Chapter 231: The One Who Went Below

Miros kept his lamp low.

The women and children had stopped behind him, gathered in the wider section of the passage. Antiphus stayed with them, speaking quietly whenever a child began to cry. Daidalos stood a few steps away, one hand resting on the cart they had managed to bring through the narrow passage.

Miros looked at the dust beside the stone door.

The footprint was clear.

It pointed deeper into the passage.

He crouched and touched its edge without disturbing it. The dust had settled around it, but not inside it. Whoever had made the mark had passed recently.

Daidalos came closer.

"How old?"

"Not long."

"Could be one of ours."

Miros shook his head.

"We all came through the other side."

Daidalos looked back at the group.

"Should I take them back?"

"No."

The word came too quickly.

Miros glanced at the women. Some were holding their children against them. Others stood with their hands clasped over their mouths, listening to the darkness.

If he turned them around now, fear would spread through the entire group. The passage was too narrow for panic. A single scream could become a stampede.

"Keep them here," he said. "Put out one lamp."

Daidalos understood.

The nearest flame disappeared, leaving only the lamp in Miros’s hand and the faint glow behind him.

Miros moved forward.

He did not draw his sword. A blade would make noise against the stone if he had to turn quickly. Instead, he held the lamp in one hand and kept the other near the knife at his belt.

The footprints continued around the bend.

There were no bloodstains.

No broken pieces of equipment.

No sign of a struggle.

Whoever had passed through had been alone.

A weak light appeared ahead.

Miros stopped.

The flame moved once, then steadied.

"Who is there?" he called.

The passage gave his voice back in fragments.

There was no answer.

Miros took another step.

A figure stood beside the wall.

Cassandra.

Dust covered the edge of her cloak. Her hair had come loose, and the small lamp in her hand was nearly empty. She looked tired, but there was no blood on her clothes and no sign that she had been attacked.

Miros stopped in front of her.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then he lowered his lamp.

"You could have told us where you were going."

"I told Lysander."

"You told him you were going below."

"That was enough."

"It was not."

"If I had told him where I would be, he would have followed."

Miros looked past her into the darkness.

"How long have you been here?"

Cassandra glanced at her lamp.

"Long enough."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only one I have."

Miros wanted to be angry. He had imagined finding her injured, trapped, or surrounded by something that had no name. Instead, she stood before him as if she had simply been waiting for the road to finish speaking.

Behind him, someone shifted.

Cassandra looked beyond his shoulder.

"Who are they?"

"The first group."

"Of what?"

"Women and children. The wounded."

Her eyes returned to his face.

"Lysander sent them?"

"He made the decision."

"And Dexion?"

"Still in Troy."

"With Lysander?"

"Yes."

Cassandra lowered her gaze.

For a moment, the only sound was the small movement of oil inside her lamp.

Miros studied her.

"You knew something was going to happen above."

Cassandra did not answer.

"You wrote that you saw pain waiting for us."

Her fingers tightened around the lamp.

"I saw something waiting above us."

"Hecuba?"

The name remained between them.

Cassandra closed her eyes.

She did not look surprised. She did not look relieved. Her face simply became still.

"I saw a door open," she said. "I did not see who would be left outside it."

Miros understood enough.

He looked away.

"Hecuba is dead."

Cassandra’s lamp trembled once.

Only once.

"I know."

"You knew?"

"I knew the shape of the pain."

"That is not the same thing."

"No."

Miros wanted to ask what else she had seen. He wanted to force the answer from her while she was standing in front of him.

But the women and children were waiting behind him, and the passage was not a place for questions that had no immediate use.

Cassandra looked toward the group again.

"You cannot stop here."

"Why?"

Her eyes moved to the darkness ahead.

"Something passes through this section."

"What?"

"I do not know."

"That is not helpful."

"It was not meant to be."

Miros turned back toward the footprints.

They ended several steps from where Cassandra stood.

"You made these?"

"Yes."

"Why did you leave the group?"

"I did not know there would be a group."

"You knew Miros was coming."

"I saw him climbing toward Lysander."

"That does not answer me."

Cassandra looked at him.

"It was not a complete vision."

Miros said nothing.

She continued, "I saw you. I saw Dexion with you. I saw the road between us and the surface. The rest was covered."

"Covered by what?"

Cassandra’s expression changed slightly.

"By the part I did not want to see."

Behind them, a child began to cry.

Antiphus said something softly, but the crying continued.

Cassandra turned toward the sound.

"They should keep moving."

Miros watched her.

"You are coming with us?"

"I am already here."

"That is not what I asked."

"No," Cassandra said. "It is what you need to know."

Miros almost smiled, but there was no humour in him.

"You speak like this when you do not want to answer."

"I speak like this when the answer is still moving."

He looked toward the group.

Then he stepped aside.

Cassandra joined them without another word.

Antiphus watched her approach but did not ask questions. He only moved to make room beside the women.

Miros raised his lamp.

"Stay close. No one moves ahead of me."

The group began walking.

Cassandra remained near the rear, where she could see both the people and the passage behind them. Daidalos pushed the cart forward, its wooden wheel making a soft scraping sound against the stone.

They had gone only a short distance when Cassandra stopped.

Miros noticed immediately.

"What is it?"

She did not answer.

The flame of her lamp leaned toward the darkness ahead, though there was no wind.

Miros lifted his own lamp.

Far down the passage, another light appeared.

It was small.

Distant.

Not theirs.

The women saw it a moment later. A murmur moved through the group.

Miros reached for his sword.

Cassandra’s voice came quietly beside him.

"What did you see?"

He looked at her.

She was staring at the light.

"Not what I saw," she said.

The distant flame moved once.

Closer.

Cassandra tightened her grip around the lamp.

"What I was trying not to see."

The light disappeared.

Then something struck the stone in the darkness.

Once.

Twice.

A third time.

No one in Miros’s group moved.