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She hates it here.
The Deep Roads have never really bothered her although she’s had little cause to travel so far into the veins of the earth like this before. But it’s not the endlessly sloped tunnels, the tightly constricted walls, the darkened light and shadows darker still. It is not the golems and demons that spring from the very earth, or the lyrium lined warriors that appear from the air it seems. Nor the fact that one of them almost took her left eye and left a deep scar for remembrance.
It is certainly not the great discoveries they’ve found etched in glistening runes and buried beneath rock and time. Even in these things she cannot find that spark of wonderment for finding something new and important, but it bothers her less than it should.
And although this steady rhythm beating beneath her feet unnerves her, as if she’s walking through the inside of a giant beast, it is not the reason for her unease either. It is none of that but all of it too and with each level they sink, the feeling grows and grows until she feels like screaming and hoping the answer returns in the echo. It is not until the narrow passageways give way to a gigantic cavern where there is sky again thousands and thousands of feet below the earth, something so marvelous and strange, does she understand why it all bothers her so.
He should be here and he’s not.