The stone at my neck pulsed with warmth again, and then I had a sudden idea. I leaned forward so that my mouth was inches from the wall and released a long exhale upon the surface. A large Draconi symbol glittered to life in the rock, and when I reached out to touch it, my hand slipped through as if the stone were an illusion. I stuck my hand in a little farther, and it disappeared completely from sight. I shut my eyes and stepped through. There was a rush of cold air and the sound of sharp, layered whispers, and when I opened my eyes, I was on the other side.
I was standing inside a small chamber no larger than a bedroom. Torches sprang to life all around the room, and right in the center was a solid iron pedestal. Seated on top of that pedestal was a small black box.
My heart sped as I approached it, feeling a strange pull to the object in the center of the room. It had a hold on me, guiding me forward, beckoning me closer. There was a Draconi symbol embedded on the lid of the coffer in large rubies, which had been set in shining gold prongs. Runes and other symbols had been etched all over the box, sliding over the surface like they were living things.
For a moment, I just stood there staring down at it. I found it strange that I should have had so many dreams about this box, but none of my dreams had ever shown me something so extraordinary and opulent and magical. The rubies seemed to glow in the firelight, and the runes shimmered with faint light as they slid over the surface—enchantments long since put in place by the wizard in the world up above. And I could feel the power. Great, immeasurable power bursting from beneath the lid. Centuries of waiting, like a genie trapped in its bottle. I reached out to touch the box, but the moment my fingertips grazed the surface, my necklace burned hot.
There was something different about this burning, and I thought it felt more like a warning. But what would it be warning me about? I looked all around the room, but it was empty, save me and the torches and the pedestal. I studied the pedestal a little more closely. The top of the pedestal was perfectly flat, except for a slight, square platform upon which the box was seated. Ah. It was weighted.
I would need something to replace the box with, but how could I do that having no idea how much the box actually weighed? Arioch had said it stored a breath, which meant I'd only have to account for the weight of the box. But then I remembered he had also said something about ancestry records. Considering the size of the box, either the records weren't very long, or the font would require use of a magnifying glass.
Either way, I hadn't brought anything with me, other than my dagger and necklace—neither of which I was about to leave behind. There had to be something around this room…
Sure enough, I noticed a small piece of ironwork hanging from the back of the pedestal. It was shaped in the Draconi "D." I lifted it from its small hook, shoved my dagger in my belt and carefully set down my torch. After a slight pause and a silent pep-talk, I made the swap and held my breath.
Nothing happened.
I exhaled slowly and turned my attention to the box in my hands. The box itself couldn't have weighed more than a few pounds, and the runes shimmered more brightly now, moving faster as they slid beneath my fingers. Did I open it? Or did I wait for Arioch? He had said I would need a spell to reestablish the connection. But couldn't I at least look inside? I thought that I should probably wait for Arioch, but my hands seemed to have a different idea. My thumb lifted the small latch, as if someone else were guiding it there, and my fingers raised the lid.
A burst of air exploded in my face so strongly it threw me back against the wall. My insides churned while my head and heart pounded. The stone burned so hot against my skin I thought it might melt right through me, and there were voices. So many voices, as if I'd suddenly been thrown into a crowd where everyone was talking at me, images blurring like I was spinning in circles, and then I couldn't breathe. I wheezed and coughed, staggering on all fours, trying to inhale. Trying to blot out the visions and commotion. Trying to gather myself. After what felt like forever, the stone cooled, the chaos disappeared, and I could breathe again. But I felt strange, shaky and lightheaded as if I hadn't eaten and my body was feeding on adrenaline. I remembered the box and looked around for it. It lay on the ground in front of me, open, and I peered inside.
It was empty, save a small, tightly wound scroll resting innocently at the bottom.
Magnifying glass, then.
