Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
“It’s colder than a polar bear’s ball sack in this water,” I grumbled as we swam through the darkness of the ice cavern.
“I would have made you a suit to help combat the cold but I didn’t have enough time,” Everest said, a note of apology in her voice. But she’d had enough time to create one for Vesper.
“Can’t you just use Dragon fire to keep yourself warm?” Kaiser questioned and I shot him an irritable look.
“That isn’t the point.”
“Once I saw a gastrin shark hunting in these waters,” Mavus said thoughtfully. “Nasty way to go, that is.”
“Nice of you to warn us before we got in the water,” Vesper muttered.
“Well…I figured it’d be a thrilling surprise if one showed up.”
“I get the feeling your surprises are never the fun kind, Mavus,” Everest said uneasily, glancing back over her shoulder into the midnight depths of the ocean.
If there was anything hunting us down there, we weren’t going to know anything about it until it struck.
“There’s something ahead of us,” Vesper said urgently. “I can feel it like a tug in my gut.”
“Dark omens,” Mavus murmured. “Something foul is stirring in the air.”
“Then we should–” My words cut off as I was yanked beneath the surface by something which wound its way around my ankle, hauling me into the depths of the sea.
I kicked and fought, the image of a sea monster lunging from the dark dominating my thoughts for several moments before I realised there was no cut of teeth driving through flesh. Just a tether pulled tight around my foot.
Bubbles spilled from my throat as I fought to take hold of my ankle and release it from whatever held me, water rushing all around me as I was hauled away from the cavern we’d been swimming through into a darker, narrower tunnel.
My fingers locked around a rope built of water as I grasped my ankle and I cursed the magic which had captured me.
My own power rose to my fingertips and I cut through the rope of water with a slice from a stone dagger I forged in my fist.
It fell apart and I managed to breach the surface, dragging down a breath in the few inches of air I found between the waves and a rocky roof above me before another tether bound around my waist and yanked me down again.
The water magic was forcing me away from the others, pulling me down a passage which grew narrower and narrower by the second.
I threw my hands out with a powerful blast of magic, vines shooting from my palms and spearing back the way I’d come. The vines burst from the water and wrapped themselves around the rocks they found there, jerking me to a halt.
I threw more power into the cast, the vines knotting around my wrists and hauling me in the opposite direction to the current.
The tension around my waist tightened until I feared it might rip me in two before releasing me but finally, it shattered.
My vines hauled me away from the foul water magic, tugging me back out of the narrow cave so fast I could only hold my breath and hope to the stars I didn’t strike the rocks I passed.
I was yanked from the water and fell panting and cursing onto a rocky outcrop, the vines I’d cast slackening and dropping to the ground beside me as I fought to catch my breath.
Vesper slammed into me as I got to my feet, propelling herself above the water with air magic and fisting her hands in my shirt as she forced me to look at her.
“I thought a fucking shark had gotten you,” she hissed, fury sparking in her grey eyes and almost concealing the fear there. “Don’t do that again. It wasn’t funny.”
“Someone attacked me,” I said, pushing wet strands of hair from my face and glaring back down at the water as Everest, Kaiser and Mavus swam into view. “Was it you?” I barked at the Cascadian and she blinked up at me in confusion while clambering out of the water.
“Was what me?” Everest demanded.
“Someone attacked me with water magic and you’re the only one here who can wield it,” I said, pointing at her.
But instead of denying it or putting up a fight, she spun away from me, drawing a blade.
“That wasn’t me,” she hissed and my eyes followed hers as she looked back out into the water. “So someone else must know we’re here.”
Vesper moved to stand alongside her, frowning at the water, her head tilted at an angle. Flames illuminated in Kaiser’s fist as he peered around us too.
“I sense no desires but those coming from this group. If someone was trying to kill me, I’d know,” Vesper said.
I scowled between the members of our group with suspicion roiling in my chest, my eyes landing once again on Everest.
“She didn’t do it,” Vesper said sharply. “Everest can’t hide her desires from me well enough to be able to cover it if she had. She’s a terrible liar. And even if she wasn’t – I trust her.”
“You do?” Everest blurted, a smile biting into her cheeks even though she was clearly trying to hide it.
“Yes,” Vesper said, turning her focus onto me. “So that means you do too,” she added smacking my arm with the back of her hand to chastise me for my accusations. “Now come on, we have work to do.”
