Chapter 44 #2
Rune didn’t speak as he guided them through the stones toward the domed platform. But the closer they rode, the clearer it became it was no dome at all.
It was a grate of crude metal and stone.
A window into the dark tomb beneath.
“This isn’t the entrance,” Alora said.
“No, but it’s near.” Rune looked to the cliffs and tugged Saeroth’s reins. There they found a set of worn steps carved into the stone, leading to the dark beach below. Gray waves crashed on the shore loudly, carrying the scent of the sea.
“We will have to go on foot from here.”
He dismounted, boots crunching on the gravel. He took her hand and helped her down. No longer needed, the demon horse dissipated like smoke.
“Nexus,” Alora peeked at the napping Vareth in her satchel. It peeked at her though sleepy eyes. “Perhaps you should stay here.”
Nexus made a curt pert sound and leaped out of the satchel, landing gracefully. He stretched, yawning through a meow and darted onward down the steps.
“I suppose he’s braver than us,” Alora said.
They watched Nexus vanish between one blink and the next, slipping through the world like he had found a seam in it.
“He is a Vareth. His duty as your familiar is to guard your steps. Even if you left Nexus behind, he would appear at your heel again. Such beasts are not governed by doors or distance. They go where they will.”
She still couldn’t understand why such a creature would choose her to protect.
They descended the stairs slowly, sand and gravel crunching underfoot. There were no other animals in sight. No birds. No plant life other than the Blood Blooms and desiccated weeds on the cliffside. Even the wind was fetid.
“There’s no life here.”
“No,” Rune said quietly. “This place feeds on all living things. And if we’re not careful, it may feed on us, too.”
She followed his stare to the shallow cave within the cliffside.
The entrance to Khar Avalen rose from the earth like a memory carved in stone.
Two colossal guardians flanked the doorway, their forms half-man, half-beast, frozen in eternal vigilance.
Scaled armor clung to their bodies, ribs and sinew rendered in ancient stone, each holding a spear taller than any tower in Argyle.
Their faces were monstrous things of horn and fire, jaws split by fangs, empty, hollow eyes.
Between them stood the door.
A single slab of dark rock engraved with spirals and concentric sigils whose meaning had been forgotten in every age after the First. The carvings twisted inward like a great eye that seemed to watch whoever dared stand before it.
When mist rolled across the courtyard steps, it gathered at the door’s base and seeped into the grooves as if feeding something asleep beneath the surface.
Alora stood still beside Rune, wind tousling her hair. “I have heard stories of this place but never dared to come myself.”
“Nor did I,” he murmured.
Her throat tightened with dread, but she came too far to turn back now.
When she took the first step on the stairs, the ancient braziers that lined the stairway and entrance, instantly sputtered to life, flames guttering orange against the cold mist. They gave off no warmth. Flames now lit the statues eyes, flickering light that made the darkness look like it moved.
The thick scent of dust and iron and secrets that had survived the fall of kings and Titans alike. Seeing it in person, the illustrations in her book didn’t compare to the real thing.
The ruins didn’t feel abandoned.
Merely waiting for the next soul.
Her heartbeat raced, her body growing tense. Every instinct screamed not to go in there, but she knew everything she needed to know waited behind that door.
“Alora.” Rune took her elbow when she moved forward and pulled her back from the stairs. “Do not touch that door.”
She frowned. “But we came here for answers.”
“To receive, one must first give,” he said, eyes never leaving the stone giants. “Entering without an offering would wake the wrath of the watchers.”
Mist drifted along the carvings, as if listening.
A beat. A silence heavy enough to bow the air.
“What kind of offering?” she asked quietly.
He glanced down and she followed his stare to the ground where an ancient array had been carved into the stone. The crevasses were dark, choked with rust-brown stains.
Blood.
She would need to spill her own to enter.
Rune finally looked at her. That gaze was a storm, wrapped in a hunger that was painfully mortal now.
“I will not allow that,” he said, cupping her cheek.
Her skin warmed beneath his palm. “Then how do we enter?”
“Without knocking, but we won’t go in there while I remain powerless.” His thumb hovered at her jaw, hesitant, possessive. “You still have what is mine.”
Her pulse kicked.
The bond coiled tight.
