Wind roared past Clara’s ears, a freezing vortex that tore the breath from her lungs. Down, down, down she plunged into the absolute void. Gravity felt like a physical hand dragging her straight into the maw of the earth. "Jaxon!" she tried to scream, but the word was ripped from her lips before she could even hear it. Air rushed upward, freezing her tears against her cheeks as she tumbled heels over head. This was it. This was the moment her legendary bad luck finally finished her off. She had survived falling down wells, slipping off cliffs, and tumbling into frozen ravines, but this bottomless pit felt different. Darkness rushed to meet her. Suddenly, her descent stopped with a muffled, heavy thunk. Dust exploded around her, thick and smelling of centuries-old mold. Clara blinked, coughing violently as she inhaled a mouthful of ancient decay. She braced for the blinding spike of pain that usually accompanied her worst falls, but it never came. Beneath her hands, the surface felt thick, coarse, and strangely plush. She squeezed her fingers together, feeling heavy fibers. Furs. Massive, thickly piled mounds of ancient animal pelts lay heaped beneath her, cushioning what should have been a bone-shattering impact. "Unbelievable," she whispered, her voice cracking in the quiet. Somehow, her terrible luck had landed her on a pile of forgotten, preserved bedding. She sat up slowly, testing her limbs one by one. Her ankles wiggled. Her knees bent. Even her shoulder, which had taken the brunt of the slide, only throbbed with a dull ache. Everything worked. Except, of course, for her left boot, which was missing its heel and felt completely lopsided. "Okay," she muttered, forcing a bright, trembling smile onto her face despite the pitch-black environment. "Okay, Clara. You're fine. Just a little detour. Quite a comfortable one, actually. Much better than solid stone." Darkness pressed against her eyes, thick and absolute. She waved her hand inches from her nose, but she couldn't even see the outline of her fingers. She reached into her small belt pouch, hoping against hope. Her fingertips brushed against empty canvas. Her matches were gone. They must have slipped out during her wild tumble down the hatch. "Perfect," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "No light. No map. And a broken boot. Just a typical Tuesday, really." She forced herself to take deep, slow breaths to keep her racing heart from leaping out of her chest. Silence pressed against her ears like a heavy weight. It was a dense, suffocating silence that made the tiny sounds of her own breathing feel far too loud. She reached out, sweeping her arms through the empty air. Her fingers met nothing but cold, empty space. Where was she? "Jaxon?" she called out, keeping her voice as cheerful and light as she could manage. "Are you up there? I found some very nice blankets! Well, they're actually giant dead animals, but they're very soft!" No answer came. Not even an echo. Her heart began to hammer against her ribs, a frantic rhythm that vibrated in her throat. She swallowed hard, trying to push down the rising tide of panic. Losing her cool wouldn't help. Jaxon was probably trying to figure out how to get down to her. Or, more likely, he was trying to figure out how to fix his paralyzed arms so he could continue his perfect, calculated mission without her. "He's coming," she told the darkness, her smile stretching so tight her cheeks ached. "He just needs a minute. He's very smart. Extremely smart. He'll have a plan." Cold air drifted across her neck, smelling of frost and old stone. She shivered, wrapping her arms tightly around her chest. Thin fabric of her tunic offered little protection against the deep, unnatural chill of the lower levels. Holding her breath, she listened for any sign of life from above. Nothing. Just the slow, steady drip of melting ice somewhere in the far distance. "You always did make too much noise," a voice whispered. Clara froze. Every muscle in her body locked up. The voice hadn't come from the dark room around her. It had echoed directly inside her own skull, sharp and biting. It was a woman's voice. Crisp. Disappointed. "Mother?" Clara breathed, her fingers clutching the ancient furs beneath her so hard her nails dug into the leather. "Look at you," the voice sighed, carrying the exact, icy disappointment that had haunted Clara's childhood dreams. "Still falling. Still breaking things. Still waiting for someone else to clean up your mess." "No," Clara whispered, shaking her head frantically. "No, I'm... I'm trying to help. I was trying to open the door." "You broke your shoe," the voice mocked, dripping with cold amusement. "You fell like a sack of stones. You left him up there with useless arms because you couldn't even stand still in a cage." Tears pricked the corners of Clara's eyes. She squeezed them shut, refusing to let them fall. She couldn't let herself cry. Crying meant she was weak, and weak people got left behind. Memory of that horrible winter night in Sannahed flooded her mind. She had been only eight years old, trying so hard to carry the hot kettle of tea to her mother. Her foot had caught on a loose floorboard. The boiling