Everest gave me a shrug, her hand twisting as she drew the waterout of my clothes and leaving me dry before doing the same for the others. “You can apologise later,” she said before striding away after Vesper.
“Someone attacked me,” I said in reply, my eyes moving over the shadows which filled the space around us. Because if it wasn’t her and none of the others here could have done it then someone else was lurking close at hand.
“Trust is a funny thing,” Mavus muttered as he followed along at the back of the group. “Can’t buy it. Gotta earn it. Easy to break it. Even easier to fake it.”
“Shut up,” I snapped but he only shrugged.
“Truth is truth,” he said, picking his way across the rocks past me so that he could walk with Everest.
“I don’t like him,” I muttered to Kaiser as he came to stand at my side.
“I don’t think you have to like him to get this done,” he replied, his gaze moving from the roguish trader to meet with mine. “But if it helps, I don’t like him either.”
“Good.” I jerked my chin at the path ahead and we strode on into the dimly-lit passageway side by side.
We concealed ourselves with various magics and silencing spells, clambering from jagged rocks onto smooth paths clearly trodden by many feet. The sound of low chanting soon beckoned us on as we walked and our group shifted closer together as we kept moving steadily towards it.
“Reapers,” Mavus purred.
“Well I didn’t think it was a flock of sheep,” I grunted.
Kaiser barked a laugh so loudly that the sound of it echoed off of the walls around us, his amusement flaring to laughter quickly then dying away as he found us all staring at him in surprise.
“That was funny,” he said and I grinned.
“It was,” I agreed.
The corners of Everest’s lips twitched and Vesper rolled her eyes before continuing to lead the way.
Because of course she was in the lead, charging head first into danger as always.
I knew she had to do it, knew she couldn’t bear to allow anyone to ever face danger or death in her place again after what had happened to her sisters.
So I said nothing. But I haunted her steps, determined to make certain she wouldn’t be the one to pay the price if we found ourselves under attack.
No matter her own thoughts on the subject.
We reached a door and I drew my sword as Vesper glanced around at us to confirm we were ready before opening it.
We all nodded our assent and she pushed it open slowly, creeping through into the darkness beyond and leading us into a chamber where the roof opened up above our heads and the sound of the Reapers’ chanting echoed on endlessly into the air.
We crept onto a small stone platform which ran around an upper level of the chamber, a flood of golden-cloaked Reapers gathered in the wide space beneath us.
Something dark and ominous was roiling in the shadows beyond them, lurking within a large chasm which split the ground apart at the farthest edge of the cavern.
Above it was a round hole in the ceiling that must have been carved right up to the surface of the isle because the crimson light of the blood moon poured through it.
My heart skipped a beat as I peered into the dark abyss in the chasm, shadows shifting at its edges to reveal towering green objects obscured within them.
My fingers pressed to the gemstone embedded in the collar around my throat, recognition buzzing through me.
Magic built around me as the others all called it into their grasp, the four of them drawing weapons and preparing for our moment to strike.
“C’mon Lazarus,” Everest muttered under her breath.
From our vantage point we couldn’t see all of the Reapers but we could hear them, at least a hundred voices raised in a haunting chorus.
A single figure stood closer to the darkness, his arms raised as he encouraged the others to keep up their eery chanting.
“That’s the Grand Maester,” Vesper said in a low voice as she looked at him.
“So where is the Cardinal Reaper?” Kaiser asked, but no one had an answer for him.
“Those crystals,” I murmured to Vesper and her eyes flicked to the collar I wore for a second before she nodded.
“I know,” she said roughly.
I parted my lips to say something more but before I could, Lazarus and the others finally fulfilled their end of this plot and an echoing boom shook the walls, knocking the Reapers from their feet and making the rocks quake around us.
I pressed my hand to the closest wall, strengthening it to shield us from the destruction. But many of the Reapers weren’t prepared and failed to shield themselves from the great lumps of rock and stalactites which crashed down on them from above.
Screams filled the air in place of chanting and whatever they were rousing from the abyss on the far side of the chamber bellowed in fury.
The Reaper who had been stood before them all yelled instructions for those who had survived to find out what was happening, and we waited in the shadows as more than half of them raced from the chamber.
“Ready, kitty cat?” Vesper purred, holding her hand out for Everest as she prepared to leap from the platform with her air magic.
“Always,” Everest replied, taking her hand and the two of them leapt from the edge without another word, leaving the rest of us to chase them into the dark.