above, night must have fallen. My twenty-fifth day is over. Admat, or any god who is listening, let me reach Wadir. Let me find Admat. Let me return to light and Olus.

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