I quickly shut the lid, but the runes no longer shimmered or slid over the surface. Well, I couldn't worry about that. I still had an entire crypt to traipse right back through. So I shoved the box vertically into my cloak pocket, grabbed my dagger, and headed back. Through the tunnels and up the ramp, up the corridor of corpses, my footfalls faster and faster the closer I was to the exit. I couldn't believe it. I'd gotten what I'd come for. It hadn't been so bad, considering, save the thousands of sleeping kytharii. I reached the large chamber of kytharii, basking in my success; I could almost see the opened sarcophagus and the iron doors and the green landscape beyond where Thad would be waiting. I started across the floor of the chamber, my excitement and adrenaline flowing at full speed, and that's when I tripped.
I'd been so focused on my exit and showing off my find that I hadn't noticed the rock jutting out of the floor. I fell forward, bracing myself for impact with my hands while also trying not to skewer myself with my dagger or burn my face with my torch. The force of the impact shot through my arms and I toppled over, holding my knife and torch out in front of me as my shoulder collided with the ground, crunching on something.
My eyes widened in horror. The necklace.
I scrambled to my feet and little pieces of stone slid down my leathers.
Oh, no.
I held my breath, my heart thumping, but the dome was quiet as a tomb should be. Relieved, I tiptoed forward, and then I heard movement.
Soft stirs rustled throughout the hollow dome, echoing all around me. Overcome with cold terror, I sprinted. My boots pounded on the stone floor, through the pathway and up the narrow corridor, praying my torch didn't burn out. Yips and eerie calls echoed from deeper in the darkness, as death and malevolence swelled behind me. I would never survive so many, and Thad…
I pounded up the steps, sending silent praises that the sarcophagus was still open, and I smacked right into one of Arioch's wards. I fell back a few steps, cursing to myself. The stone had allowed me to pass through last time, but I no longer had the stone. Arioch's wards would hold me inside like invisible walls, just as they had held the kytharii in for centuries. And the sounds were getting closer.
I had to get out of here. Panicking, I pressed my hands forward, feeling the edges of Arioch's invisible ward. It was hard as rock, though I could see right through it. There had to be a way to break it down. I glanced back down the dark cave. I could hear the light footfalls of the kytharii padding down the stone, scraping and clawing the rock as they neared, sounding like a horde of rats. My lungs heaved as I frantically pushed against the surface of the ward like I might physically press it back. My teeth grit as I strained, then in a moment of desperation I reached down inside of me, touching the warmth that sizzled there. Heat flooded my lungs and burned down my arms, and in a flash of blue light, the air before me convulsed. A blast of heat blew over my skin, and the ward was gone.
I gasped my relief, but the snarls behind me pushed me ahead. I sprinted up the stairs, skipping two and three at a time, hearing yips and growls right behind me. Once I reached the sarcophagus's opening, I spun, searching for the button on the lid. Glowing blue eyes flickered at the base of the stair right as I found it and pushed it in. Teeth gnashed and deep gurgling growls filled the stairwell as the kytharii bounded up the stairs on all fours. The sarcophagus rumbled, sliding back over the hole. I wanted it to move faster; the kytharii were almost at the opening.
The sarcophagus closed right as the first of them reached the opening, stone sliding shut, cutting off cadaverous hands and arms. Angry screams and growls echoed beneath the stone and I could hear them clawin
g and raking at the rock. Something gripped my ankle, and I looked down.
One of the dismembered hands of the kytharii had clawed its way to me and wrapped around my ankle, trying to pull me back to the sarcophagus. I screamed and hacked at it with Nightshade. The hand finally released my ankle, but then the other pieces of arms and hands came after me, too, crawling and writhing their way like worms. I used Nightshade to cut them down, and then I exploded out of the cave entrance.
Thad heard me and turned around, looking bewildered. "Rook, what are you—"
"We have to get out of here!" I screamed.
A loud, bone-chilling cry of hundreds trembled from the tower.
"Hellfire, Rook!" Thad's eyes bulged like a frog's. "I thought your stone—"
"It broke!" I yelled. When I caught up to him, I grabbed his hand and pulled him after me.
