Midnight Quest Read Online Free PDF Page B

space, he let it slide back into the scabbard at his waist with a soft hiss of metal on metal.
    Now he truly was dependent on her to guide him. He couldn’t see a thing. Only the firm grip that she had on his wrist told him where she was and which direction she headed. Stumbling along in her wake, he also realized just why she had wanted to grip his elbow instead of holding hands with him earlier. “Being pulled along like this is unbalancing, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, it is,” she responded, her footsteps slowing. “Here, let’s change up. If you hold my elbow like I did with you earlier, you’re able to sense what direction I’m heading much better.”
    She took his hand and guided it around until he could feel the pointed edge of her elbow. Cautiously, because she felt very frail to him, he wrapped his hand around her arm, just above the elbow. His fingers overlapped without any difficulty.
    “Good,” she said simply and then started walking rapidly forward again.
    He followed along, half-smiling when he realized she was right—this was much better than being dragged about by the hand. He could sense her movements, each change in direction as she made it, and he found he could follow with relative ease. I must remember to never grab her hand again, but to escort her like this .
    Her quick pace slowed before she stopped. There was a quiet snick of a door latch being pressed, and then the soft sound of air being displaced as a door opened. She went through without pause, Sarvell once again hesitating long enough to kick the door closed behind them.
    “Now where…?” he asked, almost redundantly as his eyes caught the faint source of light in that moment. “Ah, I see it. That’s a nice sized window.”
    “It will be large enough for us to escape through?” she asked. It was still too dark to see more than a faint body outline but her worry was clear in her voice.
    “Judging from the amount of light seeping through, I think so. Where’re the stairs?”
    “This way.”
     He followed her trustingly as she traversed in what felt like random circles. No doubt she was navigating their way around furniture, which was why he didn’t ask questions, even though he felt completely disoriented as they moved across the room. With the thick carpets under their feet, he could not hear her footsteps, which was probably why he stubbed his foot directly against something hard and unyielding. “Ow!” he gritted out.
    “Oh. Sorry. Um, stairs?”
    Part of him was upset because of his smarting toes, but her voice was so contrite that he had to bite back a groan of laughter. “We need to work on your guiding abilities, Priestess.”
    “Sorry,” she apologized again on a sigh. “Here, I’ll go slowly.”
    Sarvell tested each stair cautiously as he went up, one hand firmly gripping the railing that he’d found. He tried to hurry as Rialt could only buy them so much time, but he was cautious about going too quickly. If he went down, he probably wouldn’t be hurt much, but he was very afraid that he would take the priestess down with him if he lost his footing. He in no way, shape or form wanted to explain to an angry goddess how he managed to get her favorite priestess killed out of sheer impatience.
    “I have a whole new respect for you, Priestess, for running up the stairs earlier,” he remarked to her as he gained his sixth step.
    “Why?” she asked him, tone vibrating with amusement. “Stairs are easy. They’re very uniform, so I know exactly how far apart they are, and no one ever puts things on them so I don’t have to worry about tripping over something.”
    “Then why am I having such a hard time with them?”
    “You’re too afraid to trust your instincts.”
    She had a point. Several of them, in fact.
    Fortunately for his nerves they reached the top a few moments later. Here on the second level of the office he had enough light to see by. An elaborate and large desk parked right in front of the window