A thrill ripples over me. Owen might be a better ally than we thought.
“You’re casting a handspell and a songspell at the same time,” I say, hardly believing the words despite the proof in front of my own eyes. I wonder if Catoria had any inkling. Maybe this was the real reason she encouraged us to find him.
Owen tilts his head. “Yes, can’t you?”
Zandy’s eyes are full of light. “No, we’ve always been told it’s impossible.”
Remy and Aro approach to see what we’re gawking at.
“Really? Another impossible Magi?” Remy laughs.
Aro, on the other hand, immediately puts on his researcher hat. “Aissa, didn’t you tell me that each family line had their own recipe for the alchemicals they hoped would eventually produce Magi like you and your sister?”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“If each recipe was a little different, perhaps the end results are too. Your family’s recipe managed to produce the desired effect, but the Heldreths’ must have instigated a different mutation.”
“That does make sense,” Owen says.
Remy frowns. “You had no idea that wasn’t normal? Could your parents do the same?”
Owen considers, his forehead knitting together in a deep V. “I don’t know. We didn’t need to use spells at the same time like that often—our daily life didn’t usually require that sort of urgency—but I’ve done it before while fishing. I can’t recall my parents ever doing the same, now that I think about it.”
“You must be right, Aro,” I say. “Owen has a different mutation.” I exchange a glance with Zandy. “Catoria will be very interested to hear about this.”
After we conceal the wreckage of the destroyed seeker, we head out again. By the time night falls, the strange, foggy hills that house the underground Sanctuary come into view.
The fog is thick and eerie, illuminated by the full moon and the otherwise clear night. The same skeletal trees reach out from the fog at odd intervals. Unlike the last time we were here, there’s no wind whatsoever. Everything is still. Unnervingly so.
Aro and Owen are as struck by the surroundings as we were the first time.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Aro says. “We have fog in Palinor, to be sure, but this is so thick it looks like . . . like soup.”
I almost laugh. “I suppose it does.”
Owen’s eyes are wide. “You say there’s a whole network of buildings beneath those hills?”
“Yes,” Zandria says, standing next to him. “The hills are made of a special stone, and it protects the city that lies beneath.”
He shakes his head and stares at the hills. “I always thought my parents trained me well. Now I find I know hardly anything at all.”
“Don’t worry,” Remy says, walking by Owen and patting his shoulder. “We’ll get you up to speed.”
“As will Catoria,” I add.
Once we’ve ascertained the coast is clear, we make a beeline for the tallest hill in the center and begin the descent through the top into the Sanctuary. This time, we avoid the mechdragon and vine kraken by using a secret passage Catoria showed us that can only be revealed with magic like mine and Zandria’s or unlocked from the inside. Owen is disappointed; he was curious about the challenges. Perhaps Catoria will see fit to show him how they work once we’ve made introductions.
For now, it’s certainly easier—and more expedient—for us to avoid them.
We find Catoria in the library. Owen greets her with the same deference he showed to Zandria and me when we first met.
She clasps his hand. “I’m glad you’ve found your way off that island at last.”
The corner of Owen’s lip twitches. “So am I.”
Zandria pushes forward. “Catoria. Owen has unique magic as well. He can cast two spells at once. One with his hands, the other as an incantation.”
Catoria appraises Owen with new eyes. “Interesting. And useful. I’m glad you’ve pledged yourself to the Alliance. You will be an excellent addition to our cause.”
“We should give you a name,” Zandria says suddenly. She seems to have warmed considerably to Owen since she learned of his dual magic.
“But I already have a name,” Owen says.
“No, a code name. The Magi spy network is—was—” She frowns. “Was called the Armory. And every spy had a weapon-based code name. We were the Twin Daggers. You should be the Poleaxe. It has two bladed sides, just like you can cast two spells simultaneously.”
Owen grins, looking rather boyish. “I like the sound of that.”