"How!?"
"I fell, okay?!"
"But I thought those things were trapped down there!"
"I broke down the wards."
"You…what?"
"I couldn't get back out!"
He cursed under his breath, panting. "I hope you at least got what you were looking for!"
"It's in my cloak!" I yelled. We hadn't gone more than a few hundred yards when a shadow burst from behind a bush and a fist collided with my stomach. I tumbled forward, choking on my breath, while more hands grabbed my arms and legs, pinning me in place.
Part Four:
Karth
"Great power bestows great responsibility,
And great responsibility bestows great power."
~A Daloren Proverb
Stefan
How had it come to this?
The lush and dramatic landscape of Valdon was covered with black, like a great veil blanketing the land. But this veil did not bring warmth. This veil brought a deadly cold, infusing the air with the putrid scent of death, and fear permeated the city like a disease.
The shadowguard stood outside of our walls, tens of thousands strong. They did not attack. No, they would starve us out in order to take this castle intact. Eris wanted this castle as an example. We did not have the men to fight him, either.
"Still no word from Lord Commodus?" I asked.
"No, your highness," said Headmaster Ambrose. "However, I imagine if your request involved your sister's—"
I slammed a fist on my desk, rattling the quill in its ink, but effectively silencing the headmaster from expounding any further upon his point. "What of Campagna?"
Headmaster Ambrose stood like a statue of himself. "Nothing, your highness."
The unease in the room thickened. A few of the Aegises shifted and even Aegis Cicero Del Conte looked dismayed. It was rare for him to show anything other than hope, and seeing him without it was unnerving in a way I could not bear. "Excuse me a moment," I said to them, and I crossed the room and walked swiftly out the door.
Guards jumped aside, making way for me as I stormed down the long corridor. When I reached the double doors to the king's chambers, his guards took one look at me and stepped out of the way.
I pushed the doors in to a dark room.
"Grandfather." I looked around his empty chamber; there was a single candle lit upon his nightstand. The sheets of his huge bed had been thrown back in a sloppy heap and his pillows lay in a pile on the floor. Books were thrown all over the place, and papers were jumbled in a corner. "Grandfather, this has to end," I continued. "Your kingdom is at war, and you are hiding from it like a child."
The insult felt awkward in my mouth. I'd never spoken thus to my grandfather, but if he meant to be respected, he needed to act respectable. I thought Daria would be proud of me.
A shadow moved in my periphery, just near the window. It separated itself from the thick draperies like a phantom. "Get out," grumbled a raspy voice.
"I will not," I said. "Pretending Lord Eris and his shadowguard do not exist will not make it so. Grandfather, if there is something you know that could help us—anything about your son—I need you to—"
"He is not my son!" King Darius stepped out into the halo of light. His hair was tangled and matted and the skin hung loosely from his face, his pale eyes bulged and the hollows of his cheeks deepened in a way that made him skeletal.
"If he is not your son, then who is he?" I snapped.
King Darius stared at me a moment, a fire blazing in those pale eyes, and then my grandfather slumped in the seat of the window, burying his face in his hands. Weeping.
"Grandfather." I approached him slowly. "Please. I understand your sorrow, but—"
"You do not…" He sobbed into his hands. "You do not understand. No one…my fault. All my fault. I should've seen it. I should've taken the time…I might have prevented…" His breath shuddered. "I would have both my sons."
I inhaled very slowly. "Grandfather, I need to know how to stop Lord Eris. I need to know how to save this city."
Before the words were out, Grandfather was shaking his head. "You can't, Stefan." His voice was a faint whisper. "Thanks to my father, Eris is the most powerful dark mage this world has ever seen."
Chapter 24
The Power of the Dark
"Search her," said a woman's voice.
At first I'd thought Thad had betrayed me, but then I realized Thad was in a similar predicament. His arms were pinned behind his back and his left eye was already starting to swell and turn purple.
