Elana Shae Chapter One: Echoes and Stone

[Chapter One: Echoes and Stone]

Elana Shae

When the taste of death stuck to her throat as a terrible promise and her thoughts trickled to dust like autumn leaves in a slow breeze, Ayla wished for clouds. With her eyes closed she pictured them stretching out before her, snow-capped mountains of the sky that embraced sunlight as an old love. Their movement was a gentle amble across a plain of youthful blue. She wanted to feel the sky wash over her until all she knew was the warmth of day cupping her cheek in its palm. Ayla prayed, the way a flower prays for spring when its color is deadened by frost, that when she opened her eyes she would see a village blooming out of a mountainside. No, not a village. It had been a city. One with roads weaving in and out of the rock it was carved from, one that shimmered with rainwater like a jewel. She wished she would be greeted with the sounds of wind dancing across thatched roofs and sweet apples snapping off of great boughs. Not the crackle of fire and the screams of those swallowed by flame. Not the scratch of blades stirring from their sheaths, the wet, cold sounds they made when piercing flesh.

Instead she heard scraping in harsh, dead rasps. Her eyes reluctantly blinked open to see the stone walls of the catacombs huddled around her as she sat slumped over on the ground, blanketed in darkness, arms burning and slick with blood. The sour taste of old memories and smoke still lingered on her tongue. She pushed it down, a growing habit, and began to stir until the sharp noise reverberated throughout the tunnel again, sounding deep and heavy as though Ayla listened

beneath the weight of an ocean. It paused every other moment before ringing out from the black depths. The echoes may have come from miles away or mere paces. Ayla could only tell that they drew closer. With much effort, she pulled her knees to her chest and shoved her back against the wall, pushing herself upward. She wedged her fingers between the cracks of the stone and used the leverage to bring herself to her feet. Ayla bit her tongue to keep from cursing as the calluses and cuts on her soles cried out in pain. She had run more that day than she had in years, and exhaustion coursed through her legs like poison. Finding the strength, she stepped, barefoot against a floor so uneven it seemed as though she was the first to tread its path. Her steps were weighty and louder than she’d hoped. With one hand trailing along the wall, leaving a streak of blood in its wake, she waded through the darkness in search of a way out. There was an irregular thrumming in the sound behind her, as though blades were being dragged across the jagged surface of the ground. It matched in time with drops of blood seeping from the gashes in her arms and falling to the floor. Ayla’s body begged for rest as she forced herself onward. Her eyelids sagged and her thoughts turned to dew. It wasn’t until her knees buckled and her skull hit the floor that she jolted awake. There was silence. Not one of emptiness, not truly. There was no scraping, nor was there blood hitting stone. But there was a silence of waiting that wrapped itself around Ayla’s trembling breaths. It lingered long enough for her to get to her knees before frantic scratching erupted from the shadows, peals of thunderous noise crashing down on her. She scrambled to her feet and stumbled forward. Her throat burned as she gasped in the frigid air, which, to her horror, was filled with a new sound. It rushed along the walls, like a wind that fed roaring wildfires and carried storms on its back. It was breath, that of something tearing through the darkness to find her. Something with claws.