“What are you doing?” Lorelei moved to stare at the inscriptions as well.
Vaana bent down to run her hand in the center of the spiral. “You are the daughter of Lord Dougan and Lady Morgaine, correct?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure…”
“By blood?”
“Yes.”
Vaana smiled. “Excellent.”
“What does it matter?”
Vaana stood and strode over to the outer stones. She traced her fingers across the glowing inscriptions on one, mumbling to herself. At the tallest stone, she halted and pressed symbols on the stone. They sank with the grinding of rock and the hill began to rumble. Lorelei grabbed onto the nearest stone to keep from tumbling to the ground. The spiral in the center sank, forming a staircase.
“Hmm, that wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be,” Vaana said.
She pulled a long rod from her backpack and whispered a word. The tip lit into an orange glow.
Lorelei moved forward, trying to keep from gaping at the stairs. Vaana had told her there was something beneath the rock before, but the whole idea that the Menhir was something other than a monument was almost too much to believe.
Vaana glanced at her. “Shall we see what’s inside?”
Lorelei turned towards Vandermere. “May we?”
“By all means.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk as his gaze swept over Vaana. “It’s what you came here for, after all.”
Lorelei gave Vaana a conspiratorial grin. “Let’s go.”
Vaana handed her the torch. “Lead the way.”
6
Lorelei took the light rod and began her descent down the stairs. Her footsteps echoed in the darkness surrounding her. The narrow walls opened up as she reached the bottom. The air was surprisingly sweet for hidden ruins, like a cinnamon musk. The edges of her light barely reached the walls.
Vaana moved to one, pulled a flint and steel from her bag, and lit a sconce. Reddish fire flared for a moment, and Lorelei gasped.
The room appeared to be circular and made of a greenish stone. She moved closer. Was that emerald? No, it was too dull to be.
Circular disks That spanned from ceiling from floor stuck out from the walls with writing carved on them. There were large bars jutting from the middle of each. Lorelei grabbed the bar to the disk on the far left and turned it to the right so that the bar was vertical. A loud click echoed through the room followed by the scraping of stone. The disk glided back, so it was flush with the wall and slid to the side, leaving a large doorway.
Vaana took the torch from her and held it up. “It looks like we begin to the left.”
Lorelei followed her into the room with her heart racing. Vandermere trailed behind with his hands in his pockets.
Being underneath the Menhir seemed almost forbidden, like a sacrilege. When had that ever stopped her before? Perhaps she could find more about Essus and Moura. Too bad Arryn wasn’t here.
She swallowed the knot in her throat and shook her head. Arryn wouldn’t be joining her for any more adventures. She had a new companion, although she was a little strange for an acolyte of the Order.
Past the doorway, pedestals lined the sides of the rectangular room. Lorelei stopped at the first one and bent to inspect the object resting on top of it. It was a ruby the size of her fist. Tiny flames danced inside the heart of the red stone.
Vaana glanced back at it before moving to the back wall. “A heartstone.”
“Oh,” Lorelei exclaimed. “I’ve heard of those. Isn’t there a story that they are actually the hearts of spirits?”
Vaana shrugged. “That’s the belief. The more powerful the spirit, the more magic the stone will hold.”
“So, this would have been a fire spirit.” Lorelei sighed. “It’s almost sad. They had to die for us to have this magic.”
“Why? They were our enemies once.”
Lorelei blinked. “When?”
“Before the Miasma.”
“How do you know anything that happened before the Miasma? All that was lost.”
Vaana smirked. “The knowledge is there…if you know where to look.”
“And you have looked in a lot of places?” Lorelei studied her. “I doubt you are much older than I.”
“Old enough to have seen the world. The Voice of Wisdom saw fit to send me into the world early,” Vaana said.
She picked up a bracelet from one of the pedestals, wiped it on her sleeve, and stuck it in her bag. With a small shrug, she headed towards the door they entered. Lorelei scanned the trinkets on the pedestals. She ran her finger along the surface of the one that held the ruby. Her finger came away clean.
