The ground suddenly sloped down, and a rough hand pushed her head forward, her chin to her chest. She bumped her head against what felt like a rocky outcropping in any case, and it stung momentarily. Then the sounds all faded to silence, and the noise of her captors’ breathing changed subtly. They must have brought her inside or underground.

One of her guards pushed her roughly to her knees. A moment later, he removed the hood, and Isana blinked her eyes against the sudden invasion of soft green light.

They were in a cavern, a large one, its walls too smooth to have been formed by nature. The walls, the floor, and a pair of supporting pillars were all covered in the croach. The waxy green substance pulsed and flowed with unsettling light. Liquids flowed beneath its surface.

Isana craned her neck, trying to find Araris, her heart suddenly hammering against her ribs.

A second pair of guards dragged him into Isana’s line of view. They jerked the hood from his head and dropped him in a heap to the cavern floor. Isana could see that he’d suffered a number of abrasions and contusions, and she felt a physical burst of pain in her heart to see the bruises, the blood—but he had sustained no obvious critical trauma. He was breathing, but that was no guarantee of his safety. He could be bleeding to death internally even as she stared at him.

She never made a conscious decision, but she found herself suddenly straining against her captors, trying to go to Araris. They pushed her brutally to the floor. Her cheekbone dimpled the croach.

It was humiliating, how casually, how easily they had taken away her choice. She felt a blaze of anger, suffered a sudden urge to respond in earnest through Rill. She fought the impulse down. She was in no position to resist their strength. Until she had a better chance—until she and Araris had a better chance—to succeed in escaping, it would be wisest not to resist. “Please!” she said. “Please, let me see to him!”

Footsteps, softened by the croach, approached her. Isana lifted her eyes enough to see a young woman’s bare feet. Her skin was pale, almost luminous. Her toenails were short, and the glossy green-black of vord chitin.

“Let her up,” the Queen murmured.

The men holding Isana down withdrew at once.

Isana didn’t want to look farther up—but it seemed somehow childish not to, as if she was too frightened to lift her face from her pillow. So she pushed herself from the floor until she was kneeling, sitting back on her heels, composed her wind-raveled dress along with her own equally frayed nerves, and lifted her gaze.