Chapter 45 Meryn
MERYN
The light dyes Anassa’s fur pale blue, as if we’re sinking into a pool of moonlight. It grows brighter the deeper we get. And the farther we descend, the thicker the air. It’s stifling.
I sink my fingers into Anassa’s fur.
“I don’t like this.” A pit of anxiety grows in my gut.
“It does not matter if you like it or not,” comes Anassa’s reply. “Focus on getting through it.”
I must, so I will—once again. The motto of my life.
Bizarrely, it comforts me more than gentle words ever could.
Even though this place is obviously ancient, the spiral stairs are wide enough to fit our wolves comfortably, which is only further proof that this place is meant for the Bonded.
The stairs descend down and down, impossibly deep. We’ve been moving for an eternity—accompanied only by the sounds of our breaths and our wolves’ claws clicking against stone—when we finally reach a landing.
It reveals a wider room carved from the stone of the island, pulsing with the same blue light. Ephyse growls quietly as he and Noemi pace toward the wall, glaring forward.
There’s a door. It’s circular and, like the door above, seems to be made of one solid chunk of stone. Instead of a poem, though, a symbol is carved into it.
The Kryptos symbol, as familiar as if it was hanging above the Kryptos common room back in Sturmfrost.
“Do we—?” I start, but almost instantly, the symbol blazes to life. It catches with heatless blue fire, which hurts a little to stare at directly.
This is another test, then. Kryptos. Will Venna have to pass it alone? Or can we all do it together?
Then comes a dampening in my mind, as if someone’s thrown a blanket over my powers and wrapped it tight.
“Stark,” I say, checking in to see if he feels it.
But I can’t reach him. I can’t reach him.
“Anassa?!”
“I’m here.” She bumps her shoulder against mine.
I swallow down a bubble of panic. “Is… anyone…”
“There’s something strange happening,” Stark confirms right away.
“I wonder…” I watch as he focuses on something, fingers twitching.
“No. I can’t draw on my shadebending power.
I’d try impelling, too, if we weren’t somewhere deep underground where a cave-in could be lethal. But I suspect it would be the same.”
Noemi nods. “I can still reach Ephyse, but that’s it.”
Venna, meanwhile, is staring at each of us, bewildered. “I don’t feel anything different.”
I look up again at the illuminated Kryptos symbol.
“Venna…” I gesture at it. “If your powers are still intact, I wonder… maybe you’re the only one who can get us through?”
Venna and her direwolf ease forward. Skaia’s ears are pinned back with caution, but Venna has a stubborn look on her face.
The moment they step close enough, the door rumbles and rolls to the side. The cold blue fire bursts again, making the rest of us gasp and step back. The fire streaks along the interior of the room to illuminate a large chamber before going dark again.
Strange, shadowy shapes are farther in, but as the blue light fades, I can no longer see anything but shadow.
Anassa and I move toward the door, but Venna flings an arm out to stop me. She dismounts and looks around her feet, and I watch her, unsure what she’s doing. With a yank, she twists off one of the small buttons fastening the cuff of her sleeve.
Flicking her wrist, she tosses the button into the room.
It sails through the air, the dim light of this place glinting on the copper.
Nothing happens.
Then the button lands on the stone with a distinct clink.
Instantly, four jagged pieces of stone rip from the walls and race toward it, smashing into one another and the button in a clamorous crash.
Each of the shards looks about the length of my forearm and deadly sharp.
“Well, that’s fun,” I say shakily. Nobody laughs.
Venna looks back at me, mouth twisting. “We’re going to have to be quiet, I think. I wondered… well, I assumed it’d be either that or rifting. In some ways, rifting would be easier. I’ll go first—watch me, and do what I do. And once we’re in…”
She hesitates, and I take her meaning. “We won’t be able to talk aloud in there, will we? You think the room attacks in response to noise?”
She nods.
I swallow. Great. Just when our mental communication would have been most helpful, we’re left without it.
It’s lucky Noemi sat in on my sign language lessons on the boat, I realize. She’s picked up some of the basics, and in typical Stark fashion, he learned the language already and is far better than I am.
Still, Venna quickly reviews a few key phrases with us, to be sure we’re ready for any instructions she needs to pass along. All of us can, in turn, mentally communicate any instructions to our wolves.
Venna leans her head into the room farther, bracing her arms against the doorframe, but then pulls her head out and takes a step back, frowning. “It’s too dark to see much farther than where the button landed. I think we have to just… go forward.”
