Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Avalon
Iwaded out of the shit-filled drain, Epsy perched precariously on top of my head, well away from the sludge that I didn’t want to think too hard about. And to think, I’d believed the little furball was dumb.
“Honestly, this is the smartest thing you’ve ever done,” I whispered to him. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, Epsy, but I love you. You’re the greatest pet I’ve ever had, and you’ve made this whole thing more bearable since the first day. So, thank you, I guess.”
He didn’t answer, of course, but it didn’t matter, because we were coming up to the part where I’d have to climb out of the tunnel and up into the cellar beneath the Hall of Ebrus. Someone had left the hatch open, and that made me suspicious. An accident or a trap?
Fuck it, there was only one way to find out.
I missed the guys, missed how easy they’d made this seem, especially as I had to squat down in the river of shit to get enough upward momentum to grip the edges of the opening. Finally, I pulled myself out, though I was puffing and struggling by the end.
Epsy had me by my ponytail, dragging me. It wasn’t like his tiny weight could have any effect, but I appreciated the thought.
Looking around quickly, I was glad to see it was empty. Malak must have kept his word. I flopped onto my back, panting for a little while as I caught my breath. Well, I tried not to breathe that deeply, since I smelled like shit. Really, really, bad.
Climbing to my hands and knees, then finally to my feet, I looked over the edge of the well into the blackness below. Goddess, I hoped it was a reset and not a weird hallucination, because I was about to jump into the abyss. If I drowned, I was going to be so mad.
I set Epsy to the side. “Stay here and keep watch, okay?” I didn’t want him to drown with me, if I was wrong. I also didn’t know what the tal would do to him, if he did something outrageous like chew on it. No, up here was safer.
He made a soft chittering noise, and I stroked his head.
“I’ll be fine. When Vox gets here, I’ll need him to come down and get me. I’m depending on you, Epsy.” I placed him back on the ground and sat on the edge of the well. Pulling out my dagger, I sent up a little prayer, and pushed off.
I fell through the dark, thick water, thicker than it should feel, until I hit the ground with a thump. Winded, I sucked in air, but my eyes went straight to the statue of Ebretha, exactly where it had been in my memories of my last life.
“She said you’d come,” a voice croaked out behind me, and I spun.
I couldn’t even hold back the gasp that burst past my lips.
It was Yaron Vylan, but also… it wasn’t.
He looked like he’d been dragged through the streets, scraped along the rocks of the Herelean Cliffs, then left to heal in this dingy hole.
“Yaron?” I breathed. Fuck, was he a ghost?
The man—ghost—in front of me winced. “No. Not Yaron. My name is Dermet. I’m his twin.
Was his twin. Feodore tells me you murdered him.
Well, Vox murdered him.” His voice was so rough, it sounded painful.
Like each word was choked out through vocal chords so damaged, it was physical torture to speak.
I wanted to tell him to stop, but I had too many questions.
Why was he here? What had happened to him? Would he kill me?
Most importantly, why did his magic feel so wrong?
Instead, I went with, “Who told you I’d come?” Did the Baroness Vylan know I was here?
He shook his head. “The Goddess. She said this was almost over. That I had one more test, and then I’d be free.”
My eyes flicked to the statue of Ebretha. Had he lost it and thought the statue was talking to him? I mean, stranger things had happened, so maybe it was talking to him.
He laughed, but it was a sickly, barking sound that I’d never forget. “No, she comes to me in my dreams. I assume the same way she comes to you. She said you’re here to destroy that… abomination.” Now he was looking at the tal, hatred on his face.
He sat slumped against the rough wall, a plate beside him, and I realized he had a manacle around his ankle. Was that what was making his magic taste weird?
He was naked, though this was the least confronting thing about his visage. So many scars. He’d clearly been tortured for years. Decades.
“Vox never speaks of you.”
I saw the hurt flash across Dermet’s face. “Understandable. He was little more than a toddler when I ‘died.’” He did airquotes around the word. “No one remembers. No one I want to remember, anyway.”
