Eternal Palace (Sexcraft Chronicles Book 4)

by Edmund Hughes

  Hal took another slow breath, trying not to wonder about how many he had left before the air went stale. It wasn’t hard for him to channel his sapphire essence. He used his sapphire magic rarely enough that the heartgem was practically full of it.

  He concentrated and cast Wave Blast, pushing it up and out in an attempt to clear snow off his head and upper body. The snow moved, but instead of exploding outward, it compressed, much as the water did into a singular pillar when he used the spell under normal temperatures. Hal felt despair creeping into his heart.

  He was going to die.

  The thought echoed in his head, resonating with his fear. He was going to die, and his friends were going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it. He’d failed both himself and them when it mattered most. He would have given anything, sacrificed himself, even, if it meant getting a second chance to do right by them.

  Something pinched his ankle. Hal almost tried kicking out reflexively before stopping himself. The fact that there was room under one of his feet for him to kick out was a new development. He stilled himself and tried to wiggle his head, freeing his ears of enough snow to listen.

  Someone was digging from underneath him. He could feel a hand moving against his calf now, trying to shift snow around so he could fall downward. He frowned. He was positive that escape lay above him, in the direction of his head, given the path the water had taken when he’d cast his ruby spell.

  There wasn’t anything he could do to communicate that information to whoever it was. All he could do is wait, which he did, with more patience than he realized he had. The sensation tickled slightly, hands working around various parts of his body and digging to free them.

  When his butt and midriff were free, Hal began to twist, pulling his arms and shoulders inward. It only took a second or two before he slid loose and slipped down, falling into a hollow that had been carefully dug into the snow.

  This wasn’t dug. This was… melted?

  “Halrin,” said Cadrian. “It’s me.”

  CHAPTER 41

  It was dark, almost pitch black, but Hal could make out Cadrian’s outline. He felt around with his gloved hands, reconfirming the ice slick edges of the space she’d melted that told him she’d used her ruby magic to create the space.

  But how? The snow should have collapsed down on her as soon as she melted enough of it, not to mention what would happen to the water. Hal took a step forward and reached, feeling what was overhead. It wasn’t snow or ice, but something harder, something solid.

  “Rock Spire,” said Cadrian. “It’s a new spell I’ve been working on. I used it to make a small alcove as soon as the avalanche began.”

  “The others…” said Hal. “Where are they?”

  “We need to find them as soon as possible,” said Cadrian. “Whose position do you remember better? Think about where you were standing right before the snow hit us.”

  Hal forced himself to think. He’d saved Laurel from one of the valkyries. She’d been standing next to him, to his right, further from the avalanche than he’d been, when it hit.

  “I… remember where she was,” said Hal. “But I lost my orientation when I started tumbling.”

  He felt Cadrian take him by the shoulders. She turned him to the side slightly.

  “There,” she said. “You’re facing north, which was the direction we were heading when we were ambushed.”

  “Is that all we have to go on?” asked Hal. “What we can remember about where the others were? What if I dig up one of the valkyries, instead?”

  “Then the situation goes from bad to worse,” said Cadrian.

  Hal shook his head. “Let me try to use my magic. I might be able to melt all of this snow with Burning Hand.”

  “It’s too much for you,” said Cadrian. “And if you did it without being careful, you’d drench all of us and we’d die anyway. There are other issues we’ll be dealing with, even if we make it out of this avalanche.”

  Hal gritted his teeth in frustration.

  “Halrin, we do not have time to discuss this,” she continued. “If you want Laurel to live, go find her.”

  He nodded, spurred into action by her blunt words. Cadrian had dug up to rescue him at an angle, and he was able to climb up through the tunnel left behind and get back to near where he’d been.

  He paced himself, at first. With each passing second, he started to feel a little more sure that he’d never find Laurel. That his last memory of her would be of her scream, and of her attempt at ruby magic. What was the last thing he’d actually said to her?

  Enough. This is too morbid of a line of thinking for right now.

