“You need that. I can’t open this one.”
“Oh yeah, right. The whole special snowflake thing.” I walked over to the stone and placed my hand on it. It flashed hot against my palm and I started to yank it away.
Caius’s grip on my arm held it there. “You have to maintain contact until it finishes.”
My sarcastic reply died on my tongue as the massive blocks slowly started shifting and grinding. The whole structure seemed to shudder, making the trees growing on top of many of the stones sway. Bits of soil and moss rained down as large, arching doors appeared in the side of the stones.
The shifting of the rocks dissipated as the doors slowly opened, revealing a tunnel sloping down into the mountain. This was getting a little too Lord of the Rings.
I glanced at Caius. “If we find a balrog down there, you’re on your own.”
“If we find a balrog down there, it won’t be an issue. They’re fire demons after all,” he said, a smile spreading across his face.
I stared at him. It was the first time I’d seen him with a real smile. It did interesting things to his face. Good things.
He chuckled and waved me forward. “You have no issue pushing a demon’s patience; surely you aren’t really afraid of a balrog.”
“Balrogs are real?” Yeah, I might have squeaked a bit, sue me.
“Not exactly, but there are fire demons.” Caius walked toward the doors, drawing me along with him.
The dark tunnel beckoned. I hesitated, almost ready to toss the whole stupid journey to the wind and say forget it, before forcing myself to follow. Taking a deep breath, I pulled away from Caius and strode forward, pretending to be brave. My insides shivered as we passed through the doors, but I managed to keep up my façade on the outside. At least, I hope I did.
It was cavernous inside. Our breath made clouds in the air as the temperature dropped several degrees. When I shivered this time, it was from the icy chill, not fear. Though fear was still there, brimming beneath the surface.
The light from the huge doorway only penetrated so far and it grew steadily darker the farther we descended. Even to my eyes, it began to get murky and difficult to see. Our feet crunched on the gritty floor of the tunnel.
I trailed my fingers along the smooth stone of the wall and tried to quell the nervous tension building inside. I needed a distraction. “That night othersiding, did you know what Alaric was going to ask me to do the next day? Had you already taken the vial with my blood?”
“Yes.” His voice was hard and clipped in the semi-darkness. “I had planned to find a way to speak to you that night. Unfortunately, the young demonborn with me decided to disrupt everything.”
I didn’t know what to say to that so I switched subjects. “How do you know about Tolkien?”
“I may be a demonborn, Josephine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t experience the other side of the veil when I’m there. I’ve spent considerable time there, sometimes decades at a time. I’ve read most of the mortal’s books, seen most of their movies,” Caius answered without looking at me.
It was the first time he’d used my name since I finished the bloodbond. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased he remembered I had one or annoyed he’d called me Josephine.
“Jo.”
This time he did look at me as we walked. “What?”
“I hate the name Josephine. I prefer to be called, Jo.”
Caius snorted. “You’re a strange one, Reaper.”
And we were back to what I was, not who I was. What did I expect?
The darkness continued to close in until I couldn’t even see Caius walking next to me. I took a shaky breath and was about to ask if he could do his fire thing when flames bloomed in his hand, shedding light on our path. My sigh of relief was audible in the heavy silence.
We walked without speaking until we came to what must be a room. I couldn’t see anything beyond the circle of light created by the small fire in Caius’s palm, only sense the open space ahead of me.
Caius moved along the walls lighting the torches that were set every few feet. As the glow spread from each lit torch, a sizable room paved in large stone tiles was revealed.
A chest, inside an iron cage, rested on a short, sunken pedestal in the middle of the space. I stared at it. “I’m guessing the key is in the chest?”
“I would assume so.” Caius shrugged.
I approached the caged chest, a flush of goose pimples covering my skin from another sudden drop in temperature. Was there some specific reason it had to be so damn cold? A small circle of iron made a hole in the middle of the cage. Inside that was a handle.
