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I frowned, suddenly not wanting to go down into the hole. I was confident the diamond was down there, but I was also confident that there would be a spider in my hair by the end of the day, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle that on an emotional level.
“Don’t worry,” Murtagh said, his hands still up as if to catch me. “Caspian and I are tougher and stronger than we look. We’re not going to let anything happen to you. He’ll be to the back of you, me to the front.”
I smirked, wanting to make a sex joke here, of course, but I was too nervous to pull it off. Finally, with a resolved sigh, I looked up at Caspian and put out my arms like a kid who wanted to be picked up. He put his arms gently around me then lowered me down to Murtagh, who grabbed me at the ass and gently lowered me down on the ground, patting my bottom as he released me. I looked around.
After Caspian lowered himself down, he looked right in front of him and saw a torch. He picked it up, as if to say, “Look what I found!” before breathing fire on it.
Yep. He breathed fire.
I was thinking that that was just part of dragon folklore, but nope…
I watched him do that with a blank face because that wasn’t even the craziest part of my week.
I jumped back. Torches had a lot more fire on them than I had anticipated. He passed it to Murtagh, who went in front of us, but I was honestly unimpressed by the amount of light that came off of it.
The narrow tunnel opened into a vast underground chamber, its walls etched with more of the enigmatic carvings we’d seen above. The air was thick with a musty smell and our footsteps echoed in the eerie silence. Murtagh lowered the torch down to a furrowed ditch in the ground. All of a sudden, lines of fire ignited along the walls, lighting up the whole room with flickering flames in a loud whoosh.
It was creepy, really, like we were in our own personal Indiana Jones flick, only it was twisted into some sort of horror movie like The Mummy.
I felt like a whole army of mummies were going to pop out at any second.
At least I’d be able to see them this time. It was much easier to see where the hell we were going.
As we ventured further into the chamber, we encountered what appeared to be an ancient drawbridge, its end raised, separating us from the other side. The mechanism to lower it was not immediately apparent, and the gap it spanned was way too wide to jump. I looked down and I couldn’t see the bottom. In all likelihood, it was probably lined with pointed sticks or something that would end in certain death.
Hooray.
“I’ve read about these,” Murtagh murmured, examining the edges of the bridge and the walls on either side. “They were often rigged with counterweights hidden within the walls.”
Caspian’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “So, if we find and release the counterweight, the bridge should lower,” he deduced.
Murtagh glanced at the raised drawbridge and then back at us with a determined look. “I have an idea,” he said, his voice taking on a deep, resonant quality.
Before our eyes, Murtagh began to transform. His body grew larger, muscles bulging and expanding. The sound of fabric tearing filled the chamber as his shirt gave way under the strain of his enlarging frame. Black scales, with a rich velvety sheen, emerged on his skin, shimmering slightly even in the dim light of the chamber.
Murtagh was turning into a dragon. His flesh was splitting apart, bulging out in some places and caving in at others. It looked almost like a puzzle box. But then, there he was. A dragon.
I hadn’t seen him like this before. While they were creating the tunnels, they had supposedly spent most of their time in this form, but they didn’t want me down there while they were digging in case it was too dangerous for me. I could have asked to see this, I’m sure, to see them in their true forms, but I hadn’t wanted to. I’d felt like it was going to be too much, and I’d just crumple into the fetal position with another existential crisis.
He wasn’t a fuzzy dragon, he didn’t look like the dragons from that cartoon movie with the Vikings. No, this was definitely the type of dragon that no hobbit wanted to tickle.
And I’m proud to say, I was strangely cool with this. Not just cool with it—I have to admit, I was in awe. I wondered if I had ever seen anything so breathtakingly gorgeous. It was like dragons were just too amazing to even live in the world.
I watched Murtagh, with a powerful grace that belied his size, as he extended his newly formed wings, a wide magnificent span of beautiful black scales that seemed to absorb the light around them. He crouched, and with a mighty leap, propelled himself all the way across the gap. The sound of his wings beating against the air was like thunder in the enclosed space.
Landing deftly on the other side, he quickly surveyed the area while Caspian and I watched.
I narrowed my eyes, searching the space beyond. I was good at finding things, after all. I could see Murtagh’s ancient, beautiful, and long dragon face with huge, yellow eyes looking quizzically at the wall, but I found what we were looking for before we really knew what we were looking for.
There was a lever on the far wall.
“Over there!” I called out, pointing my hand in that direction.
With a swift motion of his powerful, clawed hand, he pulled it, and the mechanism groaned to life. I watched in awe as the drawbridge slowly lowered with a loud creak. Once the bridge was secured, Murtagh reverted back to his human form, though his shirt remained in tatters. He gave us a nod, signaling that it was safe to cross.
As soon as I stepped onto the bridge, something clicked.
“Shit,” I swore, freezing in place.
