"Hearn!" Rworg bellows.

I flinch away from him, and Finna presses both hands on her ears. His voice echoes back at us from both directions, creating a confusing jumble of syllables. We wait for the echoes to die down, but no other reply comes.

"How did he even manage to get lost?" Finna says. "We turned like three times during the whole run."

"Are you sure we came back the same way now?" I ask, rubbing my chin. It's been a while since I've done that, and the stubble is starting to turn into a beard.

"I have no recollection of coming to this place," Rworg says. "This is not good."

Finna groans. "You don't say?"

That really isn't good. So far, we've been just going deeper into the corridors, lead by Finna's visions or hunches or by Hearn. Once again, I realize that eventually we will need to get out of here. Will Finna be able to lead us out? We should have been drawing a map, but on the other hand, there are no guarantees that the route would be the same going back as it was coming in, if the rest of the place is like the entrance. These corridors are the worst.

I chew my lip, taking a look around us. The exact uniformity of the corridors presses down on me. For a moment, I feel panic rising about if I'm even sure which direction we came from. There's corridor in one direction, corridor in the other. No corners or intersections in sight.

Finna follows my gaze, and I see she's probably thinking the same thing. Her brow creases, and she rubs a hand over her eyes. "So, we came from the left. That much I do know."

"It's a start," Rworg says.

"Hearn knows this place better than any of us," I say. "Maybe he can find his way back to the teratome room?" It's a wistful thought, but I have no other ideas.

"He has never been here before," Finna says. "And by now he has to be so cooked by mana, he's just drooling and watching his navel."

"So we must find him quickly," Rworg says, standing up and grasping his sword.

For a moment, I'm not sure how Finna will react. She wrinkles her nose and her eyes flick from one direction to the other.

Finna sighs, but stands up as well. "Damn it, but yeah. My life would be so simple without all the city geezers."

I rub my temples with my fingers, squinting at the floor. "We have to stay together," I say, thinking out loud. "Even if the mana wouldn't be a problem, we'd just get lost as well."

"Obviously," Finna says.

"Shh," Rworg says. "Let him work it out."

"We can't be certain where he has ended up at, but let's hope he understands staying put, so he doesn't wander somewhere deeper into the corridors. The moment we find something we can use as a landmark, we'll start drawing a map. At least try to figure out how complicated this place is."

Finna taps her foot on the stone, but stops as Rworg places a hand on her shoulder.

"If we end up at the big teratome room, we'll use that as a base. We'll search the corridors but always return to that place, in case Hearn finds his way there as well. We can stay outside the door safely, as the teratome can't get out."

"The smell can," Finna says.

"That just makes it easier for us to find the place," I say, shrugging.

"Bleh, but so, we just wander around, hoping we find him or something?"

I stand up and stretch my back, move my bow to get it to sit more comfortably on my back. "Yeah. Got a better plan?"

Finna shrugs.

"Plans are not important, even if planning can be," Rworg says, patting me on the back. "We will find the jonungaard. Come!" He turns his head around a couple of times and nods to himself, starting to walk to the right, the direction where we didn't come from.

It is as good a direction as any, in this situation. I move to follow him.

Finna sighs. "At least my head isn't splitting anymore," she mutters.

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Walking the corridors is infuriating. Every intersection looks familiar, but none of them are. The next corner or turn goes in the wrong direction from what I remember, and Rworg and Finna bicker about the turns every step of the way. Finna doesn't seem to have any memory left of the way we took or the visions she had, as she just lets Rworg pick the directions we take.

I walk behind them, keeping my eyes and ears open for anything that might be important to notice. My right ear still smarts, and I rub it gingerly. The sensation makes it almost as hard to focus as too much mana did. I'm not sure if I should be excited or worried, but I want to try to find out. Just need to get out of this place first.

Rworg tells us of the haze the mana made him feel as we walk. He says it's similar to something that ancient Kertharian warriors did to themselves, poisoned themselves with so much mana that they felt no pain and healed as soon as they got wounded in battle. It seems Kertharians have a history of using magic to addle themselves. Maybe it makes sense what happened to them.

I still can't believe there's a whole nation above us, frozen in time. What is that going to do to the world? They have to have traded with Velonea. All the best glass in the village came from Kerthar. Durn protected the glass pitchers like they were related to him. Ral had a looking glass. He once showed how to use it for starting a fire. It was at least as impressive as magic, even if I now have had firsthand experience how hot light can be.

