by K R Leikvoll
"Yes. Call me whatever you want, Maundrell! Enjoy your final moments of breath! You should be pleased to know that I am giving you all a merciful death! Far more noble than what you savages would have done for me!" he called down. I could hear the smile in his voice. I watched in horror as the stone lid was pulled over the opening. With a crash, we were left in the stone tunnel in utter darkness.
Our ears were greeted with the sound of heavy banging. Both Varnoc and Kirin grasped either of my arms and held me tightly. Crimson flames ignited in Kirin's free hand. He held it above his head revealing the stone tunnel. It wasn't too long; it only extended maybe a quarter of a mile and cut to the left. Kirin pulled me silently alongside him. We found the source of the banging after only a few steps. Water.
It was pouring inside the tunnel from unknown sources. It reached our feet quickly. Wherever it was coming from was letting it in from the ocean. I stopped completely and clung to Kirin.
"What the hell are we supposed to do? He's going to drown us in here!" I yelled in utter distress. I held my head. I was going to die. I was going to drown.
"We have to keep moving! We have to find the scroll! This is our only chance!" Kirin yelled dragging me along. Varnoc was trotting ahead. I could see him faintly by the turn. I choked back all of my fear and forced myself to keep walking. Well, running.
When we reached the left turn, the water was above my ankles. It was coming in fast. I felt as though I was running for my life, not running to find a rolled-up piece of paper. The left tunnel went downward sinisterly. We were forced to follow it into even deeper water.
The next direction was either left or right. Kirin shined his flames down both ways. Both paths looked empty and long.
"Which way?" Kirin asked aloud. I waited for Varnoc to respond, but he was silent. "Well?" he inquired, glancing down at me. How the hell was I supposed to know? I looked down both paths.
"I don't know!" I said in distress. Kirin shook me.
"Focus! You've been here before! Which way?" he demanded to know. My mind said right, but I was second guessing myself.
"I think right, but I'm not sure," I replied. Kirin took my answer as fact and started dragging me behind him. We ran as far as we could before it turned left.
Another fork. Kirin and Varnoc looked at me ready to run. The water was getting close to our knees. My mind was telling me right. The idea of wandering deeper into the tunnels with no way out made me want to lie.
"Right," I said with fear in my voice. They both looked equally as upset as me at my answer. It was getting harder to run through water. It was the coldest thing I had ever experienced in my life. It was cutting my legs as it filled my boots. I finally had to rip them off.
We reached the end of the tunnel and the only direction left for us to go was right again. The water was halfway up our thighs. We all hooked arms and drudged as far as we could.
"No!" Varnoc yelled as we reached the end. A solid stone wall stood in our way.
My brain couldn't take the stress of our situation. I couldn't breathe. I started to panic; I think all of us were. Kirin's hand grabbed mine tightly.
"I won't let you drown, Val. Just breathe and focus," he said. The thought of drowning was too powerful to think of anything else. "Which way do we go?" The water was up to my waist.
I was desperate for the ring or... Vince… to show up and assist me. Neither was interested even though I was close to death. My mind wasn't coming up with random answers anymore. Without any other option, I held the ring up and closed my eyes. Lux Eterna, I thought in my mind desperately. Lux Eterna, Lux Eterna, Lux Eterna! The light can't die, right? I can't die!
Kirin shoved me slightly. When I opened my eyes, I was greeted with a silver mirror against the stone.
I blinked in disbelief.
"Go now!" Kirin yelled, shoving me through the portal.
I fell through the other side into an empty room. Thankfully there wasn't any water, but I knew that it was filling up dangerously fast on Kirin and Varnoc's side. I didn't have a light; I didn't need it. It was very apparent that the Scroll of Fates was magical in nature.
It was glowing electric blue, illuminating the small room. The scroll was sitting on a stone pedestal only a few feet away. I didn't have any time to waste. I couldn't let the tunnel fill up with water or we would never escape. I reached my hand out to touch it.