Catoria gestures to Aro. “Aissa? Are you going to make introductions?”
I wipe my sweaty hands on my tunic. “Catoria, this is Aro. Aro, meet Catoria.”
While I’m sure Aro is exploding with questions about the Sanctuary, he was still born a prince. He approaches Catoria solemnly, bowing deeply before her.
“Thank you for allowing me to enter these premises. It’s an extraordinary place. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Catoria eyes him up and down, then laughs. The sound echoes through the library. “Well said. And what do you know of the Alchemist Alliance?”
Aro straightens up. “All that Aissa has told me, but I’m eager to learn more. I’m a researcher—a scientist—in Palinor. Or I was.” A frown briefly flits over his face. “I’m particularly fascinated by these alchemicals she’s told me about. Especially the ones that created the Heartless.”
Catoria’s expression softens. “I nearly forgot. You’re one of them.”
Aro flashes me a quick smile. “Sort of. After what Aissa did, I’m not sure I count anymore. But perhaps there’s a means of curing the Heartless with those alchemicals?”
Off to the side, I hear Owen whisper to Zandria, “What did Aissa do?” My sister rolls her eyes.
Catoria’s face darkens. “I doubt they could cure those who are already afflicted. The creation of the Heartless was a grave mistake. But I’ve been working on something that might at least prevent more from being born.”
“If I can be of any assistance . . .” Aro says eagerly.
“Perhaps you can,” Catoria muses. “Come, I’ll show you my lab.”
She leads him through the door and into the labyrinth of tunnels beyond, leaving the rest of us behind in the library. I take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of old manuscripts and scrolls.
It’s good to be back.
CHAPTER 19
THE NEXT DAY, WE’RE AWAKENED BY THE sound of Catoria rapping on the wall of the girls’ dormitory.
“We have much to do today,” she says as we wipe the sleep from our eyes. “You must eat, then I have something important to share with you.”
She seems oddly excited. Curiosity fills us as we dress quickly, then head for the dining hall. The boys are already there when we arrive, but Catoria is nowhere in sight. Puzzled, we help ourselves to the oatmeal and fruit waiting for us.
“Catoria woke you two as well?” Owen asks.
“She did,” Zandria says. “Though Anvil knows why.”
“She said she had something to share with us. Did she give you any other hints?” I ask.
Remy shakes his head. “She said the same thing to us.”
I smile. “Maybe she’s finally ready to let us in on some of her secrets.”
Zandria frowns across the table from me, but Remy laughs. “Maybe she is. That would be something.”
Aro looks confused, so I explain. “Catoria is our mentor, but we haven’t been able to shake the feeling she holds as much back as she teaches.”
“I see,” he says. “Too much too soon could be overwhelming. If she’s withholding something, it isn’t necessarily for nefarious reasons.”
I laugh. “I agree. Remy and Zandria here, however, have floated other ideas.”
Zandria looks as if she’s about to make a snide retort when her mouth snaps shut instead.
“Are we ready?” Catoria says from the doorway.
S
he leads us into the throne room and then the stone corridor beyond. It isn’t long before the tunnel becomes much older and I realize where we’re going: the same place Catoria caught me exploring before we had to leave to save Aro.
When we reach the dead-end landing and the stone walls completely covered with ancient runes, everyone gapes but me. My sister gives me the side-eye.
“You’ve seen this before, haven’t you?” she says.
I shrug. “I wanted to tell you about it, but you made it clear you didn’t want to speak to me any more than necessary.”
She stiffens, then turns away. I already regret my words. We need to talk, to air everything out between us and resolve things so we can be the team we once were. Shaming her isn’t going to help.
“What is this place, Catoria?” Remy asks, giving me a pointed look.
“The end of the road.” She places a hand reverently on the wall. “These are not just any runes. The ancient Magi could infuse magic into carvings, embedding the spell into the stone or parchment it was written on. Their magic lasts to this day.”
