Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
We walked in silence behind Septa with Vesper beside me and Bastian at our backs, and I took comfort in the feeling of Calcifiend’s little feet on my neck where he hid under my hair.
My fingers brushed the Sky Witch’s arm and she looked to me with a frown that questioned all I was and why I walked at her side.
I didn’t have the answer to the questions in her eyes but they seemed to be answered when she laid her hand on mine.
Just for a moment, our fingers brushing, telling me she felt this connection between us even if she didn’t want to admit it out loud either.
I’d silently cleaned Cayde’s blood from her with my elemental magic, letting the water wash it away and leaving her clean. But she didn’t look any less broken.
We were two souls born of this ruinous world, torn apart by war, lines drawn between us by Fae who had lived long ago.
Too long ago to care for us now. Everything I’d been taught had fractured, like a sword had struck cracks in me over and over again until it had revealed something real beneath the layers of falsehood.
I didn’t know who that made me now, but I was starting to trust my instincts more than anything else, praying Pisces had always intended for me to walk this path.
I wasn’t sure why the company of my enemies felt this way.
Perhaps if we managed to destroy the eschaton star, this feeling would go away. But I wasn’t certain I wanted it to.
Septa led us deep beneath the castle, down winding stairways and through doors that were veiled in shadow. She glanced back at us uncertainly and I feared she might change her mind on helping us if I didn’t reassure her.
“Look, I know this seems bad…” I started.
“Bad?” Septa breathed, shooting a glare at Vesper. “She’s a monster.”
“Your husband killed her sisters,” I tried.
Septa’s lips twitched. “I thought you were better than Fae like her.”
“Watch your mouth,” Bastian warned, but Vesper didn’t seem to care.
“That man took away the only people she loved in the world,” I said. “He made Vesper think he loved her when no one else ever had.”
Septa frowned, staring at Vesper then turning away and continuing on.
A shiver tracked over my skin as we neared the stone Septa had spoken of. It was a familiar feeling, one which made me think of the dark voice of the eschaton star in the hole Kaiser and I had jumped into back at Never Keep.
I knew without any need for confirmation at all that we were on the right path to the ley line.
Vesper had assured me these dark tethers fed the eschaton star through the bloodshed of war, some horrid magic forged of death giving it strength.
If she could repair this last keystone and free the ley line from its corruption, the eschaton star would be weakened.
It would no longer be able to draw power from our world and then we might just be able to destroy it on the night of the blood moon.
So I’d vowed to assist her in whatever way possible.
Septa led us through one final door, unlocking it with a large, brass key and leading us inside. I inhaled sharply at the roiling power that trickled over me, the bite of cold tempered by some unholy magic.
Sconces lit the chamber in an amber glow, revealing a large, triangular pillar of pale stone jutting from the ground at the end of the long room. Three faces were carved into its sides, a bull’s head for Taurus, a sea-goat for Capricorn and a beautiful maiden for Virgo.
An iron spike speared the brow of the bull, cracks splintering away from it which seemed to hold nothing but darkness within them.
Vesper strode toward it and I followed in her stead, my hand resting against the hilt of my dagger. Though it was nothing but a fool’s assurance. No blade could counter magic such as this.
My steps faltered as a knot of tension rolled through me, the hairs on the back of my neck lifting with discomfort and a warning that something foul was at play here.
“Fae worship this?” I asked Septa, wrinkling my nose as I fought the urge to turn and walk away from the unpleasant sourness which seemed to seep from that thing.
“I told you there was a…wrongness to the feeling of this place. But some believe it is the discomfort caused by standing closer to the stars – they think the earth deities can hear them more clearly if they whisper to them here.”
I took in the room which I supposed must have been carved around the monolith using earth magic. It was grand, the ceiling high and painted with depictions of the earthen zodiac symbols among fields of green grass and blossoming flowers.
The stone floor was polished and gleamed a pale white, the walls hung with flowering vines which had no business surviving beneath the ground at all, the magic in them clear.
Above the monolith hung a chandelier with a Faelight trapped inside it, the metal cylinders which contained the light punctured with thousands of tiny holes so that dots of illumination escaped and patterned everything they fell upon like stars in a distant sky.