When my fingers brushed the white paper, a bright light erupted in front of me. I had to shield my eyes for a moment until I saw what I was faced with. A man… a man I knew so well. My beautiful angel of light gave me a sideways smile.
"Keep going, Val," he urged.
"I miss you so much," I replied, my voice breaking. The white light held the blue scroll out to me. Shaking, I accepted the artifact. The moment it was fully in my hand, I was overcome with the strangest sensation I had ever felt. For a brief moment, thousands of flashing memories assaulted my mind. It was as if for only a second, I had been alive for thousands of years. It ended faster than it lasted. I almost forgot James was there. The light was beginning to fade.
"Don't leave!" I called out, reaching for the light.
"I believe in you," his voice said as he disappeared with a glimmer.
I forced myself to turn back to the wall. Lux Eterna, I thought to myself numbly. The mirror appeared in front of me. With reluctance, I climbed through the portal.
I had been too distracted to remember the water. It rushed into my face like icy knives. My head went under the surface, completely submerging me in its depths. A strong arm pulled me back up. I gasped for air. My body was in shock from the cold.
"Do you have it?" Kirin yelled over the sound of the tunnel filling up. I nodded as much as I could. The water was above my head and close to Kirin's shoulders. Varnoc was nearly having to tread. I may have the scroll, but it looked like we were going to drown. There was no way I could hold my breath all the way back to the beginning. How would we even climb out? Kirin tried to drag me along. I pulled myself away from him.
"There's no way out!" I said, the despair taking hold of me again. He looked back the way we came before shaking his head.
"There is only one way, Maundrell! You know you have to!" Varnoc yelled at him.
"Funny, coming from the demon that called survival the same thing as sacrilege!" Kirin retorted angrily.
"Now is not the time to argue about this. If you do not do it, we will all drown," Varnoc said with disgust in his voice.
"I was already going to, satyr. I don't need you telling me what to do," he hissed back. Shadows seeped through the water and into his hands. I wasn't sure how Famine was supposed to help us from drowning. It didn't have any scuba gear attached that I was aware of.
Famine was only in his hands for a moment, though. It dispersed again into smoke and began to swirl around him like a heavy gust of wind. I was paralyzed when I saw his eyes changing. While they were still bright silver, the whites of his eyes were graying. Within a second, they were entirely black. The shadows rested on his back, forming two sets of spectral wings. Even his face was changing. He had a set of long horns formed from shadows.
I wanted to keep studying the changes, but the water was getting too high. I didn't know what was going to happen with him. What I did know was that I was going to drown in a few minutes if we didn't find a way out. My hands and arms were going numb and it was making it hard to hold onto the scroll. I was slipping down into the depths again. I took a deep breath before my head went under. I felt Kirin's arms lock around me; I could feel the form of Varnoc beside me. I was trying to focus on holding my breath.
Kirin soared through the water as if we were in the sky. The desire for air was growing intense. I clawed at Kirin's arm desperately. I needed to breathe. I couldn't wait anymore. I forced myself to peer into the depths. For a brief second, I could see that the entire tunnel was filled. We were moving impossibly fast toward a solid wall. My body wasn't able to help itself; my lungs forced me to inhale water rat
her than burst.
Holy hell, it hurt. I was choking, squirming to break free. Everything was going black. I barely felt it when Kirin barreled through the stone wall. We kept going too. He continued to knock down the rock that blocked us from outside. It was shredding my clothes and my skin. The ring sealed the wounds which was incredibly counterproductive; my body only grew more fatigued.
The tower was crashing down behind us. I held the scroll as hard as I could as the void nabbed me for itself again.
Chapter Twenty-One
I was trapped in a nightmare. Drowning. I was swimming in the lake near my house with James. It was so real, so pure. As I was trying to wade toward him, I was pulled under the surface by my ankles. I tried to reach out so he could save me, but I continued into the depths beyond reach. The sky was out of sight. Everything was black. My mind was filled with desperate thoughts until I realized I was in a dream.
