The icy walls of the castellum disappeared, replaced by the solid rock walls of the tunnel that led to the Liftsal caves. Sloane had only been there once before, but she remembered the route well. As she neared the main cavern, Sloane heard Rhyn speaking frantically, and she instinctively drew her sword.
‘Just let the girl go,’ he said. ‘You can have the Liftsal, just let her go…’
Sloane emerged from the tunnel and into the glittering cavern that held the underground lake of Liftsal. When she’d first seen the cave, Sloane had thought it looked like the inside of a diamond or a glittering star. The description still held true, and she had to blink to adjust her eyes to the bright lights that reflected off the walls.
As her vision cleared, she saw her father standing by the lake with one hand clamped around a vial of Liftsal, while the other pressed a knife close to Emha’s throat. Sloane froze as she looked at them, her heart splintering as she locked eyes with Emha and saw the pure terror the girl was feeling.
Rhyn stood not far from them; one arm stretched out in a plea to the Captain to stop what he was doing.
‘Sloane…’ Emha cried out, her voice breaking with fear and desperation.
‘Let her go, Father,’ Sloane said, slowly approaching him and pausing once she was beside Rhyn. One move too fast towards the Captain, and he could slit Emha’s throat.
The Captain’s eyes flickered to look at Sloane, and they gleamed with malice as he watched her. In one look she could feel how much he hated her, and it sliced through her being like poison injected directly into her veins. She knew he wouldn’t listen to her, but she had to try and stop him.
‘The Liftsal isn’t worth it,’ she said, continuing to edge towards him. ‘What ever you think you know about it is wrong. It will turn you into a monster.’
Her father sneered at her, tugging Emha in closer to his chest, his knife grazing the skin on her throat. ‘You don’t know the meaning of monster.’
Sloane halted and took a step backwards, not wanting to push him into hurting Emha.
‘Just don’t harm the girl. She’s done nothing wrong. You can take the Liftsal, but just leave Emha alone,’ she begged.
She wished for a moment that Rowe was standing in her place. Her sister would have had a much better chance of convincing their father.
The Captain barked out a laugh. ‘The moment I let this girl go, I’m dead. No, I think I’ll be holding onto her a while longer. I’ll let her go when I’m safely free of this icy hellhole and not a moment sooner. Our people have waited a long time for this day, and I won’t have you screwing it up.’
Sloane’s eyes narrowed on him as she tried to understand. ‘What do you mean, our people?’
He shook his head at her, his eyes gleeful as he revelled in her ignorance. ‘We have been seeking the Liftsal for a long time, Sloane, and you could have been a part of that with us. Ash certainly wanted to carry on the family tradition, even if his mother was like them,’ he nodded in Rhyn’s direction.
‘What are you saying?’ Sloane said, her voice eerily quiet.
‘Your mother was descended from these Unfaih bastards. We’ve been searching for her people for generations, trying to find our way back to the Liftsal and the eternal life it holds. I knew if I got close to her it would eventually lead me here.’
Sloane shook her head, her eyes wet with tears. ‘You’re lying.’
‘Am I?’ he shot back.
She paused in stunned silence, trying to understand everything her father was saying. It sounded ridiculous, and she didn’t want to believe it was true. The elders had suspected her father was connected with the first humans to discover the Liftsal, but could her mother really be descended from the Unfaih?
Sloane broke from her haze of confusion as she realised her father had started to edge around them towards the entrance to the cave, keeping Emha close and his knife against her throat.
Rhyn tracked his movements though and stepped with him, and Sloane followed a moment after. She desperately wanted to leap forwards and take her father down, but the knife was so close to Emha’s throat that Sloane and Rhyn couldn’t do anything but try and convince him to release her.
‘You’ve got what you came for,’ Rhyn said, still holding out one hand in an attempt to stop the Captain. ‘Just take the Liftsal and let Emha go…’
‘Please, Father.’
But the Captain wasn’t listening to either of them, and he continued edging towards the cave entrance. Sloane and Rhyn both dared to take a step forwards, but as they tried to close the distance between them and the Captain, he jerked Emha a little closer, and they had to retreat several steps.
He was almost to the opening, and they were running out of time. A few more steps and the Captain would flee the caves, with Emha still in tow. The young girl seemed to sense that there was nothing Sloane or Rhyn could do, and Sloane saw a bit of the fear in Emha’s eyes turn to determination as she formulated a plan.
