Kellen let his head fall back against the stone slab, defeated. They’d tried everything to trigger the mechanism that might move the stone and allow them to return to the outer passage where Obishi waited. Nothing had worked. Not pounding on the slab, not blasting it with raw sun mana, not throwing balls of mana into the pit or across the divide, nothing.

Unlike the last rock, this one had no paintings or hole through it. They’d screamed and screamed, then listened for Obishi. He never responded. Kellen hoped it was because he couldn’t hear them and not that the tunnel had collapsed or he’d passed out from his injuries.

“Stupid. Rocks. Mother. Cursed. Earth. Badger. Traps!” Shani kicked the rock, spitting venom as she did. Some words, even Kellen’s translation powers failed to comprehend. By the way Shani wielded them, he assumed they were swear words that defied translation. The meaning still came across.

Vex had flown over the chasm to the other side, of course. In his bat form, the little fox explored the area and found nothing but a square, two-foot block set into the stone. Before he’d tried to press it down, Vex flew down the shaft of the chasm. It had taken him an hour to make the journey to the bottom and back. He reported nothing but a few scattering bones and some fragments that might have been a human skull before it landed. The shaft was rectangular, with perfectly carved sides all the way to the bottom. Shani was right. It was a trap.

Jumping the gap was out of question. The space was too wide and their ledge provided no room for a running start, even if it was possible. Vex didn’t have the strength to carry either of them. When they’d exhausted all other options and Kellen asked him to sit on the square rock button, his weight hadn’t been enough to press it down, or even make the plate budge.

Only one other feature provided a tantalizing clue about how one might make an escape. On the far side of the cave, on the opposite wall as the square block, a spur of stone rose from the ground. Vex inspected it and found it wasn’t a lever. It appeared to be a handle of stone raised from the ground with Earth Mana to form like a sort of skinny stalagmite. No amount of mana blasts did anything to it. In fact, Kellen and Vex’s attacks didn’t so much as chip the rock.

If the stalagmite wasn’t curious enough, Vex also reported that it had a hole carved through the top of it, sort of like the eye of a needle. Kellen’s guess was that it had formed a bridge at one point. If that were the case, there should have been other, similar rock formations on their side of the chasm. There weren’t. So what was it used for?

Kellen lost track of how much time passed. At some point, Shani stopped kicking the rock wall behind them. Vex stopped biting, pulling and pushing the skinny stalagmite. Kellen’s mind contemplated the possibility they would die in the cave.

“Maybe Ira got away?” Kellen suggested to no one in particular. “If he comes back and finds the cave then —”

“Then that will be well and good for Obishi,” Shani said. “But Ira didn’t get away. I saw him turn to mana.”

Kellen’s head turned toward her for an explanation. Shani raised her hands and made a motion like exploding fireworks with her fingers. “He used too much mana. Did my grandmother not teach you this? When this happens, a bonded Mana Beast must be reborn from the mana they are made of. He will be ward-strength.”

“But at least they will know where we are?” Kellen suggested.

“Yes,” Shani said, irritation spiking in her tone. “They will know that somewhere on the other side of the rock, our bones are turning to dust.”

“You don’t have to be snarky with me,” Kellen snapped. “I’m just trying to think of a way out.”

Silence fell between them. Shani looked surprised at the outburst of anger. Kellen himself was surprised. He supposed it was bound to happen after the month he’d had, capped off by their current predicament. He expected Shani to snap back, but she said nothing.

The reality of their situation struck him. Death by slow dehydration with a splash of starvation would suck, yes. That paled compared to the gut-twisting realization that he’d failed his little sister. Their parents would never know what happened. Who knew what a life of slavery held for Allison?

Burdened by Kellen’s flagging hope, Vex curled up in Kellen’s lap. Whether he meant to or not, the fox’s warm, fluffy presence was soothing, even if it did nothing for their predicament in the big picture.