We're not sprinting around anymore, so I have time to think and observe. The darkness still follows the chunk of ambronite in my bag. The motes of light inside the stone walls wink out as we get close and slowly light up again once we've walked past. The stone itself has to be magical or a conduit for mana. Bewildering.

I watch the motes go out and turn to look at them lighting up again, and stop. "Huh," I say.

Rworg and Finna continue for a few steps, but stop as they walk out from the darkness. "What is it?" Rworg calls out to me.

"Look at the light," I say, turning my head back and forth. I press my back to the wall, so I could compare the light in both directions more easily. "You know how the mana got thicker the further we went?"

"Yeah. So?" Finna says.

"Maybe it's again because of time," I say, pointing forward. "The light is dimmer in that direction than it is in the direction we came from."

Rworg frowns, craning his neck to glance behind. "What do you mean?"

I keep turning around, making sure I'm sure. "It's gradual, but the darkness in between makes it easier to spot. Based on the mana getting thicker, we kept getting slower and slower as we approached the ambronite."

Finna groans. "Ok, yeah. So?"

"So we're going in the wrong direction, if we want to get out!" I say. "Light getting dimmer means slower time. We've been turned around somewhere."

"How can we have been turned around?" Finna says, growling and baring her teeth at the walls surrounding us. "I've kept track! I'm good with this stuff."

"Hearn made us take four right turns," Rworg says absently, scratching at his beard.

Finna purses her lips together and closes her eyes for a moment. She takes a long breath. "…fine. So, again, what does it mean? What do we do?"

"I think…" I say, and pause to think, "we should keep following faster time. It won't help us find Hearn, but it should get us back toward the teratome room."

"Great," Finna says, rolling her eyes.

"Or not," I add. "But it will get us somewhere, instead of just running around in circles."

Finna scoffs. "I guess teratome or somewhere is better than just these stupid corridors."

"Ha!" Rworg barks and slaps me on the shoulder. "Good think, Folke! Let us go!"

I grimace and rub my shoulder. One day, he's going to dislocate something or kill someone. "So, back to where we came from," I say, pointing with my thumb over my shoulder.

Finna rolls her eyes and sighs. She looks down the corridor in both directions and nods her head. "So toward the light, eh? I can do that."

She motions for us to follow and starts walking. Rworg grins and reaches for my shoulder again, but I dodge out of the way. I'm still sore from the last slap.

At least we now have a some way to know we're going in one direction. We'll see how much that will end up helping us. If there's one thing we can't trust down here, it's time.

Following the light turns out to be almost as frustrating as running around blindly. We never reach the brighter light. We walk toward it, and it recedes, always keeping the same distance to us. Occasionally, we run into places where we have to decide between taking a turn and continuing forward, without a clear difference whether the light gets brighter or darker in either direction. Once, we turn back after debating for a while about there being any difference or if the light just stays the same.

"Fine, this one does actually get brighter," Finna says after a moment.

"My eyes aren't that bad after all, eh?" Rworg says.

"You're still getting spectacles once we get out," I say.

The ambronite in my bag makes everything bearable. Walking in a blob of darkness is still odd, but being able to breathe makes it all worth it. No more having to watch Rworg for signs of running away somewhere, Finna groaning and holding her head, my mind wandering and getting lost.

"Stop," Finna hisses suddenly.

Her tone is enough to turn Rworg into a statue, hand on the sword's hilt. I have one hand on my quiver, the other ready to snatch my bow.

"Light ahead, something weird," she says.

I see it as well. A glow, warm and yellow, obvious against the cold white haze of the corridors, now that I focus on it.

"Me first," Finna says. "Hang back." She pulls up her cowl and moves forward at an angle, pressing against the wall. Her hands disappear inside her sleeves, no skin visible. She vanishes into the darkness completely. Only a moment later I notice her again, making her way along the dark stone, not making a single sound.

Rworg breathes next to me. I see the rise and fall of his chest, but that's the only thing that moves in addition to Finna. It's hard to keep track of her as she makes her way forward toward the glow in the distance. At least until she steps into the middle of the corridor and wrenches the cowl off from her head.

"What the hell are you doing?" she shouts, the words clearly audible in the silent corridor.

I glance at Rworg. He glances at me. A grin spreads on his face.

I grin back. "Let's go before she stabs him," I say over the sound of Finna groaning and cursing.

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