“This place is well maintained for being almost forgotten,” Lorelei said.
“And?”
“And these aren’t ruins. This is someone’s vault.”
“Actually, it would be both,” Vandermere said. “It has been in the keeping of my House since the Miasma. We use it to store dangerous artifacts.”
Vaana frowned. “You should turn them over to the Order.”
“Not all of us believe the Order should have that much power,” Vandermere said. “Besides, your Wyld Hunt brings you enough.”
Lorelei swallowed as her throat went dry. The Order had called for the Wyld Hunt to reclaim dangerous artifacts and rid the Empire of heretics. They claimed it was to ensure something like the Miasma never happened again, not that anyone knew how it had started. Lorelei had heard a few tales, whispered in the darkened corners of taverns, of the Wyld hunt taking people who weren’t heretics, of whole families disappearing. Lorelei shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. They were just rumors though. The Order was there to guide and protect the people. That’s why the Empire sought to stretch wider, beyond the central continent, to bring safety and protection to the world. After all, Threshold still had pockets of Miasma and Fomorians roaming around.
Vaana raised her chin as her face went taut. “The Wyld Hunt protects the faerie.”
“Perhaps that was true when you fought the Fomorians, but we both know the Order has moved beyond that.”
“So, you would rather allow Sluagh to run amok, stealing souls or enslaving whole towns to their will?”
Lorelei shivered. She had loved to sit with Freya and Arryn as children and share haunting tales of the Sluagh, the demons who used faerie souls as bargaining chips. Many a mage had summoned Sluagh intending to enslave them, only to be enslaved themselves.
They didn’t live on Threshold, but another realm far to the South. If someone could survive the trek through the Fire Plains, one would become lost and fall into the domain of the Eternal Desert. Beyond the Eternal Desert stood the Demon City, home of the Sluagh.
“Perhaps,” Vandermere said. “But what about the spirits and little gods you hunt?”
“Little gods?” Lorelei asked.
Vaana pursed her lips. “Upstarts who believe they can steal worship away from the Empress with a little bit of power.”
Vandermere sighed and covered his eyes with his hand. “The lies you have been told have blinded you. Everything in existence has an essence. Sometimes that essence gains sentience. They would be the god of their small area.”
Vaana glared at him. “How far are you willing to go with your blasphemous speech?”
He smiled. “Forgive me. You are not ready. Shall we return for the reason you came?”
She crossed her arms. “With the way you have spoken, I can have your property seized by the power of the Disciple of Fire.”
“Oh, I wasn’t planning on stopping you from searching. By all means…” He waved his hand to the open door she stood beside.
She gave him one last condescending look before stepping inside the hallway. Lorelei moved closer to Vandermere. Her heart was racing and she wasn’t sure if it was because of his presence or the whole event. What was she thinking? Was she so ready to fall for another handsome face? She had sworn her eternal love for Arryn.
; And where did that get you?
“They are fallible, like you and I,” Vandermere said. “You shouldn’t revere them, Nightingale.”
She paused. “How did you know that was my nickname?”
He smiled and ambled to the doorway, peering out it to where Vaana must have been.
Lorelei raised a brow. Damn House Essus. She now understood why many considered them unsettling.
Besides the madness, of course.
She turned back to the red gemstone on the pedestal. “Can I take this?”
“Sure,” he said. “It will be useful for what’s coming.”
“It must be nice to know everything,” Lorelei muttered.
“I don’t know everything,” he said in an annoyed voice. “And my visions aren’t always straight forward.”
“Visions?” She frowned at him. “Are they always of the future?”
“Sometimes the past, but it tends to be even more confusing.”
“Have you had any visions of me?”
Vandermere smiled. “We should see what Vaana has gotten into and make sure she doesn’t claim too many artifacts.”
He turned and stepped out of the room with his arm resting on the doorframe.