Caius and I examined the cage from several angles. “It looks like it should open if I reach in and twist the handle,” I said.
He nodded. “Looks that way.”
I bent and slipped my hand through the hole, grasped the frozen handle and twisted it to the side. Glowing runes appeared on the cage. A loud click echoed through the room and a silver band closed around my wrist like a vice. I cried out as pain shot through my hand and arm.
Caius appeared at my side. Grasping the bars of the cage, he tried to pull it apart. The iron didn’t give so much as an inch. As if it reacted to Caius trying to break the cage, the manacle closed tighter, drawing another cry from me. Blood oozed around my wrist as the metal cut through my skin.
“Caius, stop! It’s cutting me!” I struggled to remain calm. It wasn’t working too well, but blind panic wasn’t going to help either.
Releasing the cage, Caius stepped back, his expression unreadable. A glance at his wrist showed a ring of bloodied skin around it. I bleed, he bleeds. Somehow that thought calmed me down, even if his skin wasn’t as maimed as mine.
My wrist started to burn like a brand had been set to it. Instinctively, I tried to jerk away, the band dug into my skin. “It burns! Why does it burn?”
Caius’s large hand closed over my forearm, his voice grim when he said, “It’s the silver.”
“Silver has never burned before.”
“You’ve never had demon blood in your system before.”
Startled I looked up at him. To my surprise, he looked genuinely sorry for my plight. He stepped back then circled me and the cage before turning to examine the walls. I tried to flex my hand and winced.
“Don’t move,” Caius said without taking his eyes off the walls.
Blinking back tears, I looked around and realized for the first time there were now runes cut into the stone of the walls. About four feet off the ground a wide area of small square stones, each with a rune cut into it, made a large pattern on the wall across from me.
Caius circled the room three times, reading the other runes. Just as he paused again in front of the last set, the stone tile I stood on dropped a couple of feet. I bit back a scream as the silver band dug into my wrist and terror gripped me.
Caius spun, his eyes narrowed as he stared at the floor beneath me. He turned back to the walls, his gaze sweeping across the runes. “We’re running out of time.”
“What?” I panted past the burning in my wrist and the sensation of needles in my hand from the restricted blood flow.
“The runes are a puzzle. Nadia said we would need to work together. Now I see why.” He motioned to the walls. “These runes weren’t here until the cage cut into your wrist. Into both our wrists. This place was making sure we are bound. Now it’s making sure we both want the same thing.”
“Fascinating,” I gasped as tears leaked down my face. “How is it going to make sure we both want the same thing?”
Caius looked at me then, his troubled eyes glowing slightly. “It’s going to try to kill you.”
“What?” I shrieked. “Why?”
“If I’m willing to let you die, then we don’t want the same thing.”
The floor under me abruptly dropped again. I screamed and grabbed the iron bars of the cage with my left hand, unable to keep the terror at bay. Did we want the same thing? Or was he ready to throw in
the towel and deal with the pain of a broken bond?
Unable to look at him, I drew in a shuddering breath and said as calmly as I could, “I’m not ready to die, Caius. Please.”
He strode across the room and took my chin in a firm grip, forcing me to look into the liquid gold of his eyes. “I am not going to let you die.”
I nodded and he released me. It was said with such conviction, I didn’t doubt him. Since all of this began, Caius was the only one who had been truthful with me. The only one standing between me and everything that wanted me dead. The only one who even attempted to teach me more about the energy I held inside.
My gaze followed him as he walked to the wall across from me with the pattern of rune-etched small squares and plucked one from it. After studying the rest of them for a moment, he took another from the wall and replaced it with the first.
The burning pain in my wrist spread all the way to my shoulder and seemed to be getting worse. “If we’re connected, why isn’t it burning you?”
Caius paused in swapping out the runes to look at me. “We will share injuries that make us bleed. Poisoning is different than a cut.”
“Poisoning?” I swallowed hard.
