The Rising Stones (Ihale Book 1)

feet, and they ran.
It would have been more reassuring, somehow, to have heavy footfalls behind them, but the construct didn't make much noise at all. There could have been one or twenty, and he wasn't sure if he would have known the difference. Heln felt Rhyss gathering magic and releasing it behind them, unformed and fast.
"Keep watch ahead!" she told Bel.
Heln nearly fell again and Rhyss passed him, snagging his wrist as she did and hauling him behind her, heedless to roots that seemed to reach out at them to pull on their ankles and snag at their clothes.
"There's light ahead!" Bel announced. Rhyss put on another burst of speed. Heln felt like she'd stabbed him in the ribs with her knife but he couldn't slow down, trying his absolute best to keep pace with her.
He somehow found more speed, somewhere deep down inside of him. There was light. It was faint and a little watery, but it wasn't the dim glow of the tunnel. He couldn't tell if there was a breeze or if it was just the air moving as he ran.
Bel stopped, silhouetted by light for a moment before Rhyss careened into her and they both fell, dragging Heln down with them.

Chapter Eight
Heln stared up at the sky.
The grass underneath him was soft and the darkness above him was littered with stars that blazed like lanterns. They were outside. They'd finally made it out.
Something was wrong, though. At first he thought maybe he had hit his head, or his glasses had fallen off, but they were still somehow miraculously on his face and while his head ached he didn't remember hitting it on anything.
The stars were wrong; their light was too steady, and there were no patterns that he recognized.
He wasn't looking at the sky, but at a ceiling, far above him. It was dark and littered with glowing filaments, possibly more moss. They hadn't fallen nearly as far as he'd thought. At most it was a few feet. Heln could see the tunnel in the wall above them, if he stood up he'd be able to reach it.
Rhyss was already on her feet, spinning an illumination bubble and sending it up into the tunnel. His heart stuttered when the light made a tree root shadow look a lot more menacing, but the tunnel itself was empty.
"Where did it go?" Her voice was only slightly higher than normal. "Why didn't it follow us?"
"This room is coated in protection scripts." Heln could feel them, like the lights on the ceiling. "Really old, really powerful ones. I don't think it can come in."
Even as he said it, he knew it was true, like the room was talking to him. Or he was overhearing magic having a very intense, whispered conversation and picking up bits and pieces of information.
"You think?" Rhyss put a hand on her hip.
"I know."
"Yeah. Okay. That's great and mildly ominous, which seems to be your… thing." Bel waved a hand to gesture to him.
Heln wasn't really surprised Bel thought that. He'd never really fit in — not at school and certainly not at home. His own mother had left him with a father that he had never even met. Tavlyn, his dad, was trying, but it was clear he didn't really understand Heln, either. Sometimes, Heln didn't even really understand himself. Most of the time he didn't mean to be even mildly ominous, it just happened.
Bel wouldn't care about any of that. "Thanks?"
"You're welcome!" Bel said, brightly, like it was a compliment. Maybe it had been, in her own weird way. "Either way maybe we should move away from the creepy tunnel full of death?" Bel suggested. "Wow. Look. Stairs. First step was kind of a doozy."
Heln had thought they were on a ledge, but Bel was right, they had fallen onto a step, a long, broad square of stone that tapered off into steps like the ones in the tunnel, long and shallow, hugging the wall and descending into a dim twilight. He could see a landing below them, and then the stairs curved back in on themselves, hugging the wall of the cave until it descended into darkness.
The cave itself stretched on so far that Heln couldn't see the end. Farther out was a bright point of light that shone down what looked like spires of stone rising from the shadows, bathing them in silver like a ghostly moon.
"Last chance to go back." Bel reminded them. It almost sounded like a question.
Rhyss didn't say anything, just started walking down. There was nothing to do but follow her.
The stairs were wide, but Heln still walked close to the wall, not trusting himself without a railing. If he fell onto the other set of stairs, he would probably die.
"I could send a light down there," Bel offered.
"Yes, and then we can talk really loudly and maybe throw off a few fireworks so we can really let whatever is down there know that we're on our way." Rhyss gave Bel the most sarcastic smile Heln had ever witnessed, which was saying something when he was related to Bel.
"At least they'd be ready for us with tea, maybe a nice cake." Bel's return smile was sweeter than the imaginary dessert.
Heln almost groaned out loud, almost. He wondered if Rhyss and Bel actually listened to themselves. He had assumed that Bel only talked so much because she was in love with her own voice, but maybe it was just the sound of it.
He had never understood why anyone would want to even bother with romance and he was suddenly grateful. The way they interacted looked and sounded absolutely exhausting.
"Or you could both stop flirting so I could concentrate on making sure we're not walking into some ancient magical bog that eats Ihalins for lunch. Or something."
"I will, but only after I protest that flirting comment, because it was out of line and you should apologize," Bel said, but she didn't sound very serious.
"I'm sorry, Bel." He