I woke up gasping for air. It was super hard to breathe like I had something heavy sitting on my chest. My lungs were highly irritated and I was only able to hack out weak coughs. My head was pounding. I opened my eyes. Everything was blurry, but I could see the room swaying slightly. I rolled over. Things were starting to come into focus.
The bed I was lying on was a decent size. I was covered in massive, dark brown rugs and plush pillows. It wasn't as good as Kirin's bed, but it was so much better than the ground or Rimestone. The room I was in was filled to capacity with heavy wooden furniture, large chests, crates, and books. I focused on a dim light across the room.
There was a man sitting at a giant desk with his feet kicked up. The source of the light was some sort of hand-rolled cigar that he was puffing between sips from a flask. It was hard to see him in the shadows, but I could tell he had dark skin and long brown hair. He had probably the most groomed beard I had seen so far. Being alone with him and no Kirin or Varnoc in sight made me genuinely fearful.
As I tried to sit up, he held his hand in the air.
"No reason to get up. You need to rest," the man said in a heavily accented voice. So accented I almost had trouble understanding. It sounded like some kind of French-Portuguese blend.
"Where is Kirin and Varnoc?" I wheezed out. I was barely able to talk above a whisper. My throat ached fiercely. It was worse than the time I had strep.
The man tapped off some ashes. "The King does not want to be bothered and the satyr is bound to Naadea. You should try to sleep and stop worrying," he said with a curt nod.
"Where am I? Where is the scroll?" I asked as my brain flooded with more questions.
The man chuckled and screwed his flask closed.
"Let me rephrase: The King told me to tell you to sleep. You should listen to him, Luxza. He really wants the best for you," he said with a smile on his face. The King... King Kirin... right.
"I want to see him," I said, trying to climb out of bed. When my feet touched the swaying floor, I could tell how weak my body was. I wouldn't be able to stand. I gave the man as much of a glare as I could muster.
"He is asleep. You don't want to wake a sleeping demon, do you?" he asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
"Please take me to him."
The man shook his head and took a big puff off of his cigar. The sweet-smelling scent drifted my way. "I will not defy the wishes of my King, even for you Luxza. When he tells me to keep you in bed, I do as he says. When he tells me, 'Do not let Val in this room,' I say 'okay.' Do us both a favor and go back to sleep."
There wasn't really any way for me to walk out of the room. "At least answer my questions," I said as I climbed back into the bed.
To my mild surprise, the man clinked over in leather boots. He leaned at the end of the bed a few feet away. I watched ashes from his cigar falling into the fur blankets.
"You are on board the Valkyrie. The scroll is safe with the King," he replied, counting off my questions on his fingers. He started trying to leave again.
"Wait! Where is he? Where are we going?" I croaked.
The man sighed and took another deep puff. "He is in his quarters trying to rest for now. We are making the long, fabulous journey across the Black Ocean to the far continent of Kaeda," he said in an exaggerated whisper.
"And I am?"
"In the captain's quarters."
"And you are?"
"I am the captain of this ship, Luxza. My name is Yahven Mortos... though Captain Mortos will do just fine," he said, tipping his head in a slight bow.
"Sounds good, Yahven. Where is my room?" I wasn't sure if the bed situation was garbage in there or not, but I was uneasy around a stranger.
"You can stay in here, as long as you do not mind me taking breaks," he replied, gesturing around the small room.
"Couldn't I just sleep in Kirin's room?" I asked without thinking about how it sounded.
The man—Mortos (I guess)—burst into laughter. He gave me a creepy look and literally purred. "I don't know what the nature of your relationship is with the King, but Luxza does not need to sleep in the same room. You will be fine in here," he said, standing up. He crossed the room and put his cigar out with a hiss. I watched him pick up a heavy black book. "Do some reading if you need to be entertained," he said tossing it onto the bed.
With a slight slam, he closed the wooden door, leaving me alone.