“Silver is deadly to demons. For half-demons, it’s a slow acting poison when it gets into the bloodstream. If the silver just cut you, the bleeding would help flush it out, though it would take longer than normal for the cut to heal. Since it remains in contact with the wound the demon in you will cause the silver to liquefy, it’s in your bloodstream now.”
“How do I get it out?” I asked then ground my teeth together to keep from sobbing as the skin around the manacle began to blister.
Caius went back to quickly moving the runes. “Once you are free of it, your body should expel the toxin.”
“Sounds like fun.” The words left me in a whispery pant and I groaned as more tears fell and the sensation of burning spread to include my back.
The tile under me dropped another couple of feet and I clutched the bars in my left hand with a white-knuckled grip. The agony in my right arm grew to such proportions I couldn’t focus enough on the tile to be terrified of it anymore.
“Hold on just a little bit longer,” Caius said.
My head fell forward as my muscles began to quiver and weakness washed through me. “I promise to stay right here.”
His chuckle floated to me on the freezing air. At least my cloak would hide the way my legs trembled with the effort of holding me up. The fire inside me spread to my other arm and across my stomach. The floor dropped under me, this time twice the amount it had the previous time.
That was going to be a problem. I didn’t know if the designer of this particular torture device hadn’t expected a short person to be the one to turn the handle, but there was only so much more the floor could drop before I wasn’t standing on anything. As it was, my hand was wrenched up over my head.
The silver cuff dug deeper into my skin, grinding into the bones of my wrist and sending a stream of blood running down my arm. It made a burning path past my armpit and down my side.
It was then I realized how cold I’d become. So consumed with the flames from the toxin raging through my veins, I hadn’t noticed a lot of my shivering came from feeling like I was standing in a block of ice. My feet were frozen nubs I couldn’t even feel anymore.
The floor dropped again. I was forced to stand on tiptoe to keep from hanging by my wrist. “Caius, hurry!”
Was he still there?
“Caius?” With supreme effort, I lifted my head. I couldn’t see over the edge of the hole I’d been slowly lowered into. Oh gods, this thing was going to bury me alive! Abject horror grabbed hold and I felt something tear in my arm as I thrashed against the band.
“Josephine!” Caius’s shout jolted me from my panic. I looked up to where he crouched at the edge of the hole. “Struggling only deepens the damage and the amount of toxin getting into your blood. I’m working as fast as I can. Be still.”
Panting from pain and the effort of my struggle, I stared up at him. His absolute calm helped settle me. Okay, he hadn’t left. I wasn’t buried yet. I could do this.
Caius disappeared from my line of sight, probably to rearrange more runes. What if he couldn’t figure out the puzzle? What if…nope I wasn’t going think along those lines anymore. I needed to keep calm.
The burning moved to my legs. My breath came in heavy pants. The pain threatened to overwhelm me as I struggled to stay on my tiptoes. Black edged my vision and my head swam. The stone beneath me groaned and dropped away. A gaping hole of pure black yawned up at me as my weight slammed against my wrist. Bones snapped, nausea rolled through me.
The pain before was nothing to the agony now. I screamed and nearly fainted. My left hand fell from the bars and I hung only from my right wrist which slid an inch as the manacle loosened. I was going to end up down there in the darkness.
The silver band released. My wrist came free and I fell only to be jerked to a stop by Caius’s hand clamped around my forearm. Why did his skin feel so hot?
“I’ve got you.” Caius pulled me up, his arm circling my waist to support me once I was up far enough. He tried to set me on my feet, but my knees wouldn’t hold. My head lolled to the side and my eyes fell shut.
“Josephine.” Caius’s voice was harsh. “You still have to get the key.”
“Mmmhum.” I tried to get my brain to work.
Caius dropped my arm and tightened his around my waist. The sharp slap across my cheek snapped me awake.
“Geez, Caius, aren’t I injured enough to suit you?”
“At least you have your snark back.” Supporting all of my weight, he shuffled me across the floor to the little blocks with runes on them. One of them was folded down to reveal a key and one of those small tubes tucked into the recess behind it. “I tried to grab it; something prevents me from touching it. It has to be you.”