Zandria examines the runes, as surprised as I was when I first saw them. “But why? What purpose does this place serve?”
Catoria smiles. “That is a good question, and one I can only partially answer. We’re standing in an antechamber. The walls are the lock on a door. It can only be opened using the blood of four Magi houses and the magic of the ancient Magi to activate the opening spell embedded in the walls.”
My eyes widen. “The Alchemist Alliance couldn’t open it when they found the Sanctuary. You needed us.”
Zandria snorts. “That’s why you suggested we bring Owen back here. You needed a fourth bloodline.”
Catoria tilts her head. “Both are true. This place stymied the Alliance when we used it for our base. But I’ve studied it and found several references to what lies beneath the throne room—indeed, under much of this complex.”
“Well? What is it?” Remy says impatiently.
“Our past.”
Zandria scoffs. “Stop speaking in riddles.”
“It’s a tomb,” Aro guesses.
“I believe it to be the Tomb of Regents,” Catoria says. “Legends say the great Magi rulers of long ago were all entombed in a grand underworld, buried with riches and magic talismans, the likes of which we’ve never seen. The Magi of my day called it a fairy tale. Impossible, but lovely to imagine.”
“Then why do you believe this might be it?” Owen asks.
Catoria smiles broadly. “Because they said the same thing about the Sanctuary.”
“What do all these runes mean? Is every one of them a spell?” I ask.
“Only some of them are. Most of them are here to obscure.”
“You mean they’re just random runes?” I say, frowning. This isn’t quite what I was expecting.
“Many of them are random. Buried between them are the runes for the opening spell. The rest are family names.”
“And that’s why you need four bloodlines. It will activate the runes for the spell?” Zandria says, glancing up from where she was tracing a rune with a fingernail.
“Precisely.”
Owen steps forward in the small space. “When can we cast it? We should open this up and find out what lies behind it. If it’s full of treasure and magic, that could help us against the Technocrats.”
“If you’re all willing, we can try to open it right now.”
We all agree—there is no reason to wait. Not if there’s something inside that could help our cause. Catoria pulls a knife from within her cloak and pricks each of our fingers, then her own, and instructs us to place our hands on the wall. Every Magi but Zandria, who hangs back with Aro; we only need one from each bloodline.
The stone warms under my palm and my fingers begin to tingle. Then the magic seems to reach out of the stone, pulling a very thin stream of blood from my hand. It winds around the runes, almost like it’s searching for something, until the stream stops, and the magic and blood pool in one particular rune. It glows. Surprise trickles over me as I realize the others are having the same experience. Now four unique runes are illuminated on the wall—one for each of our bloodlines.
“Zandria,” Catoria says. “Use your magic to access the opening runes. They look like this.” She points at a rune. “There are four of them as well.”
My sister steps forward and begins working a spell to open locked things. She does as Catoria instructs and sends the magic into the stone wall. Suddenly, four more runes glow, this time marking the four corners of a doorway.
Inside the wall, something begins to grind, then shift. A rectangular entrance moves backward a couple inches, then a seam appears in the middle, expanding as the slab splits in half and slides into the wall on either side.
A dark, shadowed entrance stands before us, taunting us with its secrets.
With eager expressions we walk single file through a dark corridor. Catoria goes first, and she gasps softly as the corridor turns, letting us out into an enormous underground cavern. Whether the cavern is natural or made by Magi hands is hard to say, but it’s stunning either way. Bioluminescent moss coats the walls, the floor, and the high ceiling, filling the space with a soft glowing light. As far as we can see, the cavern floor is filled with beautifully carved stone tombs. Some of them are made from the black marble we know well, others from red, white, or gray stone—all of it positively fizzing with magic. We walk down the center aisle of the cavern, marveling at each exquisitely crafted monument. Every tomb bears the likeness of its owner, and embedded into the base are objects, each of them unique to the ruler. Swords, spears, knives, amulets, and all sorts of strange things I cannot name adorn them, along with many runes.
