Ascendant (The Shift Chronicles Book 4)

by Eva Truesdale

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” I said, mostly to interrupt the silence.

  He stepped into the room and walked to my side with slow, careful movements.

  “Sciath domhanda,” he said quietly, staring into the fireplace.

  “English, please?” Will said.

  “It’s an example of a natural, concentrated point of magic that some say is proof of another world that exists alongside this human one—and in this case, it’s barrier magic. Incredibly strong barrier magic.”

  “Another world?”

  “A world full of innately magical creatures. And the existence of this sort of spell, supposedly, is evidence of magic in this other world being so strong that it occasionally bleeds through and the two worlds end up overlapping….”

  “Okay, that all sounded like English,” Will said, “And yet I’m still confused.”

  Joseph hesitated, then crouched down and gingerly felt along the edge of the opening I’d created with my own magic. “But what might be hiding behind this barrier?” he asked, almost to himself. “And why did she never tell me this was here?”

  “You told me Eleanor refused to leave this village,” I thought aloud. “Even when the feral started terrorizing her…And this has to be the reason, right? Because she was helping protect whatever is in this natural hiding place? Did she hide something here?”

  He nodded absently, still studying the sciath and mumbling to himself.

  “The Solas?” Will suggested—a thought that had already occurred to me, of course, but that I was trying not to get my hopes up about.

  “Why did she have to protect it if this kind of magic is so powerful?” Kael asked. “Whatever’s inside should already be safe, right?”

  Joseph stood, shaking his head without taking his eyes off the fireplace. “It is powerful,” he said. “More powerful than any magic Alex or I could cast. But an innate magic user can usually neutralize a spell like this for a short period of time. And this particular barrier is not large, so the sacrifice that its neutralization will require shouldn’t be fatal.”

  “Shouldn’t be?” I repeated. “You realize that another way of saying shouldn’t be is could be, right?”

  He nodded calmly, as though the possibility meant nothing to him. “An innate magic user could get in there, if they really wanted to. We could get in there. There’s no telling what we might find, but…”

  Will and Kael were both frowning, their gazes not-especially-subtly drifting toward me; I knew what they were thinking. So I just went ahead and said it myself, as much as it sucked to admit: “I don’t know if I have the sort of power to sacrifice for this. And we don’t even know if it’s worth trying to fight our way in here just to—”

  “I wasn’t suggesting you do it,” Joseph said.

  “…You mean yourself, then?”

  That painful expression was back on his face, and it answered my question for me.

  “What if it aggravates the curse?”

  “What if it does?” His head tilted toward me, and there was a sudden passion in his eyes that I didn’t expect. But maybe I should have expected it. Because this was different than our encounter with the Kerry Pack, after all; risky magic to save Iain was easy enough to turn away from, but this…

  This involved her.

  And something told me he would have done just about anything to understand more about her and the things she’d kept hidden from him.

  “I made a choice to come here,” he said, his voice low and resolute. “And this isn’t going to kill me.” That last part sounded like an affirmation he was repeating to himself, trying to make himself believe in it. “Stand back, please.”

  Kael and I exchanged a look, hesitating, but in the end we both obeyed and, along with Will, we took a step backward.

  Meanwhile, Joseph’s hand reached out toward the barrier. “Once I neutralize this,” he said, “it will still be dangerous for anyone without magic in their blood to try and pass through. Just so you know—”

  His fingertips brushed the barrier.

  It lit beneath his touch. A shudder ripped through his body, and he paused and closed his eyes. He didn’t take his hand away from the wall of magic, even as his body continued to shake, and soon that barrier’s light was shifting, dancing up over his wrist and disappearing as though his skin was siphoning it in. The center of the barrier turned from opaque, to translucent, and then finally to clear. The whole process took no more than a minute. As he finished, Joseph sank to his knees, breathing hard. He braced his arms against the ground, where they still shook, but he managed to lift his face up enough to somewhat meet my gaze and say, “Go. It won’t last.”

  I nodded and stepped forward, though I kept my eyes on Joseph the whole time. “Are you going to be okay?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  He nodded.

  “Stay with him,” Kael told Will.

  “You need to stay with him too,” I said, turning and blocking Kael’s path to the stairway the broken barrier had revealed. “You heard what he said, right? You aren’t a natural magic user.”

  His eyes pulled slowly away from his father and locked on me instead. “What part of as far as I can, whatever it takes, didn’t you understand?”

  My heart felt like it was twisting, torn between how badly I wanted him to follow me like he’d said he would, and how afraid I was of what that might take from him. There was no time to argue, though.

  So I just turned and stepped through the opening. It felt warm passing through to the other side, but not painfully hot; it was like stepping from a cool house into a sweltering summer day.

  I took a deep breath, walked two steps down, and braced for Kael to follow.

  Fourteen

  imprint

  I had become incredibly good at recognizing pain in Kael’s eyes, even when he didn’t want me to see it.

  And he tried to hide it this time, too.