water had splashed, her brother had screamed, and the look of cold hatred in her mother's eyes had sealed her fate. "I didn't mean to," she whimpered, her voice echoing weakly in the dark chamber. "Intentions do not mend broken bones, Clara," the voice snapped, shifting slightly, sounding heavier, deeper, yet retaining that agonizingly familiar tone of disapproval. "How many times did we tell you? You are a curse. A clumsy, useless curse." Those words had been carved into her soul long before she ever reached Frostvile. She had spent her entire life trying to run away from them, trying to paint over them with bright smiles and endless, exhausting helpfulness. "Stop it," she gasped, pressing her palms against her ears. "Stop it, please. I'm different now. I'm trying to be better. I can help him." "He has already left you," that whisper continued, drifting through the dark corners of her mind. "The boy with the cold eyes. Why would he come down here for a liability? He is probably walking away right now, glad to be rid of the dead weight." "Jaxon wouldn't do that," Clara said, though her own voice sounded small and unconvincing even to herself. Jaxon was logical. He was precise. What logical person would drag a girl who couldn't even walk straight through a lethal labyrinth? He had only tolerated her because she kept accidentally opening paths. Now that she was gone, he could move faster. He could calculate his spells without her chaotic presence throwing off his focus. "He is a mage of calculation," the voice pointed out, its tone smooth as polished ice. "You do not fit his equations. You are a variable of pure disaster. He is smart enough to cut his losses." A heavy sob threatened to tear from her throat. Clara forced it down, biting her lip until she tasted copper. She couldn't believe it. She couldn't let herself believe it. If Jaxon had abandoned her, then she really was everything they said she was. A burden. A useless, clumsy girl who brought nothing but ruin to everyone she touched. "No," she said, her voice growing stronger as she forced herself to stand up. Her unbalanced boots made her wobble instantly. She stumbled, her foot catching on a thick fold of the ancient furs, and she pitched forward onto the cold stone floor. Pain shot through her knees as they slammed into the solid rock. "See?" the voice laughed, a cruel, echoing sound that seemed to vibrate from the very walls of the chamber. "Even standing is too difficult for you." "I can do this," Clara muttered, dragging herself up. Using the wall for support, she felt the rough, frost-coated stone. Her fingers were numb, but she forced them to search for any crack, any ledge, any hint of a hidden mechanism. The chill was creeping up her arms, stiffening her joints. "I will find a way up," she declared to the empty darkness. "I'll find a way back to him. I'll prove I can be useful. I'm not a burden." "You are a fool," the voice hissed, losing some of its motherly quality, replaced by a deep, grinding resonance that made the floorboards beneath her hum. "You will die down here, forgotten in the dark, just as you deserve." "I don't deserve this," Clara whispered, her cheerful mask cracking, but she forced her lips back into a trembling grin. "And I'm very good at surviving falls. I've had a lot of practice." She took a cautious step forward, sliding her hands along the freezing wall. Each breath she took emerged as a thick, white cloud, invisible in the darkness but cold enough to sting her throat. The temperature was dropping rapidly. Beneath her palm, the stone wall felt strangely patterned. She traced the carvings. They weren't runes like the ones Jaxon studied. They felt like jagged, chaotic gashes, as if something massive had clawed its way through the rock. "Keep moving," she encouraged herself aloud. "Just keep moving. A staircase has to be somewhere. Or a ladder. Or a very convenient pile of rocks to climb." Her broken heel made her walk with a strange, rhythmic limp. *Clack. Thud. Clack. Thud.* The sound echoed through the vast, empty space, sounding incredibly loud. Suddenly, the whispering voice in her head fell dead silent. This absence of the voice was almost worse than its mockery. The silence felt heavy, pregnant with a new, physical danger. Clara stopped walking. She held her breath, tilting her head to listen. Distant sounds of dripping water had stopped. Instead, a new sound filtered through the dark. It was faint, barely audible over the rushing of her own blood in her ears. Slow, rhythmic scraping noises filled the space. Like claws dragging across ancient stone. "Jaxon?" she called out, her voice barely a squeak. "Is that... is that you? Did you find a stairs?" No human voice replied. That scraping sound stopped. A sudden gust of wind, smelling of ancient frost and old blood, washed over her face. It was warm. Too warm. It felt like a breath. Clara's heart stopped. She stood frozen, her hand still pressed against the freezing, clawed wall. Right in front of her, the absolute darkness began to shift. A pair of glowing, icy blue eyes open in the darkness right in front of Clara's face, accompanied by a low, guttural growl.

Chapter 9: Voices in the Dark