“Are those protective runes?” I ask Catoria, pointing to the nearest tomb.
She peers closer at them. Then she laughs. “In a sense,” she says. “It’s a similar mechanism to the lock on this place, but it looks like you need the right bloodline to open the tomb. They kept it safe in case looters ever found their way down here.”
“That seems unlikely,” Remy says.
“This place could be older than the Sanctuary,” Owen muses. “And you said the Magi created the landscape here, right? Maybe it once looked very different and didn’t have that locking mechanism until later. Then it just became a part of the burial ritual.”
Catoria eyes Owen approvingly. “You may very well be correct.”
Aro is close by my side, keeping a respectful silence. The full weight of the history of our lands, unknown to us all until very recently, bears down on us. Neither the Magi nor the Technocrats know the real truth. But soon their eyes must be opened too.
Zandria has wandered ahead, running her fingers over the edges of tombs as she goes. Halfway into this cavern I can see that the hall turns up ahead, possibly into a similar space. There are easily hundreds of tombs down here. Suddenly my sister pauses by one crafted from the red marble we’ve seen frequently in the Sanctuary. She glances back at us.
“There’s a statue of this woman in one of the other halls,” she says.
I move closer and realize she’s right. The face is the same as the statue in hunting garb that we saw the day we arrived. “Who is she?” I say to Catoria as I run a finger across the rune of her name.
“Queen Egeria. A ruler with a true heart, true aim, whom no spell could harm,” she reads. “The name is familiar, but I don’t recall the details precisely. I’m sure I’ve read her tale somewhere here in the library.” Catoria continues to examine the tomb, as does Zandria.
“If she warranted a statue in that hall, she must have been special,” Zandria says. Then she gasps. We gather closer to see what she’s looking at. Two short swords are embedded at the back of the tomb. The hilts are crafted from red marble brimming with magic, and the blades are carved with runes.
“They almost look like daggers,” I say. “Just a bit too long.”
“They’re perfect,” Zandria says, unabl
e to take her eyes off the weapons.
Catoria examines them. “This one”—she points to the one on the left—“can pierce any armor and never misses, and the other can counter any offensive spell.” She steps back. “But it takes Magi with full magic to use them. To anyone else, they would be just like normal swords. And only Aissa or Zandria will be able to remove them from the tombstone since they’re magically embedded into it.”
“Then we must have them,” Zandria says, eyes shining.
“Yes,” Catoria agrees. “These will serve the two of you well.”
Before anyone can say another word, Zandy begins a handspell to release the short swords from the stone. Her magic molds the stone around them, turning it flat and smooth. The swords fall to the ground. She immediately grabs the one that never misses.
“I choose this one,” she says, almost like a challenge to me. But I’d have chosen the other one anyway. She almost looks disappointed when I let her have it.
“I’ll gladly take the other,” I say. When I retrieve the short sword, a tingling sensation ripples up my arm. The weapon feels almost like it’s alive. Like it is saying hello.
“What about the rest?” Zandria looks longingly at the other tombs. Many others have weapons embedded in them as well. “Are they all magical too?”
“I believe so,” Catoria says, wandering over to another nearby tomb with a rune-covered axe lodged in the side. “Yes, this one has a blade that never dulls.” She turns back to us. “But we mustn’t be greedy. Only Aissa and Zandria can wield these artifacts. We shouldn’t take more than we need. We must leave the rest of the cache here to ensure it remains safe and hidden.”
Zandria pouts but doesn’t object. We explore for a while longer through the dizzying array of past kings and queens and discover there are two more enormous caverns just like this under the Sanctuary complex, each one older than the last. We tire before we can explore it all and decide to return to the upper levels for lunch and our continued studies.
We may leave the tombs behind for now, but someday this place and its artifacts will be opened again for Magi like us to use. It was the Alliance’s goal, and now it is ours as well.
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