We dismount. Venna shows us the slow, quiet way she steps when she’s trying not to make a sound.
“There aren’t really any loose pebbles or pieces of gravel down here, from what I can see,” she instructs. “So just put each foot down softly, rolling it down to the ground, and take it slowly. I’ll go first and can tell you if the terrain changes.”
Lucky the island’s magic saw fit to dry us all off. We’d all be making wet squelching sounds for days with the amount of water our leather boots took on.
Anassa and Cratos and Ephyse have moved off to the side and are clearly getting a lesson in stealthiness from Skaia. Their claws, I realize. They’ll have to step differently to keep them from clicking on the floor.
Or risk losing a paw. I swallow.
At Venna’s prompting, we all check our clothing and packs to make sure nothing on us might jingle or clink as we move. We all removed everything unnecessary before diving into the icy waters of the sea, which helps.
We tighten straps and buckles around weapons, one of the only items we all did prioritize, swim in the sea or no.
Venna and Skaia step up to the door. Venna lets Skaia go first; easier to sign back to us without her wolf’s bulk in the way, I think.
Skaia moves as soundlessly as a shadow. As a Kryptos wolf, she was born for this.
Everyone holds their breath. But the Kryptos pair are masters of their craft. Venna and Skaia move farther into the room without a whisper of sound.
Before they disappear into the dim gloom, Venna turns her head to me, then flicks her hand down and across to say: “Follow me.”
Anassa and I creep in next, then signal back to Noemi and Ephyse. Stark and Cratos bring up the rear.
Venna and her wolf move at an agonizingly slow pace. I never could have been Kryptos, I reflect wryly. I’m much more suited for running headlong at problems, rather than coming up on them slowly and carefully.
Probably something I could work on.
Venna and Skaia look in every direction as they move, somehow able to spot the best terrain in the dim light that grows ever dimmer.
I get a flashback to the Ascent, Venna helping us navigate through tricky patches of ice. The memory is bittersweet, Izabel’s fierce determination bright in my memory.
Venna got us through that time. She’ll get us through now.
I realize I’m holding my breath and let it out slowly and quietly. The light gets lower and lower, but luckily, I can still make out Venna stopping short ahead of me.
My heart drums loud in my ears in the strangely silent space.
Venna swivels around and signs: “Something ahead.”
My skin prickles, and I strain my eyes trying to see the space ahead of us. But the gloom around us is almost complete; the blue glow has dimmed, and even Venna and Skaia are just shadowy forms ahead of me in the darkness.
“Skaia will still be able to see,” Anassa reassures me. “Kryptos warriors train for this—their wolves often have keener night vision than that of the other packs, and they learn to operate as the eyes and ears for their riders.”
All well and good for them. But what about the rest of us?
We all wait in silence, motionless, for Venna and Skaia to move ahead. Venna finally signs back to me, motions exaggerated so I can make them out, “Up and to the left is clear.”
I relay the message back to Noemi. Venna and Skaia start moving ahead, and Anassa and I follow. Anassa does her best to share her superior vision with me as well, though we’re unpracticed at the skill.
Soon, though, the space is too dark even for her. We come to a stop, and I wait for Venna to notice that we’ve halted since I can’t shout ahead.
What if she doesn’t realize? What if she leaves us here, and we’re stranded forever in this darkness?
I know that it’s not logical, that Venna would never abandon us. But still, my chest tightens in that familiar place where my panic lives. Like a giant hand grabbing onto the top of my lungs and squeezing. I struggle to keep my breathing quiet and even.
The space around us is so black. Endlessly black. So much like that nightmare realm where Killian torments me. At the thought, I can almost see his face, swimming up at me out of the darkness.
His mouth in a confident leer. His eyes, that eerie blue, staring at me…
“Slow down,” Anassa thinks to me, opening herself up until the rhythm of her own breath washes into me. Steady, even. I try to match it. My panic subsides, just a little.
Then from up ahead, around Venna, I start to see a faint blue glow.
What on earth… ?
Venna’s face becomes visible, and I see her look of intense concentration. She’s doing this, then. Somehow.
She sends the light behind herself and forward to provide some illumination to Skaia.
It’s not much, but it’s enough. We start up again.
The path she lights for us is winding, and multiple times I only see massive rock formations when they’re already right next to me. Like huge ships sailing right up to us in the gloom. One wrong step and one of us will crash into the rock.