She tried to catch Emha’s attention and warn her not to do anything. The girl would get herself killed if she attempted to fight back. But Emha had begun to closely watch the Captain’s hand and the knife he wielded. Sloane wanted to shout at her not to move, but how could she say anything when it would only alert her father?
He moved his arm slightly to rearrange his grip on Emha, and the moment the knife shifted an inch away from her throat, the Unfaih girl lunged and clamped her teeth down on the Captain’s hand, biting him as hard as she could.
He snarled as he dropped the knife, but in one sudden movement, he slammed his fist against the small girl’s head.
Sloane screamed, but her cry came too late as Emha’s body collapsed to the floor. Not even Rhyn could move fast enough to get to her father and stop him. As Emha hit the ground, the Captain slowly smiled, and he looked at Sloane with a mixture of hatred and satisfaction. Fear sparked in her gut as she instinctively rushed towards the Unfaih girl who lay sprawled at her father’s feet.
Rhyn drew his sword and was right beside her as he sprang forwards, seeing his chance to attack the Captain while he was unarmed. The two of them raced across the cave together, but her father quickly rolled to the ground and retrieved his knife. The glint of metal caught Sloane’s eye as her father raised his hand to his ear. His gaze settled on Rhyn before he flicked his wrist and sent the knife spinning through the air.
Sloane froze as she watched the blade fly from her father’s hand and streak across the distance between them in a blur. She shouted out in fear for Rhyn, the sound ripping from her throat as her voice echoed hauntingly off the walls. She turned to him, completely powerless, with no time to try and shield him from her father’s dagger.
Adrenaline pulsed through her, and her body was overcome with a feeling of numbness as she waited for the knife to find its target. Rhyn had also stopped in his tracks, but instead of facing the imminent threat he had turned to look at her.
His face reflected the same horror as her own; his eyes were wide, and his skin had paled, but as Sloane looked him over she could see the knife hadn’t hit him. A wave of relief washed over her as she realised the Captain had missed, and that Rhyn was okay.
The sound of her father’s laughter drew Sloane’s attention, and she turned to face him. He was standing at the cave entrance, staring back at her with a look of triumph in his eyes.
‘Goodbye, Sloane,’ he said before he turned and ran from the caves, back down the tunnel to the castellum.
Sloane went to follow him, but she staggered as she moved forwards and her eyes slowly fell to look at her stomach. She gasped as she saw her father’s knife protruding from her body.
Blood was quickly beginning to stain her shirt, and she cried out as the pain spread through her entire body. Her stomach throbbed intensely, and she felt like she was being burnt from the inside. The sword she held so tightly dropped from her hand, hitting the ground with a resounding clang. She collapsed to her knees, squinting her eyes shut as she tried to block ou
t the pain.
‘Sloane?’ she heard Rhyn call her name, but his voice sounded like a distant echo.
‘Sloane!’
She began to fall backwards, only to find herself caught up in a pair of strong arms. She could smell the woods and sweat and leather, and she immediately knew who was holding her.
‘Don’t let him get away,’ she groaned. ‘Check on Emha. I’ll be … I’ll be fine.’ The world around her was a blur though, and her thoughts were becoming muddled. She was achingly weak and exhausted. She could barely even feel the throbbing wound in her torso anymore.
Rhyn’s worried face peered down at her from above, and she saw an emotion flickering through his eyes that she’d never seen before—true fear. She tried to reach a hand out to touch him one last time, but her arm stayed stiff at her side.
‘Sloane, don’t leave me,’ he begged.
‘Never,’ her feeble voice whispered back.
The last thing Sloane saw was a lone tear running down Rhyn’s cheek before everything went black.
To be continued in book 4: The Rift War
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Also by Alexandra Moody
The Liftsal Guardians Series
The Liftsal Guardians
The Brakys’ Lair
The Oblivion Stone
The Rift War (Coming Soon)
The ARC series
Tainted
Talented
Fractured
Destined
About the Author
ALEXANDRA MOODY is an Australian author. She studied Law and Commerce in her hometown, Adelaide, before going on to spend several years living abroad in Canada and the UK. She is a serious dog-lover, double-black-diamond snowboarder and has a love/hate relationship with the gym.
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www.alexandramoody.com
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The Oblivion Stone (The Liftsal Guardians Book 3) Page 26