She took the ruby, pocketing it in her side satchel, and strode to him to poke her head under his arm. Vaana had moved past the remaining circular doors to a wall in the back. She rested one hand on her chin as she studied it, mumbling to herself in a soft voice.
“Speaking of trust,” Lorelei said, “are you really going to let her take whatever she is after in here? She gets no admonishments about things being dangerous?”
Vandermere sighed. “We can only hide things for so long. Eventually they become unearthed.”
Vaana glanced back at them with an anticipatory smile lighting on her face. “I think I found it.”
“Found what?” Lorelei asked.
“Come and see.” Vaana crooked her finger in a “come hither” motion.
Lorelei slipped under Vandermere’s arm and joined Vaana. The bricks of the back wall had slid from their places to reveal an embossed depiction of a sidhe female with long flowing hair gazing up a sidhe male. The artist had captured the looks of adoration and devotion. Their hands were joined between them.
Lorelei sucked in a quick breath. “Moura and Essus.”
Vaana stepped back with her arms crossed. “Indeed.”
“Why was it hidden?” Lorelei asked.
“Hmm, that is the question,” Vaana murmured.
Lorelei raised an eyebrow. “I have a feeling you already know the answer.”
Vaana chuckled. “I have some suspicions.”
“Well, what is it?”
Vaana pointed to the entwined hands. “Touch it and see.”
Lorelei gave an annoyed sigh. Why did Vaana have to be so cryptic all the time? She was worse than Vandermere, and he was a seer. She placed her hand over Moura’s and waited. Nothing happened.
She looked back to Vaana. “Well? Is it supposed to light up or something?”
Vaana’s brow furrowed. “That should have worked. I have a true blood descendant of Moura…”
Vandermere ambled up behind Vaana and studied the wall. “You seem to be missing half.”
“The scrolls said one or the other.” Vaana crossed her arms and glared at him. “Don’t tell me you knew about this all along.”
Vandermere chuckled. “Do you think our ancestors would make things so simple if they wanted this to stay hidden?”
“I’m really starting to feel left out of this conversation,” Lorelei muttered.
“Allow me,” Vandermere said.
He stepped forward and placed his hand on Essus’s stone fingers so that his thumb brushed Lorelei’s. Her pulse raced as their gazes met. The stone beneath their hands warmed.
A seam appeared in the wall, separating Moura from Essus. The irony was not lost on Lorelei. The embossment slid forward and to the side, covering the bricks of the wall. Lorelei coughed and covered her mouth as stale air rushed from the opening.
A narrow hallway led into darkness. From the darkness a female voice sang in a language Lorelei didn’t recognize. It was soft, with hissing vowels, like the rustling of silk.
Vaana pushed past Vandermere and Lorelei and hurried down the hall with her torch lifted up, leaving a trail of disturbed dust behind. Vandermere gave Lorelei’s hand a gentle squeeze and pulled her down the hall in Vaana’s wake.
The voice continued to sing as they made their way down the hall. It ended in a round room filled with a soft white light from that seemed to be everywhere at once. Six pedestals stood in a circle in the center of the room, each holding a large stone tablet.
Vaana circled them with a calculating look on her face. She moved between the pedestals and pulled her bag from her back. Her hand reached out for the first tablet on her right.
“Are you sure you wish to do that?” Vandermere asked. “Are you willing to pay the consequences?”
Vaana smirked and nodded to Lorelei. “I know what I’m doing. This isn’t my first time delving into secret places.”
Vaana reached out and grasped the first stone. Small bolts of lightning raced from the edges and covered her hand. She screamed. The tablet crumbled into dust and the lightning zapped the two adjacent tablets as it continued to climb up Vaana’s arm. Lorelei darted forward to try to knock her free from the circle but Vandermere pulled her back.
“She has made her choice,” he said.
“But it will kill her.” Lorelei waved a wide hand in Vaana’s direction.
