Chapter Thirty, Part II

                                    

                                              
The cave Tesa stepped into differed little from the cave she'd come from. The air felt perhaps a bit drier here, and it was quiet. Tesa could feel the absence of other people, after the cave full of riders, dragons, and eggs.
                          
She held the egg close, hugging it against her chest. The door behind her closed after a bit, and Tesa was careful to tuck the key away in her pouch for when she needed to return. Once the door closed, Tesa was left in total darkness. She closed her eyes and called up her magesight, then found traces of energy in the stone around her that she could draw into a magelight. She rolled it into a globe and let it float up toward the ceiling of the cave.
                          
It was a small one. Eriya was right, it was the perfect place to hide an egg. From where Tesa had emerged, she couldn't even see that there was an exit. A quick circle around the space and she found the tunnel that ducked around a slab of rock and led out into a larger cavern. Then she turned back to survey the cave that would be the egg's home for many years to come.

                          
Sand covered the center of the floor in a depression like a bowl. The cave walls rose up and curved over Tesa like a dome. Warm, still air hugged Tesa in the small space. Yes, this cave would do nicely for the egg. She crouched and nestled it into the sand. For good measure, she used her hands to shovel more sand around the bottom of the egg. 
                          
"You should be comfortable enough there, huh?" she said to the egg. "Bet you never thought you'd end up back here, after traveling all that way."
                          
The egg didn't answer. Tesa sighed and brushed her hands on her pants to dislodge sand that had stuck to them. Then, she moved to the opening in the cave wall and began the next part of her work.
                          
Although it was unlikely for someone to find this room in the passages hidden under the city of Areth, the riders had decided not to make it too easy to stumble upon it, either. Tesa used her magic and the stones around the larger cavern to seal up the opening to the little cave. Then, borrowing the idea from Emric's magic doors, Tesa created a spellstone that would open the barrier. After a moment of thought, she created a second keystone for the door, in case something happened to the first. She slipped the two stones into the pouch at her waist next to the keystone that would open her door back to the cave under the forests of Enval.
                          
"I won't be long," she said quietly to the egg, and then set off into the caves under Areth. When Eriya had described the egg's hiding place to her, Tesa had quickly been able to picture the cave in question. She, Eriya, and Fenn had become very familiar with the network of caves below the dragon dwell in their explorations in the days leading up to their departure from Arethia. So now it was easy for her to find her way out of the labyrinthine passages and to the topside of the mountain.
                          
Tesa took the littlest-used passages that she knew of, and only twice did she have to backtrack and duck into a side passage to avoid running into someone. From the little she could hear and see as Karume mages passed her, they had guards patrolling the caves beneath the dragon dwell, perhaps beneath the entire city. Tesa couldn't blame them; they'd used the caves themselves against the dragon riders. The Karume knew infiltration of the city via the caves was a risk they had to watch out for.
                          
Little did they know, Tesa thought with a smile, now they would be at risk from another kind of infiltration, an infiltration of ideas. 
                          
Tesa came out of the caves in a narrow alley between the walls of two shops in a small market district not very far from the dragon dwell. The road that passed by the front of the shops was bustling with people, and Tesa found it easy to slip into the flow of foot traffic and blend into the crowd. Although she didn't think anyone here would recognize her, Tesa kept her eyes down and avoided meeting anyone's gaze. She had to make it across the valley to the other side of Areth, to the mage academy.