Chapter 51
Chapter
Fifty-One
ALLIE
T he darkness swallowed us, pressing and weighted.
In this eerie stillness, every breath felt like trespassing. The darkness devoured us, heavy as stone.
Only the sound of the crackling torch flames accompanied us, even the thuds of our steps swallowed by the ground, which was covered in an ashy layer, soft as flour, dark as the night. Each step sent up faint, bitter clouds.
The fanged rocks cascading from the ceiling glimmered in the torch light, as if they had been made out of dead ice.
This whole place felt like death.
Not in the brutal, bloody way of war.
Not in the leaky, painful diseases that took so many lives.
But in the stillness that settled with time. A place where life hadn’t and couldn’t thrive, hidden deep in the ground.
The passage felt…it felt numb.
And numbing.
Like it wanted to gulp up every feeling, every sensation. Everything that made us human, to have its fill in this depressing quiet.
Ominous and greedy, that’s what it felt like.
The air was thick, my lungs fighting for each rarified gulp.
Yet we delved in further, not breaking our stride.
I couldn’t stop the shivers cascading down my spine. But I didn’t stop. I kept going out of sheer stubbornness alone, even as everything inside of me roared to turn back.
I tried to focus on anything that could calm those shameful instincts–and my mind was the perfect tool for it.
The passage was barely large enough for two carriages to pass through–and the fit would have been tight, if not dangerous–so squeezing in a full army would have been impossible.
It was also strategic gold. If the enemies trickled in through this narrow passage which would surely frighten them in all its otherworldly glory, they could be taken out one by one by the warriors waiting at the other end.
Sliding war machines through seemed equally unlikely. The ground was uneven and the ash would have coated the wheels and made pushing them a fool’s errand.
In that, at least, we were safe.
But the passage still held secrets.
In the flickering light of the torches, I noticed small openings in the walls, as if some ungodly beings had eaten through the rock. I could wriggle through the openings–if I had a death wish–but not easily.
But they didn’t seem like mere gaps, though. They sucked in the light too quickly, too easily. They must have been deeper than they appeared–like one big maze.
If I dared make a sound, I knew these cracks would swallow that, too.
My whole body was so tense, I almost flinched when Ryker’s whisper broke the stillness. “Do you see anything?”
It took a moment for my pulse to crawl down from my throat for me to push the words out.
“Nothing strange. You?”
“No.” His jaw ticked in the dim light. “Which worries me.”
On instinct, I drew closer to him. His energy was like a beacon of safety, the pine scent lingering on his leathers a glimmer of life in this forsaken place.
“Why?”
It took a few seconds for him to reply. “Nothing pulses.”
I inhaled sharply.
The fallen star beat underneath the crypt, the heart of Solkar’s Reach. If its power spidered like veins throughout the realm, then its magic should have pulsed here.
If Ryker had expected it, that meant he’d seen it before.
But not now.
My dagger hissed as I drew it out. Just in case.
“The passage can’t attack us,” he muttered.
“No. But things that hide in darkness can.”
He hummed in reply. Behind us, I heard Geryll’s unmistakable gulp. The silence was getting to him, too.
I’d never wanted to see the sun again as much as I did now.
“Hear anything?” I asked.
“No.”
None of the warriors seemed to be in agony, so the voices weren’t tormenting them either. I doubted each and every one of them had the same untainted heart as the man driving the carriage.
I certainly didn’t. So why wasn’t I being tormented?
“This feels wrong,” I whispered. And I felt wrong for saying it. “Like we shouldn’t be here.”
Each word was like a curse in this place, sucked up by the darkness, never to be heard again.
Our screams would suffer the same fate.
“We are Solkar’s Reach people. If not us, then who?” Ryker said.
This barrier felt like it shouldn’t have ever been discovered, let alone used. Perhaps Solkar had been right to send its fiery star to destroy the place.
Something rotten had lived here before, of that I had no doubt.
Even my thoughts turned grimmer. Hopeless.
“Maybe that’s the problem,” the words tumbled out of my mouth. “I’m not from Solkar’s Reach.”
Instead of replying, Ryker took hold of my hand in the darkness. As soon as his fingers wrapped around mine, calm infused into me, like he was chipping away at his own peace to soothe mine.
I squeeze his palm as a thank you, reveling in the heat of his skin.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even blink as he did it, but the sparks in his eyes lessened.
Between these deep shadows, nobody could see this small gesture. It was only for us. Our skin, our senses, our souls.
Before I’d been brought to Solkar’s Reach, I would have shrugged the offering. Who was he to think I needed support, even as I quaked in my boots?
I would have seen it as an affront to my strength. In reality, I didn’t want anyone, family, friend, or foe, to see any of my struggles.
Help made me feel exposed.
Now I felt seen.
It seemed even in this lifeless, emotionless place, sentiment could still bloom.
“We’ll traverse the entire passage. Not long now,” he called out, commanding voice ricocheting through the rocks and ash. There was hope in those words. Perhaps the others didn’t hear it, but I did.
Or maybe I felt it, through our clasped hands.
For a moment, the passage felt alive, as if the sound was fighting against the shadows. But, in the end, they engulfed it as well. But for those brief moments, I heard the sighs of relief echoing behind us.
Perhaps the voices and power had coalesced toward the other end of the passage.
If there was a threat and if the fallen stars’ power protected the crater, then that would be the most logical place to concentrate–
Ryker’s hand tightened against mine a breath before his voice roared. “Out of the way!”
I didn’t have time to crouch as a hiss erupted in the silence.
He pushed me toward one of the larger gaps and I’d already wedged between the porous rocks when the molten heat blasted the passage, burning and unforgiving.