“Bastards didn’t even put it in that stupid chest,” I mumbled as I reached for the key with my uninjured hand, my other one was completely useless at the moment. My hand passed through something invisible to the eye, but felt like ice crystals, and closed on the key and the little tube.
A slight rumble filled the room. I tipped my head back so I could look up at Caius. “What’s that?”
“The doors. Time to go.” He bent and scooped his other arm under my knees.
The room and tunnel blurred. Then we stood in the light of the setting sun. It was probably beautiful. I couldn’t appreciate it. My stomach rolled, the fire from the silver boiled in my veins and burned toward my middle. Caius quickly lowered me to ground.
No sooner did I touch the grass than the lava in my stomach came up in a violent rush. I shivered uncontrollably as my insides cramped so hard it took my breath away and I vomited until every muscle ached. And still, it continued.
When it finally stopped and I started to fall face first into the nasty mess, Caius caught me and I realized he’d held my hair back the entire time. He may be half-demon, but he wasn’t all bad. I barely noticed him moving me as the darkness that had been threatening since the floor fell away, swept over me and carried me into a wonderful bliss.
***
“The trust in her eyes when I promised to save her life will be forever burned into my memory.” ~Caius
Chapter 30
I woke wrapped in both my cloak and Caius’s, and still shivering. Something intensely warm burned at my back, but it was nothing to the inferno that still seared its way through every fiber of my body. The agony crawled inside my skin and stabbed at my organs like a thousand needles. Groaning, I tried to roll away, maybe if I moved I could get away from the pain.
Something tightened around my waist, holding me firmly against the heat at my back. I needed to find out what it was. My sluggish brain didn’t want to work right or respond to my commands.
After a good deal of mental effort, I opened my eyes. Not that it helped much, I was having trouble focusing. The
blurry lines of a cave entrance outlined by the sun beyond greeted my gaze.
Slowly, I convinced my eyeballs to move and found Caius’s arm locked tight around me. Huh? Why was I snugged up against him? And why in the nine hells did it feel like my brain was trying to escape through my skull?
I opened my mouth to ask, only a croak came out. I tried to wiggle away and failed miserably. Under normal circumstances, he was stronger than me. I was anything but normal right then. A newborn kitten possessed more strength than me in that moment.
“Be still, Reaper,” Caius said next to my ear.
His voice had an interesting quality, one I hadn’t noticed before. The deep timbre was like silk over stone. Why was I thinking about his voice? And in such a silly manner no less. What the hell was silk over stone supposed to be?
The sun sure looked pretty. Was that a raven sitting on a rock beyond? I couldn’t seem to keep my thoughts from fragmenting in strange directions. Caius’s arm tightened. Did I try to move away again?
“You’re burning with fever and the temperature is dropping fast.” His breath brushed across my cheek. He smelled good. “We can’t go back until you are able to defend yourself since you will likely end up in your Incoming Room.”
The Incoming Room? Not such a big deal. The Outgoing Room was right next to it. The only reason I hadn’t used it last time was because Caius was supposed to be waiting for me at the bridge. And I had needed a shower. Probably needed one now. A handed rested on my brow and I closed my eyes. Good. Mom was here, she would take care of me; she always did.
Something in my gut told me I was wrong. I lifted my lids once more, anxious to see her and confirm she was all right. Only the raven, bathed in sunlight, greeted my eyes. Tears blurred my vision as both the physical and emotional pain hit home. She wasn’t there, would never be again. I let my lids close as the heavy blanket of sleep pulled me under.
It was dark outside the cave when the roiling in my stomach woke me. I was alone in the cave. A fire burned on nothing a few inches above the ground, spreading delicious warmth I could feel it on my skin, now if I could just feel it in my bones. Actual warmth, not the lava that coursed through me while I froze.
Unveiled (Raven Daughter Book 1) Page 19