  He started digging faster, clawing at the snow. The urge to use his ruby to melt through it faster was almost overwhelming. He would do it, if it came down to it, regardless of whether it drenched them all and left them doomed. If it meant saving Laurel, even for only a few more minutes, he would do it.

  By some miracle of chance, it didn’t come to that. Hal dug loose the edge of a fancy-looking boot and recognized it immediately. He gave her ankle a squeeze, much as Cadrian had done with him, and then started digging faster.

  Laurel didn’t shift to aid him, as he had when he’d been freed. She didn’t move at all. Dread gnawed at Hal as cleared snow from her legs, and then her torso. He used all his strength to pull her free and down into their hollow refuge, hoping that she’d perk up.

  She didn’t, and as soon as Hal had laid her down and taken his gloves off to check her over, he understood why. Snow had gotten into her mouth and one of her nostrils. He freed it as quickly as he could, trying not to panic. She let out a shallow cough, but her breathing was ragged, and she didn’t regain consciousness.

  “Laurel…” he whispered. “It’s okay. We’re going to get out of here.”

  He could hear Cadrian moving on the other side of the snow cave.

  “I have Zoria,” said Cadrian. “She’s unconscious, but alive.”

  “Laurel is the same,” said Hal. “We need to get them out of here and warm them up.”

  “It isn’t that simple,” said Cadrian.

  Hal glared at her, though it was a pointless gesture in the dark. “What do you mean, it’s not that simple? We can melt our way out of here now. If you use your magic to make a channel in the earth, we don’t even have to worry about getting wet.”

  “And if Tessianna and her valkyries are watching the snow outside?” asked Cadrian. “What’s to stop them from attacking us as soon as we leave? Or worse, what if they trigger a second avalanche, and trap us deep enough to eliminate all possible hope of escape?”

  He scowled. He was still holding Laurel in his lap, and he pressed his bare hands to her cheeks. She was scarily cold, and he did what he could to make a bit of heat from the rubbing and friction to warm her face.

  “So… what?” asked Hal. “You want us to wait down here?”

  “Yes,” said Cadrian. “For an hour. Any longer would be too dangerous. They’ll have no doubt about our deaths once nightfall begins to draw near.”

  Hal took a slow breath. He nodded, before realizing that she probably couldn’t see it.

  “Alright,” he said. “We’ll wait.”

  Time passed more slowly than he realized it could. He felt like he was watching Laurel and Zoria die, both unconscious and half frozen from the cold. He contemplated taking off his own winter clothing to attempt to give Laurel more protection, but it wouldn’t do enough without her body putting out enough heat of its own, and it would probably only get him killed.

  “I can’t just do nothing,” said Hal. “I’m going to enter a Ruby Trance, and try to hold a fireball in place to warm them.”

  “No,” said Cadrian. “You need to save your ruby essence. I’ll do it.”

  He suspected that Cadrian might also be afraid of him losing control, pushing past a Ruby Trance and into Ruby Ascension, but he didn’t say anything about it. It was probably justified, given recent events.

&nb
sp; Cadrian used her spark ring and sword to cast a fire spell, entering a Ruby Trance and illuminating the tiny snow cave. Her eyes shone with crimson light, and the thrum of power emanating from her made her look almost inhuman.

  The fireball didn’t give off a lot of heat, but Hal positioned Zoria and Laurel so they were on either side of her. He knew it was taking an immense amount of concentration from Cadrian to hold the spell, and he wondered if there was anything he could do to make it easier for her.

  They waited in silence, both recognizing the danger of the situation they were in. There was no guarantee that they’d be able to melt their way out, if there was more snow on top of them than they’d realized. Hal’s mind played out what would happen in the scenario where they couldn’t escape, how they would die slow deaths, freezing in the cold, watching the life snuff out of each other.

  “It’s time,” said Cadrian. She grunted and released her spell, falling to one knee as she left her Ruby Trance.