The lightning covered the remaining tablets. They shook and then crumbled into dust, each sending a new bolt that struck Vaana. Her scream filled the room and she fell to her knees. The lightning raced along her entire body and traveled up to fill her eyes with a light that flashed a multitude of colors. She collapsed in a heap as the light faded and took a long shuddering breath.
Vandermere’s grip tightened on Lorelei’s arm as a guttural sound left his throat. He slid to the ground, clutching his head.
Lorelei stared between the two with a thrum in her ears pounding in time to her racing heart.
What had just happened?
7
Vandermere sat on the ground with his fingers pressed into his temples as blackness covered his vision. His heart pounded in his chest. He could feel that familiar tingling behind his eyes. A vision was coming on. Music, heavy with drum and guitar, filled his ears.
He stands surrounded by blackness. A leather book, seven foot by four feet and one inch thick, appears in front of him. A tarnished silver chain hangs at the bottom. Seven lidded eyes adorn the front. The left eye opens, glowing a deep purple. The book fades, leaving only the purple glowing eye. It flashes.
Vandermere finds himself in a great hall. Tapestries hang along the walls filled with creatures he doesn’t recognize.
A female with long black hair and immaculate robes stands in the center of the room. A silver and amethyst crown adorns her head. Her gaze travels upward and Vandermere’s vision follows to the ceiling where a hexagon is set in the middle of a starscape. At the points where the lines meet there are pictures: an erupting volcano, rolling clouds, a pool of water, dancing fire, wood, and a set of crystals. In the center is a lidless eye.
She speaks to the Eye, but Vandermere can’t hear her words. The eye doesn’t seem to respond. When she finishes, the eye vanishes.
Blackness. The gem flashes purple and an ankh unfolds in the center of the darkness. There is another flash of purple.
The crowned female stands in the same room with six others. The lidless eye is gone. She moves her hand to the ceiling above as she says something to the group. They watch her with contemplating looks.
A white-haired female shakes her head. Her eyes narrow behind the violet light produced by two thin bands of metal, one above her eyes and one below. She steps forward and pounds her fist into the palm of her other hand to punctuate her words.
The crowned female motions to the ceiling again in a sharp jerk and speaks words Vandermere cannot hear. A winged male in red, carrying a sword as tall as himself, stands beside the white hair female. He waves his hand in a flat swipe and shakes his head.
A blond male with white glowing eyes, standing with his hands clasped in front of him, nods to the crowned female. She smiles at him and looks back to the white-haired female with a raised eyebrow. The white-haired female moves until their faces are inches apart and speaks slowly. The crowned female turns her head and says something in the direction of the three quiet ones. A male with long hair and an obscured face laughs and nods to the crowned female. Beside him, a blue-haired male in gray robes speaks but keeps his eyes on the floor. In the corner, a tall thin female, half of her body black and the other half white, shrugs and stares at the ceiling.
The male in red puts a hand on the white-haired female’s shoulder. She glances back at him and takes a deep breath. The crowned female glances around and speaks again. All nod and then they disappear.
There is a flash of purple light and a ruby gemstone hangs from a chain in a black void.
Vandermere’s vision pans over thousands of beings. Some are made of living fire, while others are made of water, wood, wind, or crystal. The spirits.
A flash of light.
Millions of people. They look to be sidhe but more. Their ears are more pointed, and they stand with a regal stance.
Flash.
A sword appears, piercing down.
Vandermere stands in the middle of a battlefield. On one side stands an old male and behind him are the seven beings from the room. The crowned female has a chain on her wrist of a dark twisted metal.
Vandermere’s heart pounds. Iron.
At the other end floats the hexagram with the eye in the center. Behind it are many of the spirits he had seen.
Flash.
A mirror turns before him, reflective on both sides.
The dead cover the battlefield. Only a few hundred of the spirits remain. The millions are as they were as are another group that looks similar, only with gray skin.
Song of Shadow Page 6
