Free Bluewing by Kate Avery Ellison

on the location of Echlos and Borde’s private lab, the remains of the Security Center had to be around here somewhere. And I was going to find it. It made sense to try all the ruins of the places I knew had previously existed when looking for the way to contact the Trio. Borde’s lab had turned up nothing in the vein of what I sought, so I’d moved on.
    Something about the landscape seemed familiar, but only faintly. Was this the location of the former Security Center? Everything was bigger, harsher, more tangled. The centuries had gnawed everything familiar apart and grown it back wild and strange.
    After a moment of hesitation, I began to cross the clearing. The snow crunched, crusty like old bread beneath my feet.
    Then the world gave way, and I fell.
    The air punched from my lungs in a strangled huff as I hit the ground. Pain shot through my legs. Snow hissed around me in a cascade. I lay stunned, staring at the sky far above me.
    I’d fallen into some kind of pit.
    When I could breathe again, I moved my legs and arms. Nothing seemed broken, although everything hurt. I lifted my hands. They were bleeding where jagged pieces of ice had cut them. My back ached, and I tasted blood on my lips—I must have bit my tongue when I fell.
    I slid my hands in front of me to get purchase on the ground enough to sit up, and the sound of my movements echoed around me, amplified into something hollow and strange. Groaning, I looked around.
    Light slanting through the hole above me and illuminated the space. Thick walls of smooth stone surrounded me, and a corridor stretched away in either direction, the ends veiled in darkness.
    The Security Center?
    I climbed gingerly to my hands and knees and then to my feet, testing myself for injuries before I stood. My hip ached where I’d fallen, but otherwise I was unharmed. I brushed snow from my cloak and blew hair from my eyes, and then I faced the tunnel. With no light, I was reluctant to venture down it. But how else was I going to get out of here? I couldn’t climb back up the way I’d fallen. I couldn’t simply wait here, hoping for someone to pass by. This was the Frost. Nobody ventured out into it except Hunters, Trappers, and now Farther soldiers. I didn’t dare seek help from any of them.
    Sucking in a lungful of musty air, I headed down the corridor.
    The back of my neck prickled with every step, but I pushed the thoughts of apprehension away. Fear would not help me now.
    The light grew dimmer and grayer the farther I went, until it winked out entirely. No ceiling lights flicked on at my movement—either no power existed in this structure anymore, unlike Echlos, or it wasn’t part of the Compound buildings. The ground was spongy beneath my feet, a combination of dust and lichen.
    A blue light glimmered ahead. I turned the corner and saw beads of glowing fungi clinging to the wall. I plucked a handful and continued on.
    The corridor walls pressed in around me like the edges of a nightmare, hemming me in, keeping me prisoner. The silence-infused darkness was suffocating, and the pitiful light in my hand did little to allay it. Strange, distorted shapes danced in the faint glow that surrounded me. Doorways loomed like mouths of monsters, and shadows dripped down walls and scuttled away from the light like rats.
    The corridor dead-ended in steps that twisted upward, and I climbed them, because I wanted to go up. The fungi in my hand cast a soft circle of light around me that touched on the walls and revealed a patch of floor ahead. I turned another corner and paused.
    I recognized this hall. I’d spent hours cleaning it. There were the doorways leading into offices and security rooms. Hope blossomed in me. Perhaps this was where Adam contacted the Trio?
    My quest to escape forgotten, I searched the offices one by one. The floors were coated in dust, and the furniture that remained had rotted into cadaverous reminders of their former selves. I brushed my hands over the walls