"Let…go of me!" I screamed, trying to writhe free, but all of my extremities had been efficiently secured to the ground.
A pair of rough hands felt around my body while other hands held me down. "Found it," said a masculine voice as he pulled the box from my cloak. The voice belonged to Lorimer Faris. I grunted and jerked but to no avail, and the look he gave me was grimly sardonic.
Lorimer handed the box to a woman with long, elegant fingers and lustrous brown hair that spilled in a dark river over a cloak colored like midnight. Her features were sharp and aristocratic, and they hardened with purpose as she studied the box. I'd never seen the woman before, but there was something oddly familiar about her warm brown eyes.
Satisfied, she shoved the box in the folds of her expensive cloak, while eyeing Thad with deep loathing.
"Hey, Ma," Thad smirked.
Ma…? This woman—whoever she was—was Thad's mother?
The woman's robes fluttered behind her as she walked over to him, then promptly smacked him hard across the face. The slap cut through the air like the crackle of lightning. "You are no son of mine," she hissed.
"Ow!" Thad flexed his jaw. "That hurt!"
The woman then moved to my side, gazing down at me as one might gaze down at vermin. Wisps of hair floated about her face—a face with the terrible beauty of an evil queen from fairytales—but again, I was struck by her eyes. There was something familiar about them I couldn't quite put a finger on.
"Thank you, Daria," she said in a full and authoritative voice. "I've been looking a long time for the box of the Draconi, and I could not have retrieved it without your help."
"You can't…do this!" I shouted.
She crouched and grabbed a fistful of my hair. "Shut up. I am sick and tired of your whining, you spoiled, pampered little brat." She released my hair with a shove, then found the gemless chain draped around my neck. She jerked the chain free, observing the small fragment of stone that still clung there. "I should've known it was the necklace," she said. "I had suspected it was your dagger, and had you not kept this so safely tucked away, I might have discovered it sooner."
And then it hit me over the head like a cast-iron pot. "Rhea…?" I gasped.
Her smile twisted with cruelty. She waved a hand over her face, and for a split second, her face transformed into the face of my sweet handmaiden. Kind and sincere, with soft wrinkles of age. Everything had changed but her warm brown eyes. And then the friendly and gentle features of Rhea transformed back into this powerful and angry woman crouched before me. Power radiated from her like heat from a desert su
n.
"But I don't understand," I said. "Why would you do this?"
She looked as though my question fascinated her, but she didn't answer it. Instead, she stood, her midnight robes cascading over her slender frame. "Hand me Lord Eris's strongbox," she said to Lorimer.
Lorimer produced a bundle from beneath the folds of his cloak. The item had been wrapped carefully in black velvet, and when Rhea grabbed it from his hands, she did so reverently. Very carefully, as one might unwrap a precious and fragile artifact, she unwound the velvet, revealing a charcoal black strongbox inside, with an oval and chalky-white hinge on the lip of the lid. The box wasn't very big—perhaps a shade larger than the box of the Draconi—but there was something wrong about it. Something wicked, and I found myself immediately afraid of what was inside.
Rhea ran her fingers lightly over the hinge as if relishing the feel of it.
"Mistress Dothrai? Should we, ah, step back, or anything?" asked one of the guards.
Mistress Dothrai? Rhea—my old handmaiden—was Mistress Dothrai? The same terrible sorceress I'd read about in stories? She was Thad's mother? Was there an end to the deception in my life?
"That won't be necessary," she said coolly, examining the strongbox. "Lord Eris took great care with this. Ah." She must have touched the hinge in just the right way, because there was a soft click, and the lid opened. She looked hungrily inside of the box, and a pale and eerie light reflected upon her face, making her look phantasmal. Her lips curled back in a smile. "It is even more beautiful than I imagined," she whispered, awed.
"Yeah, you think that about every spell Pops creates," Thad grunted, earning himself a swift kick in the gut from one of his captors.
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