"That's different."
"Why?" Her voice cracked out of the darkness like a whip. "You're allowed to be noble, but the rest of us aren't? You're so good and pure and perfect and Chosen and the rest of us don't even have lives worth throwing away? Don't you see how stupid that is? Your life is worth infinitely more than mine!" She stopped and caught her breath on the edge of a sob. "There should never have been a mine here. Do you know why I dug it? To prove I was as good as all those others who were Chosen when I wasn't. I was smarter. I wanted it as much. Why not me? And do you know what my pride did, Herald? It killed seventeen people when the mine collapsed. And then my cowardice killed my brother and an uncle and a woman barely out of girlhood because I was afraid to die. My life wasn't worth all those lives. Let my death be worth your life at least."
He braced himself against her pain. "I can't let you die for me."
"And yet if our positions were reversed, you'd expect me to let you die for me." She ground the words out through the shards of broken bones, of broken dreams. "Heralds die for what they believe in all the time. Why can't I?"
"You've got it wrong, Ari," he told her quietly. "Heralds die, I won't deny that. And we all know we may have to sacrifice ourselves someday for the greater good. But we don't die for what we believe in. We live for it."
Ari couldn't stop shaking, but it wasn't from the cold or even from the throbbing pain in her stumps.
"Who else do you want that mine to kill?"
"This, all this, is my responsibility. I won't let it kill anyone else."
Because he couldn't reach her with his hands, Jors put his heart in his voice and wrapped it around her. "Neither will I. What will happen if you grab my legs and Gevris pulls us both free?"
He heard her swallow. "The tunnel will collapse."
"All at once?"
"No ..."
"It'll begin here and follow us?"
"Yes. But not even a Companion could pull us out that quickly."
:Gevris ...: Jors sketched the situation. :Do you think you can beat the collapse?:
:Yes, but do you think you can survive the trip? You'll be dragged on your stomach through a rock tunnel:
:Well, I'm not going to survive much longer down here, that's for certain — I'm numb from my neck to my knees. I'm in leathers. I should be okay.:
:What about your head?:
:Good point.: "Ari, you're wearing a heavy sheepskin coat, can you work part of it up over your head."
"Yes, but ..."
"Do it. And watch for falling rock, I'm going to do the same."
"What about your pack?"
He'd forgotten all about it. Letting the loop of rope under his armpits hold his weight, he managed to secure it like a kind of crude helmet.
"Grab hold of my ankles, Ari."