Rune leaned in, his voice dropped to a predator’s murmur. “Give it back to me, Alora.”
“But I don’t know how,” she whispered.
His mouth curved, dark and almost reverent.
“That’s all right. I do.” He brushed the hair from her temples as she looked up at him.
She didn’t recoil when he cupped her face.
A small smile hovered on the corners of his mouth and his voice dropped to a seductive murmur.
“All you need to do is surrender to me…”
That’s what she had been fighting this whole time.
Surrendering to this god who wanted all of her.
Brazenly. It was a terrifying thought, to give herself to another.
Overwhelming to believe that at last there was someone who wanted her, despite who she was and the danger she presented.
Rune didn’t care. He asked for surrender because as he looked at her now, he was ready to do the same.
Alora leaned into his touch with a sigh.
And her husband kissed her.
The moment their lips touched, the power unraveled.
It poured from her into him, warm and electric. Magic rushed between their mouths like breath shared between drowning souls. A dark mist surged out of her with a gasp, racing over him ink spilling through water.
Rune’s power flow through the bond and the shadows sang.
His mouth crashed against hers like hunger masquerading as a kiss, heat and light surging between their lips. A force rose inside of herself, an ancient and electric power, pouring out of her chest into him in molten threads.
Rune’s hands tightened on her waist as if he meant to devour every last drop.
Her strength waned, as if he took that too.
He tore himself away, breath ragged, eyes burning red as coals.
Molten markings pulsed on his skin. She panted for air, bewildered by the rush of magic and dazed by the consuming kiss.
The mortal man had vanished beneath the rise of god.
He glowed, as if his power had somehow heightened now that it returned.
They stared at each other, dazed, pupils blown wide, caught between want and fear. For a heartbeat neither of them moved, both wondering what in the Seven was that.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice ragged.
She nodded breathlessly.
“Thank you,” Rune whispered, lips grazing hers. Then he turned toward the doors. “I’ll take it from here.”
He headed for the entrance, his black armor and scarlet cloak taking form as he climbed the steps. She bit her lip, holding back a smile at the striking power that fit him so well. But the gigantic statues moved, rock groaning as their spears braced like warnings against eternity.
“Rune!” Alora shouted in warning.
His answering smirk was all sharp teeth and feral amusement. With a swipe of his hand, shadows swept out.
Two black lashes of power snapped through the air, and the stone watchers lost their heads.
The massive skulls crashed down, shattering the steps in a thunder of ancient ruin.
Alora gasped, stumbling, but Rune hauled her against his chest. Shadows wrapped around them, a living shield as dust and debris rained down.
When the ground settled, his voice slid into her ear, smooth and merciless.
“Go on, songbird,” he murmured. “Whatever madness awaits will contend with me.”
Alora swallowed and she approached the massive doors. When she pushed, they groaned open with a sound like a dying beast exhaling its last breath, and cold air swept out from the abyss within. Nexus paused by her feet, his meow echoing out.
Alora stepped inside and the world shifted.
The chamber yawned open in a vast shaft. Thin slivers of daylight spilled down like divine fingers from the open dome above, but even sunlight dimmed as it neared the ground below. As though something within devoured brightness on sight.
And carved into the walls were more statues. Three times bigger than the watchers at the doors.
The Primordials.
Colossal idols of stone, each one monstrous and half-withered, with ribcages like cages for souls and hollow faces twisted in silent hunger.
Their arms were crossed against their chests as if holding in the ruin of the world.
Braziers flickered at their feet, casting quivering shadows across their faces.
The air thrummed with an old, sleeping malice. A pulse. A heartbeat.
Her own magic stirred in answer.
Skulls were embedded in the walls between the statues like forgotten thoughts, eye sockets packed with sand. Whoever had died here had been given no burial rites.
They had been sacrificed.
In the room’s heart was another circular platform, carved with ancient glyphs. Stone steps led up to it, worn and uneven, surrounded by pillars that leaned like tired sentinels.
Atop that platform stood a pedestal wrought of obsidian and iron.
It burned with subtle light, glyphs flickering orange in its base like dying coals.
And rising from that black stone was a mirror.
Its frame was fashioned of jagged black stone, barbs like claws curling inward around its circumference.