Their only light came from conjured mana channeled by Kellen or Vex. After slinging mana about willy-nilly in the hopes they could trigger an escape, both were drained. Without asking Shani, Kellen let the light fade. Complete, total darkness engulfed them.

In the pitch black, telling the passing of time was impossible. Kellen tipped his head back against the rock and slowly stroked Vex’s fur. Silent tears trailed down both cheeks, more from frustration than sadness. Even without bonding with a magical creature, he’d done things he never thought he could be capable of. They’d survived giant bears, a miles-wide stampede and giant storms, traveling hundreds of miles, all to be stuck in a tunnel. Why had he asked Vex to pour mana through that opening in the rock? At least on the other side, they could have waited and probably been rescued by Nokom and the rest of Gray Dawn. Kellen held little hope that Nokom would be able to move the boulder that had fallen in place. Everything about the chamber they were stuck in now suggested they’d fallen into a trap.

“Your shields,” Shani’s voice came out of the darkness and Kellen started. He’d been so wrapped up in his own mind that he’d forgotten she was there. It wasn’t hard to do in the empty void.

Kellen channeled a tiny finger-length of golden mana. It flickered between him and Shani like a candle in the wind.

“What about them?” he asked.

“You could use them to help us cross the hole. Like stepping stones.”

The possibilities sprang to Kellen’s mind. For about two seconds.

“It won’t work. You’ll get one step out from edge and then you’ll far to your death.”

“So?” Shani gestured around them. “We are going to die, anyway. Would you rather sit here and starve to death? I’m not asking you to be the one who tries to walk on them.”

“It’s a shield, not a floating sidewalk. The shield forms around me and those close by. I can’t move it wherever I want.”

“This is true,” Vex said.

“Why not?” Shani demanded.

“Because it just doesn’t work that way — I don’t know the rules!” Kellen felt a surge of annoyance. Shani had spent the better part of a month looking at him like he was a pile of horse manure. Now she expected him to be some mighty beastcaller who could bend mana to his will to accomplish whatever he wished.

“It would be like asking a turtle just to pop off its shell so you could use it to walk across a stream without getting wet,” Vex said. “Except in this case, instead of getting wet, you’d plummet thousands of feet and splatter on the floor.”

“At least I am willing to try,” Shani said. Rather than the usual self-blame a statement like that usually triggered in Kellen, this time his annoyance flamed to anger.

“That’s easy to say for you,” he said. “You’ve been looking for ways to get yourself killed for as long as I’ve known you.”

Shani’s head whipped toward him. Kellen was so startled he nearly lost control of the tiny strip of sun mana. Based on her wild eyes and set jaw, it looked like Shani wanted to kill him.

“Did I use ‘feet’ right in that example?” Vex asked. He was looking at Kellen and hadn’t noticed the change come over Shani. “It felt right in your head but sometimes when I say these things out loud, they make no sense.”

Shani wasn’t distracted. She stared holes in Kellen. “I told you before, you know nothing about me.” She slumped against the rock. Kellen sighed and squished the channeled mana in his hand. Back to darkness then. The silence lasted less than five minutes before Vex spoke.

“Look, humans, if we’re going to die here, we can at least choose not to die of boredom.” Kellen felt Vex hop out of his lap and suddenly, flecks of golden light rose like glowing dust motes in the air around the little fox. It was the same thing he’d done to entertain the Earth Badger children. Whenever the specks of light rose to hide and winked out, more floated up from Vex like magic dandruff.

“And since we’re all going to die here anyway, there’s nothing Kellen can do if I kick off the conversation because he doesn’t want to. And what we have here is a failure to communicate.”

“Vex, no, I don’t —” Kellen reached for the fox, but Vex bounded out of his grasp. In a single bounce, he shot in the air over the chasm, out of reach.

“We’ll go first,” Vex said, still glowing with lighted dust. “Why did you swear a death oath to kill Ubira?”