  “Are you okay?” asked Hal.

  “Fine,” she said. “I just… used a lot of my stored ruby essence.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered slightly. Hal knew that feeling all too well. It was intoxicating, using ruby magic like that, and left a person feeling drunk on passion.

  “We’ll head out this way,” said Cadrian, tapping a spot on one of the compacted walls of snow. “If we melt through at an upward angle, we’ll come out on the side furthest from White Mountain, just in case Tessianna is still watching.”

  Hal nodded. “Is it doable with our regular ruby magic, or…?”

  Or will I need to enter Ruby Ascension?

  It was dark again, and he couldn’t see Cadrian’s face, but he sensed what her expression must have looked like from her body language.

  “I don’t think it will be enough,” she said. “Halrin… You have to use your full strength here. Carefully, without losing control. Stop as soon as you feel your heartgem running low on ruby essence.”

  Hal nodded. He felt confident, though perhaps more of a resigned certainty. There was only one way forward, one route of escape. One chance at saving Laurel and Zoria.

  He took a slow breath and felt for his remaining ruby essence. He let himself feel his anger and passion, dipping into it with his toes first, as though he was testing the water’s temperature in a swimming pond.

  Slowly, he let the emotions take hold of him. The trickle of feelings became a rushing flood, pushing him forward and releasing limits on his power. Hal saw red, and he felt the tickle of heat as serpents of flame began to twist and coil around his body and limbs.

  The light emitted off the flames dancing over him illuminated Cadrian’s face. She looked more beautiful than Hal had ever seen her before, and he felt a powerful, unwanted surge of lust. He breathed, forcing himself to focus, and turned his attention toward their escape.

  Hal extended his hand outward, carefully drawing ruby essence from his heartgem to form a spell. He cast Burning Hand, keeping the size of the magic limited. The hand he created was four or five times as wide across as his own, but smaller than the ones he’d used in the past, and more efficient.

  “Good,” said Cadrian. “Start melting the tunnel. Make sure you add in rivets, like stairs, so it isn’t too slick and icy for us to traverse. I’ll shift the ground to handle the water.”

  Hal felt a small tremor from underneath them. He focused on his breathing and pushed the Burning Hand forward, melting through snow as much as digging through it. It felt powerful and desperate at the same time. A spell of uncontrolled power, and he was using it as a last resort to melt through a tomb made of fallen snow.

  The process felt like it went on for hours, but it couldn’t have been longer than a minute or two, in actuality. Hal’s Burning Hand broke through to the surface just as his heartgem ran empty. He left Ruby Ascension and staggered back, feeling like the breath had just been stolen from his lungs.

  No, not the breath from my lungs. The life, from my chest.

  “Perfect,” said Cadrian. “Take Laurel and slide her along behind you. I’ll follow after you with Zoria.”

  The tunnel was only wide enough around for them to pull themselves along on their stomachs. Hal had done a good job fashioning steps into it, and he was able to slide up along his back while hugging Laurel tight to his front.

  He felt a huge weight fall off his shoulders as he emerged onto the surface, only then realizing how much his claustrophobia and fear of being trapped had been affecting him. Tessianna and her valkyries, at least the ones left alive, were nowhere in sight. It was late afternoon, and the sun was setting fast.

  Cadrian pushed her way from the tunnel, with Zoria in tow. She looked worried, more worried than Hal had ever seen her before, and he understood why. It didn’t matter if they were above ground or below, once night arrived. The cold would kill them, regardless.

  CHAPTER 42

  “There,” said Cadrian. “Poking out of the snow. It’s one of our packs.”

  Hal nodded. They’d set Laurel and Zoria down, stacking their cold, shivering forms on top of each other in a desperate attempt to capture their dwindling body heat. Hal shuffled through the waist-deep snow, grabbing the pack that had pulled loose from one of them during the avalanche.