The room was incredibly dark. I couldn’t see my hands in front of me. Unsure, I curled back into the blankets. My body hurt horribly. I didn't want to admit it, but I really wanted to be snuggled in Kirin's cloak. I knew I'd be able to sleep if I was in his arms. Damn it! Maybe he was right about that blood bond stuff. I hadn't ever had a crush like this one. There were guys in high school and college parties, but none gave me the same rush... the same feeling of being content. When we would huddle for warmth in the snow, I knew for that time that everything was going to be okay. That he was going to keep me safe. That the stone prison had never happened.
The thoughts were overpowering. It was hard for me to believe that I couldn't stand him when we first met. He was a different person now. Sure, he got on my nerves, but he had killed for me, almost died for me. Even James hadn't done all of that. I was super sick, though it didn't stop the overwhelming butterflies from filling my gut when I thought of the kiss we shared. Damn it—stupid me. I cried during the only genuine kiss I had ever had. Leave it to me to ruin the only chance of getting close to him. After that mishap, I could tell there was hesitation in every close moment we had, like he was afraid to do anything that would make me cry. It all had to be the blood bond. That was the only way someone like him would ever kiss someone like me. I had to force myself to think of something else so I didn't go crazy.
I spent several hours half asleep in the darkness before anyone came to check on me. I was pleasantly surprised to see a somewhat familiar face behind a candle. It was the man with dreadlocks I had met so long ago. The light almost flickered out when a strong, cold gust of wind blew the door closed.
"I am happy to see you… uh... alive, Divinus," Ronen said, stirring me from my strange dreams.
"You too," I whispered in a hoarse voice. I rubbed my eyes.
"I brought you some food. You look like you need it," he told me, bringing a silver tray to the bed. The candle was dripping wax onto the metal barely missing the bread and cooked meat.
"There isn't much fresh food. Make sure you don't waste any of it."
"Thank you," I said, attempting to open the new flask he gave me. My arms were pathetic and I couldn’t make it budge. Ronen politely pulled the lid off. I put it to my lips. Water. I couldn't believe after the desert that I would actually hate it. I forced myself to drink half the flask even though it burned my throat.
"How is everyone back at the castle?" I asked genuinely curious. I put the meat to my face. It was hard to swallow; my throat was raw and unready for more stress.
"The reserves will keep everyone alive at least a year. After that…" he trailed off and leaned against the bed. "I'm sorry to hear about y
our aunt.”
Oh, Alexandra. I lost my appetite when I thought about her brilliance being snuffed out by someone as horrid as Lazarus. Half of me really wanted to believe that she was somewhere still out there, but Lazarus did not seem to be the type of person to lose. I wanted to kill that bitch as much as she wanted to kill me, I was sure of it. I thought of all the things I wished I would've said to Alex before she left. "Thank you" being the first thing. I set my food down.
"I tried to marry her, but she didn't have time for things like that. Turned me down every time," he said with a sad smile on his face. "But she was right. There really isn't time for something silly such as that."
I wasn't sure how to respond. I was feeling pretty feverish... and sad... and not in the mood for chewy meat. I decided changing the subject was the only way I could keep us from having an awkward silence.
"How is Kirin?"
Ronen saw I was struggling with my food and took a small bite of my bread. "He... he's resting," Ronen responded uneasily.
I was too sick to physically show how disgruntled I was with his answer. "Please just tell me what's going on. Mortos wouldn't tell me. I don't like being kept in this room alone in the dark," I said, my voice giving away how emotional I felt.
Ronen swallowed his bite of bread and took a sip of my water. "I will make sure to check on you more, but it's important that you rest. You are very, very ill Divinus. You need to focus on eating and sleeping," he said avoiding my question about Kirin. I hardly knew this guy, but he seemed far more reasonable than Mortos.
"Ronen... please... why can't I see Kirin? He would've come to see me by now." I was positive he really would have. I nervously reached out and touched his arm.
He sighed. "There was an accident. He has made it very clear to everyone that he wishes to be left alone," Ronen replied quietly.
"What kind of accident?" I asked, instantly concerned. He shook his head making it clear he didn't want to talk about it. I grabbed his wrist as tightly as I could, though it was probably not tight at all.