Kellen raised his hands, almost like his body was preparing to fend off an anticipated attack from Shani of its own accord. “We don’t want to know that. You don’t have to answer that.” He expected Shani to be furious. Instead, she seemed… empty.

“Ubira killed my husband.”

From those four words, everything fell into place. Even Vex just stared, at a loss for the first time since they’d met.

Kellen didn’t know what to say. Everything that came to mind felt wrong. He opened his mouth to speak several times.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. The words felt hollow, worthless. He looked at Shani, who stared into the abyss in front of them, eyes unfocused, lost. Whatever pain she held seemed to be a dead, frozen thing.

“If I was a beastcaller, my mana could have saved him,” Shani’s stare continued, and she nodded as if agreeing with herself. “I could have protected him.”

“Maybe,” Kellen admitted. “For me, it’s just been another thing to screw up. You’re not a beastcaller, you can’t blame yourself for that. But I am and I still got us stuck here.”

“That’s not true,” Vex said, breaking his silence.

“Really?” Kellen held up his hands, listing the examples. “All along, it’s been you who saved us, or Nokom and Ira. I’m lucky I didn’t die a dozen times over.”

“Oh yeah?” Vex flew in close so his tiny nose almost brushed Kellen’s and his big eyes filled Kellen’s sight. “What about the stampede? All three of us would have died without your shield.”

“But it wasn’t my shield!” Kellen said. “You helped and without the extra mana from the storm, it would have never worked. I couldn’t do it again. I can’t do anything right now to help us, so what good is any of this power?”

“You should not be so hard on yourself.”

Kellen and Vex turned to Shani. Kellen stared, sure he’d heard wrong. The person who’d criticized every action he’d taken in front of her was telling him not to be so hard on himself? Shani looked their way out of the corner of her eyes.

“What are you staring at?”

“We’re just wondering why — ”

Kellen snatched Vex out of the air and clamped a hand over Vex’s mouth. “Why don’t you go sit on the other side of the cave?”

Vex scowled but did as he was told and flew across the gap to the far side of the cavern. He landed on the square plate and shouted back at them. “You know I can hear you, right? And we share some of the same thoughts?”

Kellen held up a finger and shushed the Mana Beast. Muttering, Vex changed into his fox form and turned away from them.

“I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone like that,” Kellen said. He stumbled over each one. “But I know what it feels like to let my sister down, and that’s bad enough. I should have done better. If I had, we probably wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Shani let out a growl of frustration and slapped the cave floor with her open hand. “You came with me and gave us a chance. I… I should not be so hard on you, either. To see someone just learn something I’ve wished for my whole life… it is not easy for me.”

For some reason, Shani’s admission felt like a weight off of Kellen’s chest. “I forgive you,” he said.

“What?” Shani glared at him. “I did not ask your forgiveness.”

Kellen shrugged. “So? If we’re going to die here, I don’t want to hold a grudge. It doesn’t matter if you asked for it or not. I still forgive you.”

A silence fell between them. Vex watched from across the chasm and was about to speak when something else came to Kellen’s mind.

“And another thing. You told me not to be hard on myself. That goes for you, too.”

Shani tipped her head back to rest on the rock wall. She stared at the ceiling. “That is easier to say than do. Especially when my life was saved by a foreigner who didn’t know the first thing about fighting. No offense.”

“None taken,” Kellen said, then thought about the fight with the bear and chuckled. “I thought we were going to be eaten, or you were going to stab me.”

“I was,” Shani said.

Kellen chose not to think about that. A sudden inspiration struck him.

“My sister means more to me than anything in the world,” he said. “So if you help me get her away safely, no matter what you think honor or whatever demands, the debt between us is settled.”

Shani said nothing. Kellen swallowed, trying to keep his emotions in check.

“Take the deal!” Vex yelled from across the chasm after several seconds passed.

Shani snorted and shook her head, like she couldn’t believe she was doing this. “Ubira’s death will not bring my husband back. I still want it. But before then, we will save your sister.”