The Ashmen were getting closer and would soon be entangled in the vines with them. The last thing Tristan wanted to do was fight off rogue plants and dead minions at the same time.
Faster and faster he sliced, blue-tipped thorns cutting into his skin as the vines slithered against him and Scarlet. She slashed at the tendrils lashing out from the walls while Tristan focus on the vines at their feet. The group was slowly separated by rivers of snaking green and forced in different directions.
The first few Ashmen entered the vines.
Like the tentacle of a green monster, a dark vine wrapped around Scarlet’s torso and yanked her toward the wall of Bluestone spikes. Tristan swung his blade through the monster, freeing her just as her body reached the spikes.
They hacked their way through the green current, Ashmen gaining on them by the second.
What were the Ashmen after? Raven had the map. What more did she want?
Tristan could no longer see Gabriel, Nate or Heather as the vines knit together more densely, as if sewing them inside. Which would just be perfect.
He and Scarlet reached the end of green web and were soon free from the thorny vines and standing in another glowing blue cave. Alone.
“Hello?” Scarlet called.
“Scarlet?” came Heather’s voice from somewhere on the other side of the cave wall. “Are you out of the vines?”
“Yeah. Where are you guys?”
“We’re out, too. There must have been more than one tunnel on the other side,” Nate called.
“What should we do?”
Gabriel said, “We have to move forward separately. The Ashmen will reach the edge of the vines any minute.”
“According to the map,” Nate said, “the cave you two are in will lead down a few miles and intersect with our cave at a fork in the tunnels. So when you come to a fork, stop. Got it?”
“Got it.”
The dense vines suddenly tightened, sliding against one another until they were a solid mass. They stopped moving, forming a solid barrier between the tunnels. Like a thick, green door.
“Well.” Scarlet sighed. “At least the Ashmen won’t be getting out of that anytime soon. If ever.” She made a face at the scratch marks on her arms. “Agh. These sting.”
Tristan looked down at his own cuts. “Yeah, but at least they’re shallow.”
“Well.” She exhaled and held up her knife.“Ready for more cave fun?”
He cocked his head. “Have I mentioned how badass you look with a dagger in your hand?”
She smirked. “Not for a few hundred years.”
“Well, I like seeing you with weapons.” He smiled as they started down the tunnel. “Even if those weapons are mine and in the trunk of your car because you’re stealing them from me.”
“Borrowing,” she corrected. “I had every intention of returning them to you and, if you think about it, I sort of did. Since, you know, all the bloodstained weapons in the shack are yours.” She grinned.
This felt good. Walking next to her without either of them being afraid, conversing like time hadn’t bruised them both.
This was living; here in the dark caves where they were mortal and time was precious; here, life had meaning.
“Yes,” he said. “It was very thoughtful of you to leave all my weapons hidden in a cellar six states away from me.”
“Well now they’re right next door.” She paused. “Why are they right next door? How is it that you happened to build your cabin on the same piece of land as mine?”
He shrugged. “I felt you there. After you left New York, I followed you—
“Of course.”
“And I could feel that you were somewhere in the forest by the cabin, but since you told me not to find you I didn’t. The next day, I felt you start to die…” He cleared his throat. “I couldn’t get to you fast enough. And after you were gone, I just…didn’t want to leave. The Avalon forest was important to you for some reason, so I made it important to me.”
She tilted her head. “I woke up in the Avalon forest last time. Right next to your cabin, actually.”
“I know,” he said. “I was there.”
She stopped walking. “You were?”
He nodded. “You couldn’t see me, but I was there the whole time. I wanted to make sure you were safe, even though I didn’t want you to remember me.”
“Which was lame of you. Amnesia really sucks.”
“Well after we get to the fountain, you’ll never have amnesia again.” He smiled.
No amnesia. No curse. Just life.
Her eyes looked pained for a moment and she nodded. “Right.”
A thread of unease slid through him.
“What the…?” Scarlet squinted up ahead as the sound of rushing water met their ears.
Their tunnel ended at an underground river. Its lightning-fast current swept through and around a sucking whirlpool, before dropping into a waterfall that cascaded into miles of darkness.
And the only way to get to the continuing tunnel on the other side was to cross the dangerous rapids.
“It seems to me,” Tristan said, “that the Fountain of Youth doesn’t want to be found.”
“You think?” Scarlet stared at the raging waters. “What should we do?”
“Swim?”
“That’s your idea? Swim through the deadly whirlpool-waterfall combo?”
“What do you propose we do? Fly?”
“Well, flying would be rad,” she said.
He looked at the river. “It’s not very wide. If we run and jump, we can probably make it halfway across the river before we’d have to start swimming.”
“What about the whirlpool?”
“Yeah.” He scratched his jaw. “That might be tricky.”
Tristan slid his backpack off, pulled out his bedroll, and removed the tie around it. “We’ll tie ourselves together. Give me your backpack.”
She shrugged it off and he threw both their bags over the river and into the tunnel beyond.
”Let me see your hand,” he said.
She held it out.
He tied one end of the rope around her wrist, and the other around his. “This way, if one of us gets sucked into the whirlpool, the other will have a way to pull them out.”
“And if we both get sucked in?” She looked up at him.
He grinned. “Then we’ll die together.”
She smiled and he saw his thief in the woods. “I like that plan.”
So did he.
“You ready?” he asked.
She bit her lip and nodded. “Are you?”
He was suddenly very aware that they might die in the next few minutes. Really die. “Yeah. But just in case this is it for us…”
He pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips to hers. Wild and free, he kissed her fully, holding her face in his hands like he’d so often wished he to do.
He brought her body up against his until she was the only thing he could taste or smell or breathe.
Nobody’s eyes were glowing. No one was dying.
It was the least dangerous kiss they’d shared in centuries and it might very well be their last.
Scarlet fell into Tristan’s kiss desperately. She could touch him—she could taste him—without danger and it felt like her soul had been unbound. She wanted to feel his hair and smell his skin, memorizing every small detail she had ever taken for granted.
She went up on her tiptoes to meet more of his mouth and fisted her hands into his shirt, clinging to him unabashedly. He cupped the side of her face, stroking her jaw with his thumb as he deepened their kiss and she pressed into him with a heavy hunger in her veins. Their tongues slipped over one another and their hot breaths wove together.
He lifted her into his arms and pressed her back into the glowing cave wall as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He softly kissed her ear.