The Story Hunter by Lindsay A. Franklin

Author:Lindsay A. Franklin [Franklin, Lindsay A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, YA
ISBN: 9781621841234
Publisher: Enclave Escape
Published: 2020-05-19T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

TANWEN

I was none too pleased to leave the hulking mountainbeast carcass as we squeezed our way back through the passageway and onto the main path.

Or what seemed to be the main path. We had only Dray to guide us, and I still wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t lead us right off the edge of a cliff.

“Does it hurt?” I asked Mor for the fortieth time as we followed Dray and Father, who seemed to be bickering about something. Again.

Father had lit one of the lanterns to give us storytellers a break from making light strands, and I’d spent all of my free energy fussing over Mor.

“Aye, it hurts,” he acknowledged with a half smile.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“It’s all my fault,” I said, also for the fortieth time.

“Not unless you planted the mountainbeast in the cavern.”

“I should have moved faster.”

“I’m not having this conversation again.”

“Or not shot rainbows into its eyes.”

“I agree with you there.”

“What was that, anyway? Of all things!”

“Maybe you were thinking about the Corsyth.”

I looked at him. “Aye. Because that’s what I think about when anything beastly and hairy is moving toward me—kissing you.”

Diggy pushed past us, her nose wrinkled. “Akē. Everyone can hear you, you know.”

My cheeks warmed, but I found myself not caring. Mor’s stitches were a solemn reminder of how close the mountainbeast’s claws had come to the veins in his neck.

A shudder skittered down my spine. Had I truly almost lost him? An inch to the left, a little deeper, a little more force and Mor’s throat might have been slit.

My fingers found his palm in the semidarkness.

No glove. He must have left them off after the mountainbeast attack.

I took his hand anyway.

A beam of light shot from our connection and vaulted straight toward the ceiling. It found solid rock and pinged back toward us before hitting the ground with a pop.

But I held tight. Because as long as I didn’t let go, it probably wouldn’t happen again. At least I didn’t think so. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what happened when Mor and I touched except that something happened each time.

“Tannie, we are going for stealth,” Warmil tossed over his shoulder from up ahead. “You could try to keep things under control.”

I looked up at Mor. “As if we had any idea how.”

Mor’s face seemed to redden in the dim light as he returned his concentration to the path in front of us. But he didn’t let go of my hand.

Don’t think I didn’t notice.

A few long, silent moments passed as we worked our way through the caves.

I sighed. “If I never see the color slate gray again, it’ll be too soon. Do you think this is what it’s like to be a root-snacker, tunneling through the earth, the ground the same as the ceiling and same as the walls?”

Mor chuckled. “Couldn’t tell you.”

“What a boring life.”

“But there are all those roots to snack on, and that’s something.”

Snacks. I grimaced. “Why did you have to mention food?” My stomach rumbled on cue.

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