  He did better than most would have, maybe. But there was no hiding the way his body was trembling, trying to keep the shock of magic from overwhelming it. No hiding the way he stumbled a bit on the first few steps. No hiding his rough breathing, or the way his hands grappled unsteadily at the dirt walls for balance.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” I said, even as I started backing my way down the stairs, remembering Joseph’s words. While it lasts.

  “I’ll walk it off,” Kael muttered. “Let’s just keep moving.”

  So we did. Down what had to have been at least two dozen stairs, deeper and deeper until we could barely see the light from the house above, and the scent of moldy, damp earth started to become overwhelming. The stairs were wooden, and they creaked a low and lonely melody around us as we descended.

  “Okay, I changed my mind,” I said, afraid to speak any louder than a whisper. “You can’t go back. Because this is incredibly creepy, and I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I just wish we knew where here was. Can’t see a damn thing...”

  Neither could I. It was weird, because our kind normally saw in the dark about as well as a human could see in the day; I guess this was more than just the regular darkness of night, though. This was pitch black, couldn’t-even-see-my-fingers-in-front-of-my-face kind of dark.

  “Hang on—” I summoned a bit of fire through my palm and controlled it like a torch before us, circling it around the room and trying not to jump at the shadows it created. Kael held tightly to my free hand, and we searched the room together, noting a few strange markings on the dirt walls but not much else.

  My stomach was sinking, my whole self feeling deflated. I was about to suggest we go back up and make sure Joseph was okay.

  And then Kael whispered, “Look at that.”

  He pulled me around, and I found myself facing a small indent in the side of the wall—like an enclosed shelf that someone had dug into the dirt. It looked like it was a couple of feet deep. And there was a thin, unassuming wooden box toward the back, half covered by more dirt.

&n
bsp; “I’m having an ugly sense of déjà vu,” I breathed.

  “Really? You’ve been here before?”

  “The Blood Relic that Shane had. It was in a little box, too.” My heart skipped several beats. “I don’t know if this is a good idea. I was serious, what I said to Iain…I still have nightmares about the way being around that kind of magic made me feel. What it did to me…”

  “You’re stronger now than you were back then.”

  But strong enough? I kept the thought to myself, but Kael’s hand squeezed mine a little more tightly, as if he’d heard it—or guessed it—anyway.

  “We’re already here, now,” he said. “I’ll grab it. Just hold the light steady so I can see what I’m doing.”

  I hesitated, but finally nodded as he gave my hand another squeeze. “Be careful,” I said, lifting my fingers—and the floating flame they were cupped around—toward the shelf’s opening. I held my breath as Kael reached inside, dusted the box off, and then wiggled it free of the earth that it had settled down into.

  He pulled it out slowly and held it between us. “Well,” he said after we’d studied it for a moment, “no booby traps, it seems.”

  I casted a wary look around us all the same. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Well, let’s think positive, how about?”

  “When did you become such a reckless optimist?”

  He laughed quietly. “I’m blaming it on all the time I’ve spent with you.”

  I grinned a small, cautious grin in the flickering firelight as I dusted a bit more dirt from the top of the box.

  “Sense anything?” Kael asked.

  “It’s faint, but…I don’t know. I think it feels similar to what I felt near the relic, but it’s not nearly as overpowering. Maybe you were right about me being stronger? Maybe I’m just controlling the way my blood reacts to it better?” I finished wiping the dirt away, and my gaze settled on the front of the box, where a rusted metal lock was fastened. Its keyhole was a strange, sideways oval sort of shape. And it was locked, of course; I halfheartedly tried to pry the box open with no luck, before Kael tucked it under his arm and motioned back toward the stairs.

  “Let’s get back to the others,” he suggested. “We’ll figure it out together.”

  I could hear worry creeping into his voice. And I wondered how much of it had to do with what sort of shape he was afraid Joseph might have been in, so I quickly agreed.

  The barrier had pulled itself partly back together by the time we reached it. Its translucent glimmer was sharp and sinister, and I could feel the energy building around it, rolling toward us in waves. It was still thin enough that I could easily see through it, but I didn’t see anyone on the other side.

  “I can try to neutralize it, maybe?” I wasn’t worried about pushing past it myself, but I was afraid Kael might not be able to shake off a second trip.

  He disagreed, though. “Save your strength,” he said. “We’ve walked through worse together, right?”

  I nodded, albeit reluctantly. Because he had a point.

  Still, walking through it hurt this time.

  Not excruciating for me, but not exactly pleasant, either. As I emerged into the empty house on the other side, it was less stepping out into a warm and sunny day and more like I suddenly had a nasty sunburn all over my entire body. Once I was through, I remained completely still until the scorching sensation started to fade. I was so distracted by the pain that I didn’t notice, at first, that Kael had followed right behind me.

  He’d followed, and then he’d fallen against the wall, and that was were he stayed for a frighteningly long time. He was clutching his heart. I stumbled my way toward him, repeatedly calling his name.

  He didn’t answer.

  The few seconds it took me to reach him felt like forever. When I finally did, I dropped to my knees and tried to get him to look at me; I cupped my hand against the side of his face, and he seemed to lean into it at least, but it was a long time before he answered my pleading voice with a cough and a weak I’m fine.

