Chapter 50
Chapter
Fifty
ALLIE
I ’d never believed in the legends of giants roaming the land, their tracks creating the valleys and their swords dragging on the ground giving birth to river beds.
Yet standing at the bottom of the crater’s rim made me question those beliefs.
I had never felt smaller or insignificant in this great world than now.
The wall spread above and beyond, almost suffocating in its greatness.
It was seamless, the earth scorched into impenetrable stone millenia ago by the might of the gods and the sky. The eerie silence crept from the ground, up my heels and settled at the base of my spine, alerting every sense.
The blood pumping in my veins sounded too loud in the forbidden stillness.
All I saw was rock, all I smelled was ash, and all I tasted was metal.
I’d never been struck more by just how mortal I was.
And I stood among other mortals, our breaths turning to mist, our teeth chattering, but not from the cold. But because we dared to enter the crater’s bowels, as if we had the right to step inside hallowed ground.
But for the sake of the realm, we had to.
Ryker had said the fallen star was bleeding. The passage might have been the wound.
There was just one problem–I didn’t see an entry in the great big rim.
I looked around at our group, all mighty warriors staring at the stone as if they were ready to face it.
Ryker’s face was stone, as if carved from the rim itself. A true son of the crater.
Nobody spoke and I didn’t dare. The moment felt too sacred, too full of promises and omens.
Our shadows, as hazy and faded as they were in the early morning hours, shrunk against the stone as the sun began to peek over the horizon.
I stared at my own shadow, watching it dwindle at the cusp of night and day, fading into the ground as if running scared from the rim.
Then a glimmer in the stone caught my eye.
As the light bathed it, the rock seemed to split down the middle. But nothing moved and nothing groaned.
“The passage only becomes visible at sunrise?” I asked.
But that didn’t make any sense. The carriage had left the crater during the night.
“Almost,” Ryker whispered low, as if he too didn’t want to puncture the moment with our mortal words. “It opens only when the sun and moon’s lights hit its lip just right. Only twice a day and not all year, when the light is too low to reach it.”
Twice a day.
“If someone wanted to invade the crater, they’d have to time their attack very well,” I muttered.
“We go in first,” he said as he lit up a torch and handed it out so the rest of the warriors could follow suit. “Nobody can go in unless accompanied by someone who’s been through the passage before.”
I frowned. That didn’t make sense. “Then how did the first people enter the crater?”
The rock continue to splinter under our eyes, achingly slow, as if it hadn’t quite decided if it should let us pass or not.
“That is a mystery which hasn’t been cracked in centuries and I doubt it ever will.” He took back his torch and raised it high.
As the sun’s light finally hit the barrier between rock and earth, the tunnel’s entrance was revealed fully.
It opened like a great mouth, sharp rocks hanging from its ceiling like fangs. A gust of wind blew over us, as if in warning, scratching at my cheeks with its icy breath. But it smelled of nothing. Sounded like nothing.
This passage seemed like a place where life went to die.
My knees turned weak, skin turning clammy as I stared at ancient magic that was not of this world. Though my other senses were rattled by the lack of sensations, I felt the passage’s magic.
It pulsed against my very being, my most primal instincts screaming at me to run.
Hide.
Never come back here again.
But no voices shrieked from inside, threatening me away. Ryker had warned me.
Somehow, the silence scared me more.
Ryker raised his torch, grim determination written in every angle of his face.
“Ready?” he called out, the sound swallowed up by the passage like a sacrifice.
The warriors grunted in approval.
He looked at me, the sparks in his eyes asking the question his face didn’t dare show.
I raised my chin and nodded.
Yes, I was ready.
“We need to hurry,” he said. “If something is wrong with the passage, it will seal up and trap us inside.”
A tremor threatened to kneel me. But I stood tall, grounding myself in the thought that Ryker would be by my side throughout it all.
He’d delved inside this passage countless times.
He would guide us true.
Shoulder to shoulder, we stepped forward into the darkness.