I tried to work out what to do, looking over at the statue of Ebretha, then back at him. “I’m going to destroy this, and then I’m going to free you.”
He let out a soft laugh. It sounded almost like Vox’s, if you roughed Vox’s throat up with sandpaper. “If only it was that easy, little Recreationist.” He knew what I was. Maybe he really was talking with the Goddess. “Unfortunately, I’m as much a part of that tal as it is of me.”
Brain whirling, I tried to decipher what he was telling me. He’d been down here for nearly two decades with this tal. “The magic it siphoned—it’s in you now?”
He shrugged. “Some of it, anyway. Too much of it. It keeps trying to burst through my skin.” He pressed his fingers to the scars on his chest. “They let some of it out, but not enough. Never enough.”
He was in so much pain.
Throwing caution to the wind, I walked over to him, looking at his manacle.
As I reached down to touch it, it felt cold.
A burning, unnatural cold. It was old, tainted magic, and I didn’t know how to break it.
Wrapping my hands around the metal, I grabbed each side of it and pulled, hissing as the cold seared my fingers.
I wasn’t sure who was more surprised when it snapped apart, Dermet or me.
He looked down at his bare ankle. “She said you had the ability to break magic, but only in defense of others. She was right.” He stood on shaky legs, unfurling to his full height, and suddenly, I wondered if I should have left him chained up for a little longer, rather than let an unknown man free in a small space where I was trapped.
His eyes shone as he looked at me, flexing his ankle. “It’s broken. I’m free.” He tilted his head. “Come, we have to hurry. They’ll find out eventually you’re down here, and then you’re as good as dead.” He moved to the tal in the wall. “You’ll have to pick it up yourself, Avalon Halhed.”
I reached out and grabbed it, the impure magic immediately pulsing into me. Flashes of Lierick’s face and the adulation in his expression drifted through my memories, but I didn’t feel anything like that. Holding this tal made me feel sick, and I quickly put it back on the wall.
Resting back against the stone, Dermet looked up at the undulating water ceiling.
He sucked in a deep breath and blew it back out.
“You need to take out your dagger and cut off my head. It needs to come all the way off, or the power might just heal me. Better still, kick my head over to the other side of the room. Then, when I’m dead, smash that cursed thing into a million pieces.
It can’t ever be restored. Do you understand me? ”
No, I didn’t understand. He wanted me to decapitate him? He was an innocent. A child who’d had to grow in darkness. I couldn’t steal his life from him. I was already shaking my head, and empathy shone from his expression.
Reaching out, he gripped my hand holding my dagger. His skin was cold and clammy, rough from dozens of criss-crossing scars. He let out a soft little sigh. “I can’t even remember the last time someone touched me with anything but malice.”
His eyes closed, and I lifted my free hand to his face, cupping his scarred cheek. He leaned into it, and I stroked my thumb along his cheekbone.
“If my father gets the chance to use me, use that”—he nodded toward the statue—“Ebrus will be forever destroyed.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Don’t let it all be in vain, Avalon Halhed.”
Dermet’s grip around my dagger hand tightened, before he lifted it to his throat and sliced with more force than I could ever have mustered. I screamed as he dropped to the floor, his blood pooling at my feet too fast, soaking into the toes of my boots.
“No,” I breathed, dropping to my knees.
His eyes were sightless, his face slack. He was dead.
“No!” I shouted. “No, this isn’t fucking fair.”
I didn’t realize I was crying over this stranger until my tears splashed onto his cheeks, his last words echoing through my mind.
Crying, I grabbed my dagger back up and cut the rest of the way through his neck.
I turned, vomiting to the side, last night’s dinner mixing with Dermet’s lifeblood.
I closed my eyes—like not having to watch would make it better—and eventually, there was no more resistance.
No matter what he said, I couldn’t kick his head to the other side of the room. I couldn’t even look at it as I stumbled to my feet, and heaved against the wall once more.
“What have you done?!”
I spun around to see an enraged Feodore Vylan on the other side of the cavern, his eyes locked on his decapitated son.
Fuck.