Haven (War of the Princes) Read Online Free PDF Page B

concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths.
                “Get a grip Katelyn,” I told myself aloud. “You aren’t some kid who’s afraid of the dark. You’ve explored every inch of Rivermarch … except for this.”
                The sound of my own voice comforted me, and made me feel a little less alone.
                “One step in front of the other,” I muttered, shuffling toward the stairs and the sinister darkness that pooled there.
                When I reached them, I held my lantern out. My light trickled down the cracked stone steps and stopped at a wall where the stairwell turned.
                “Just down some stairs,” I said to myself, trying to make my voice confident. Reaching the wall was my goal, I could make it that far. The longer I hesitated to descend, the more I felt like my back was exposed to the rest of the room. It would be so easy for something to attack me from behind. All it would take was a simple push and I’d go crashing down the stairs to an early grave.
                At least no one would have to bury me. My chuckle was nervous and shallow.
                After four measured breaths, I stepped cautiously down, then leaned against the wall and let the stone comfort me. Nothing could sneak up behind me. I glanced at the two crooks of stairs, one leading back up, the other further into the deep darkness. I fought the overwhelming urge to want to run all the way home to my bed and throw myself under the covers.
                “Down the stairs,” I repeated to myself, and resolved to follow my directional instinct. This was the way. No one had ever done this before. I couldn’t turn back now.
                I reached the bottom, infinitely grateful for my little lantern. Slinking against another wall, I was acutely aware of how much stone hunched lowly over my head and how tiny my only escape route was. I took a moment to wipe the sweat off my brow and catch my breath.
    I hadn’t realized I was truly claustrophobic until that moment.
                I began to sing quietly to calm my slamming heart, stepping away from the security of the wall to finally look at where I was.
                Short, wide steps terraced the huge round room gently deeper into the ground. Half moon holes plunged into the walls, each filled with a rectangular stone slab beneath an image etched over the opening. These were graves, and the images were portraits of the dead. Men, women, old and young, and even a few children were carved into the stone. There were dozens upon dozens of them.
                What if they blinked? What if a pair of stony eyes followed me as I moved? Did their spirits still hug the remains of their bones, cradled within the long sealed coffins?
                I continued singing. It was the only thing I could do to keep my mind off of the dead. The lullaby coaxed me into a sort of numbness, steadily following the short steps down.
                Hedging along the wall, I did my best to avoid cobwebs and ignore the distinct feeling that I was getting farther and farther away from my only escape. My own shadow sent my heart racing and the sound of my boots on the dusty flagstone rang in my ears.
                A broad form climbed up the ceiling and I gasped, just to hold my light up to a curtain of webbing and another exaggerate d shadow.
    I kept seeing faces staring at me in my peripheral vision, creeping closer, but they were only those carvings of the deceased.
                At the final set of steps, I thought I’d come to a dead end. My body kept moving and I found myself face to face with a very angry portrait. The old man’s face was craggy and contorted in a scowl. I stumbled backward with a start and almost dropped my lantern. It fumbled in my hands but I managed to catch it before it clattered to the floor. Finding myself