  It was his own pack, and he frowned as he considered what was inside of it. A lantern, a small amount of food, one sleeping bag, and most unfortunately, no tent. Cadrian had been the one carrying the tent in her pack on that day, and it was what would decide if they survived the oncoming night or froze to death in the snow.

  “We might not be able to find it in time,” said Hal. “What happens then?”

  Cadrian didn’t hear him. She’d already run off to investigate something else poking out of the snow. She walked over once she’d freed it, scowling as she looked through its contents.

  “It’s a bag that one of the valkyries was carrying,” she said. “It will have a sleeping bag in it. Perhaps a few other things we can use. It’ll have to do, for now.”

  She pulled it on over her shoulder and set about lifting Zoria. Hal did the same with his pack and picked up Laurel.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  Cadrian didn’t say anything. She didn’t know, or at least, she wasn’t saying if she did.

  They moved as fast as they could with all they had to carry, which was pitifully slow compared to the speed of the setting sun. Cadrian led him back toward the base of the White Mountain, and then along its northeast edge. She was staring at the rocky slope and cliff faces, searching for something.

  “There,” she said. “The shadowy spot in the distance.”

  “A cave?” asked Hal.

  She nodded. “We might be able to make it through the night. Assuming we can double up on the sleeping bags and manage enough ruby magic to stay warm.”

  Hal could sense the lack of optimism in her tone, but it was more of a chance than they’d had an hour earlier. He took the lead, hurrying toward the cave and hoping that Laurel wasn’t too cold to be beyond saving.

  The cave was small, but well-shaped for their purposes. The entrance required him to hunch over, but it opened up beyond that, expanding outward to the size of one of the bedrooms back in the homestead. There were a few scattered animal bones that suggested that something else had used it for shelter long before their arrival.

  “Get the sleeping bags out,” said Cadrian. “I still have a little ruby essence left. I’ll take the first turn.”

  “You’re serious about this plan?” asked Hal. “You think we could use our magic to keep it warm enough in here?”

  Cadrian stared at him in the dark.

  “It will give us a chance,” she said. “But it depends on how far we’re willing to go. How much saving them and surviving means to you.”

  Her words were ominous, perhaps more ominous than they needed to be. He knew what she was talking about. He knew that they would need to replenish their ruby essence, likely sooner
, rather than later. He knew what that meant, given that they were the only two members of the party alert and active.

  It made him feel sick to his stomach. It was a betrayal of his family’s memory, one he would never be able to forget. And he knew he would do it without hesitation, to save his friends. It wasn’t even a question of what he wanted.

  “Right,” said Hal. He paused, realizing something. “There’s one other option available to us. I still have the memory crystal with me. I can enter Jessa’s sanctum and ask her for advice, and get a sense of where we are, how much further we need to go.”

  If we’re close to what we’re looking for, we might not be in such bad shape, after all.

  “Do it,” said Cadrian. She turned away from him, and Hal saw a fireball appear in the center of the cave as she entered a Ruby Trance and focused her essence. It gave off a pitiful amount of heat, but it was better than nothing.

  Hal took a minute to pull out the sleeping bags and put Laurel and Zoria into them, first. The elven sleeping bag was strange, made of thinner material than he would have expected and stretchy to the touch. He decided to use his own and have them double up, which he hoped would let them warm faster.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “Can you hear me? Laurel? Zoria?”

  Zoria stirred slightly, but she didn’t say anything. Laurel’s eyes flicked open for an instant.

  “Hal…” she muttered. “I’m… so cold.”

  “We’re going to get you warmed up,” said Hal. “It’s okay.”

  “Take their clothes off.” Cadrian spoke in a strained, curt voice.

  “What?”

  “Before you put them into the sleeping bag,” she said. “They’ll warm up faster if they’re in skin to skin contact. You can stuff the clothes into the space left in the bag, if there is any, to help insulate and trap their heat.”

  Hal nodded slowly. It felt a little wrong to undress the women, as out of it as they were, but he knew Cadrian wouldn’t have suggested it if it wouldn’t make a difference.