I frown, my chest heaving even though I don’t need the extra supply of air. “What’s this?” I ask, cocking my head to study the strange entrance. It’s almost like a horizontal slit into the raised ground, but it’s the only exit amid the sharp edges of the hills above.
“The way out,” Zaki says, motioning for it. “Not pretty, I know. The barrier into the Abyss is more impressive. I’ve heard you have to do some maintenance in portals. This one looks a bit abandoned, with good reason.”
I nod, then shoot glances over my shoulders. “No one followed us.”
“No.” Zaki starts to the cave and kneels, offering a hand. “We have a minor advantage. Let’s use it.”
I nod, then grip his fingers to crawl into that hole. The entrance is unlike anything I expected, almost as if this was once a regular cave that collapsed. I have a hard time entering it on my knees. Zaki has to squeeze in. We crawl farther in, complete darkness settling around me. I feel my way ahead with my hands, and the progression is slow, since I want to be sure I’m not stepping into a hole or anything.
Silence presses into my ears. The one sound that exists in this place is the scraping of our hands and knees on the rough ground. Zaki touches me in the arm.
“The ceiling is higher here,” he says. “We can get up.”
I miss being able to see in the dark.
Bracing on my knees, I push off the ground to stand tall. Zaki’s hand lands on my head just as I bump into the ceiling.
“Sorry,” he whispers. “Not as high as I expected.” And his hand falls off my hair.
The fact he protected me makes me all mushy. I have to shake myself back to reality. To the reality that I’m almost back home. The thought shoots adrenaline into my veins, and I feel like running ahead. A smile teases my lips. I can’t wait to see them. To see my mates.
Zaki’s fingers intertwine with mine again. He leads us on through the darkness, and I try to imagine him as we trek. He must be all hunched up to avoid his horns from scraping against the ceiling. The image of it makes me hold back a laugh.
Will my mates like him when they meet? Is Zaki even going to join us? Or will he leave me the moment we cross into the Light Realm? He said he wanted the freedom to see the world, but I still have so much to deal with. Kayn is out there, and maybe Zaki doesn’t want to get mixed up with us. Not yet, at least. I press my lips together, wondering what’s going to happen when I cross. I hope we get out in America. Gods, if I get out in Australia and have to fly back... I’ll be screwed. No money, no ID, they’ll probably arrest me.
I grind my teeth together. We’ll face that problem when we have to.
Zaki leads me into a left turn and the ground angles up. The air here feels heavy, sticky to the skin. It also crackles strangely. There’s magic in this place, even if weak. We walk in silence, my heartbeat the only thing I hear. The cold of the Abyss peels away. It gets warmer with every step we take. For a while, even though I keep my eyes open, there’s nothing to see. Then it begins.
Ahead, a soft blue light. I squeeze Zaki’s fingers, and I almost want to run head-on into the light. Are we there yet? Have we arrived? Are we home? Zaki and I take another turn, and a tall corridor opens up ahead of us. I freeze to the spot, my jaw dropping.
The sight ahead of me is beauty like I haven’t seen in a while, if ever. We’re still in the cave, the walls rocky and covered in ragged pieces. But the ceiling is tall like a cathedral and dotted with bright blue stars everywhere I look. They’re in the walls, some are on the ground, emitting this glow that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
“I’ve heard about this,” Zaki whispers next to me. He can stand to his full height, his horns nowhere near the ceiling now. “Bioluminescence, right? A fungus that produces light.”
“You know better than me,” I whisper back, and we pick up our pace again. “It’s beautiful. Ethereal, even.”
“It is beautiful,” he agrees, his voice a caress, and when I turn, he’s looking at me. My heart tries a somersault. Zaki keeps holding my hand even when I don’t need it anymore. I don’t let his go, either. There’s a warmth to his presence, a comfort I had no idea a demon could give.
The cave goes on for another ten minutes. I expect the fungi and the ethereal glow to disappear once we get close to the exit, but they remain there. I see the exit, another slit in the rock, but the light outside is not the yellow sunlight I expected. Without a word, we squeeze into the slit, then stumble out into the evening.
The breeze that caresses my cheeks is warm, gentle. Nothing near the cold of the Abyss. I take a deep breath, my heart skittering in my chest. It’s the way the air smells here, and how it tastes on my tongue, that makes me sure things have changed. I feel gravity differently, and I bring my arm up, testing the weight of my limbs. Realization hits me, and my breaths grow shallow.
“I have a body,” I whisper, looking down at myself. Still in the skimpy dress, my thighs exposed, but my arms are perfect and smooth and... “I have hands!” And I whirl around to grin at Zaki.
He grins back at me. He’s still the same—horns and tail and everything, but his tattoos are just tattoos now. I raise my hand to run my fingers down the black ink. They look normal here, without that shimmering effect they had in the Abyss.
“Mm,” he voices, cocking his head. “Disappointing,” he says to the tattoos, but there’s a smile playing across his lips when he looks at me. “We made it.”
I grin at him, and I let the urge to kiss him overcome me. He must think the same because the moment I step closer to him, Zaki folds an arm around my waist and kisses me hard. It’s a quick kiss, but it leaves my knees feeling like jelly either way. I pull back, then shoot out a hand and call for the shadows.
With an immense wave of relief, I feel them reaching out for me. The shadows snake up my legs, into my fingers, welcoming me back. The feeling of them makes me want to weep.
“That’s so fucking cool, little moth,” Zaki says, awe in his eyes. He juts his head to the path ahead. “Let’s find civilization while you try out your powers,” he says, gripping my fingers and starting down the beaten path. We’re still fenced in by tall mountains, and they almost blot out the sky here. All I see is a stripe of dark blue, no stars in sight.
Zaki and I walk out of the range of mountains, which takes less time than expected. Our path ends at the top of a ravine, opening ahead of us. I look out, my gaze combing the horizon as I try to pinpoint our location. My stomach churns. There’s something wrong.
“Shit,” Zaki murmurs, his eyes going wide. “This place is beautiful.”