  “You’re an idiot,” I muttered, pulling his head against me with a sigh. “I should have gone alone.”

  “I never would have let you go alone,” he said, wincing from even the quiet effort of speaking.

  “Whatever, just stop talking, alright? Relax. Heal. I…I don’t like seeing you like this.”

  And then, of all the things the idiot could have done while I was holding him this way, panicking at the thought of him never being okay again, he laughed.

  “There is literally nothing funny about this moment,” I said.

  “I was right, wasn’t I?” he asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It never gets easier.”

  My thoughts were rattled, and it took me a moment to understand. But when I finally remembered our conversation from a few nights ago, I just shook my head. “Stop being stupid,” I said. “I’m not worried about losing you, and you shouldn’t be worried about losing me. Reckless optimism, stupid bravery and all that, remember? It’s just who we are; neither of us is going anywhere.”

  It was a lie, of course. I was beyond worried, and I’m sure he knew it, but he just buried his head closer to my heartbeat and said, “Okay.”

  My mouth felt dry from all those lies, and I had to swallow several times before I managed to say, “Let me look at your curse mark.” I laid him back against the wall, and my hands fumbled for the zipper of his jacket. But I only got it halfway undone before his hand was over mine, holding it still.

  “This is more important,” he said, lifting the box we’d retrieved in his other hand. “I’ve felt worse, okay? And you’re right: I’m not going anywhere. I just want to rest for a minute.”

  I glared at him. But, really, he looked too tired and pitiful to argue with.

  And if I was being completely honest, part of me was afraid of what that mark looked like right now, anyway.

  “Fine.” I leaned in and gently kissed him before getting slowly to my feet. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

  “I promise you moving is the last thing on my mind right now.”

  I grabbed the box and quickly found the others outside, gathered beneath a tree that was shielding them from the fine, misty rain.

  “He seemed to feel better the further he got from that weird barrier,” Will explained, nodding at Joseph. He was still on the ground, but at least he was sitting up and looking more alert than he was when we’d left him.

  Thinking that moving outside might help Kael, too, I asked Vanessa and Eamon to go to him while I knelt beside Joseph and held out the box. “We found this stored in a wall downstairs,” I explained.

  His eyes slowly moved over it; he looked like he was still having a hard time focusing. But when he finally managed it, he drew in a sharp breath, and then took it from me with slightly trembling hands. “I know this,” he said quietly. His fingers traced the simple design carved into the top—a weathered image of a shield with a sword and a crescent moon in its center, and an unreadable inscription of strange letters curving over top of it. “My family’s insignia,” he went on, “this box was given to me by my grandfather, along with a ring. And I gave them both to Eleanor.”

  “A ring…” My gaze fell on that strangely-shaped keyhole again, and I suddenly understood; I unhooked the chain around my neck and slid the ring from it, held it in front of that opening just to test it.

  It looked like a perfect fit.

  “Go ahead,” Joseph urged.

  Will knelt beside me as the others emerged from the house, and I carefully pressed the band of white gold into the lock. It slid in with only a little bit of resistance. There was a soft click, and I immediately felt fresh energy seeping out, surging up around my hands and making my skin itch.

  I flipped the lid back in one quick burst of courage.

  The box was empty.

  There was only an indention in the velvety lining of the box’s bottom; a teardrop shape in the v
ery center, with the outline of a vine-like design snaking around it. I touched it lightly with my fingertips, and that itching in my skin grew more intense; it was obvious that whatever once rested here—whatever left this mark behind— had been incredibly powerful.

  I felt the others crowding closer to get a better look, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the box.

  Everyone was silent until Will finally cleared his throat and said, “Well, that was anti-climatic.”

  There was a tremor of nervous laughter and murmurs of agreement—from everyone except me.

  I was deathly terrified and silent.

  Because I recognized that imprint, that pattern. I knew what had made it.

  I finally managed to swallow hard, to lift my gaze and find Joseph’s. “Was this it, then? Was the Solas shaped like this?”

  He gave me a curious look, obviously confused by the weak tone of my voice. “That seems to be the case. It’s only a trace, now— as I’m sure you can feel— but the energy matches what I would expect from the Solas. So at least we have a solid clue to follow now, yes? It should make tracking it easier. Quicker.”

  “I already know where it is.”

  “…What?”

  “I know who has it.” I glanced around at each of their shocked faces. Hesitated on Kael’s, since I could see the understanding slowly dawning in his eyes, as dull and exhausted and unfocused as they were. Because he’d seen that pattern before, too. Or at least I thought he had.

  But maybe I was going crazy, or just misremembering things?

  God, how I wished I was going crazy.

  I apparently wasn’t, though, because Kael closed his eyes a second later and shook his head, as if he didn’t want to believe that it was true. That we’d had it in our possession once, but no more. “That necklace you picked up at your father’s grave that day…” He trailed off.

  I nodded.

  “But you don’t still have it, do you?”

  “No.” The word trembled from my lips. I closed the box and clutched it against me, unable to look at the emptiness inside it any more. “I don’t have it, because I gave it back to Lora right before she left.”