“Were the other keystones celebrated this way?” I asked, though Vesper seemed not to be listening to anything any of us said.
“No. They were in lost and forgotten places, caverns, dank and mouldering,” Bastian muttered, his posture tense and gaze fixed on Vesper who lifted a hand as she reached the stone pillar. “Brace yourself,” he added.
“For wha–” I gasped as the ground beneath my feet rocked violently, a shockwave resounding out through the walls, the roof, the entire castle and mountains beyond it as Vesper placed her palm against the stone.
Septa cried out in alarm, stumbling back against the wall and I caught her arm to steady her, my brows pinching as my fingers tangled in a vine which was concealed beneath her sleeve.
“What have you done?” I cursed, my head snapping around as I spotted the thin vine which snaked out from beneath her dress and hugged the edges of the room before slithering out beneath the door we’d used to get here.
“For fuck’s sake,” Bastian snarled, a strike of his hand severing the vine while another shot from him and wrapped itself around Septa’s throat, hoisting her off of her feet and into the air. “Who did you just summon?”
“Don’t kill her!” I demanded, stepping closer to him as the sound of thundering footsteps raced towards us from beyond the door.
Bastian seemed inclined to ignore me, Septa’s feet kicking wildly as she clawed at the vine which was choking her. I threw my arm up, the Void tearing from me, snatching his magic away and causing the vine to disappear, leaving Septa to crash down to the floor with a cry.
A scream tore from Vesper’s throat and we snapped around to look at her, horror lancing through me as I took in the way she grasped the iron spike which had speared the heart of the keystone.
Her head was thrown back, her eyes staring unseeingly upward, that scream ripping from her throat and echoing around the chamber like the haunting cry of something utterly unworldly.
Her screams broke and became words, the weight of them striking me like fists to my chest, their meaning unknown but dripping with ancient power that had my mind spinning.
Footsteps beyond the chamber were accompanied by a battle cry and Bastian whirled for the door, throwing his hands towards it and encasing it in stone to block the way into the room.
I exchanged a look with him, both of us knowing that the Stonebreakers would be able to break through that in moments.
“I’ll hold them off,” Bastian said fiercely, his hand flicking towards Septa as she scrambled to her feet, vines binding tightly around her and flattening her palms against her sides so that she was immobilised.
She fell back with a cry and Bastian unfastened the fur-trimmed cloak he wore before hoisting his shirt over his head, revealing a body painted in scars and ink.
“You’re going to shift?” I asked, my gaze moving to the wide space around us and wondering if a Dragon would actually fit in it or not. It was going to be damn tight if he did.
“Yes. They might be able to break through a wall, but I’d like to see them cut through Dragon fire.”
“You swore not to hurt anyone!” Septa cried. “And you have the power of our people – aren’t you one of us? How can you turn on your own kind?”
A growl rumbled from Bastian as he unfastened his belt, tossing his sword on top of his clothes, still in its scabbard.
“I can do it,” I said, stepping forward and throwing my Void power out towards the blocked door, cutting off the magic of the Fae who had arrived beyond it.
Their yells echoed through the stone as they began to pound on it, curses carrying to us through it as they found themselves unable to unblock their way.
“Septa!” a powerful voice roared from outside and my blood chilled at the threat in the way the man bellowed her name.
“Who is that?” I demanded, looking to Septa who had pushed herself to sit upright.
“My Earl,” she breathed, fear in her eyes. “You made me a promise.”
“And we’ll keep it,” I swore despite knowing it was madness to do so.
“What we’re doing here, what Vesper is doing – it matters.
You know that, right? There’s something wrong in The Waning Lands.
There’s a monster called the eschaton star stealing power from the ley lines, fighting to break through into our world so that it can devour everything.
This is bigger than the war. It’s important.
We didn’t come here to kill anyone besides Cayde and that was personal. ”
“This creature is more important than the war?” Septa breathed, her gaze jumping between the wall where her Earl and his warriors pounded fiercely to gain entry and Vesper who was still caught in the grasp of the ether, fighting to save us all.
“It is,” I said firmly. “I can’t explain everything now but I swear to you that this matters more than anything else.”