Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Aurelia
The air in the tunnels was still and heavy. It pressed against my ears like the walls were closing in, reminding me far too much of the silence I’d endured inside the walls of my own castle.
I thought I’d left that kind of silence behind.
Finding it here, now, left me gritting my teeth as I followed Eirnan and then Rydian deeper into the network of caves that led straight through Nygard Peak.
We’d only been walking for an hour, having broken camp just inside the tunnel’s entrance at first light this morning.
I dreaded to think about how many hours we had left in the close stillness. Most of us carried torches, chasing the darkness away. I opted to use my own flame if necessary and keep my hands free to grab a weapon should I need one.
It felt good to expend some of the power that built up inside me. A sleeping beast that grew every day, though I’d yet to mention it to the others.
We moved in a narrow line, torches flickering against the rock walls.
The flamelight carved our shadows into twisted shapes, tall and crooked, across the stone.
Every sound—every step, every scrape of a sword hilt against armor—echoed back a thousand times over, like the mountain was whispering our progress to itself. Or to whoever else might be listening.
The path had a noticeable descent. The deeper we went, the more the world above felt like a dream I’d once had and forgotten. It was warmer here, and while I’d been grateful for it at first, it soon became a stagnant sort of warmth that left a sheen of sweat on my brow.
Just ahead of me, Rydian’s shadows curled along his boots, testing the path ahead in a way his torchlight couldn’t.
Keres followed close behind me, her daggers drawn.
Behind her, Daegel and Thorne carried torches, along with half the Withered soldiers who brought up the rear.
We’d left several of our ranks back at camp, including Vanya and those like her who could not fight.
She’d been teary-eyed at our parting. I’d sworn to see her again soon, a promise I intended to keep.
The walls glistened where the torchlight hit them—black rock shot through with veins of quartz that caught the flame and held it like trapped stars. In places, the ground shimmered faintly. More quartz. Or something like it.
“It feels so old in here,” Keres said softly.
“And crowded,” Slade muttered.
Eirnan’s voice drifted back. “These tunnels were carved long before the courts,” he said. “The legends say smugglers used them during the Calidium wars. They say you could travel all the way from the Concordian Mountains to the Vorinthian border and never see daylight.”
“They go that far south?” I asked. “But the mountains end here in Autumn.”
“The tunnels burrow beneath the land. Below the Osphanis itself. They say there’s a place near Rosewood where you can glimpse the caves above ground.”
Rosewood.
I could almost smell it—the riverbanks blooming with lilies in spring, my mother’s roses climbing the palace walls, the markets loud with laughter. All of that life gone now; cursed into sleep.
A lump rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. “I remember those caves,” I managed to say.
We walked in silence for what felt like hours.
The air grew colder, the stone narrowing around us until my cloak brushed the walls. My flame pulsed beneath my skin, a quiet warmth I didn’t dare unleash in a space so tight.
When the sound came, it was faint. A whisper of stone shifting against stone.
Keres froze mid-step. “Did you hear that?”
Everyone stopped. The tunnel filled with the soft crackle of torchlight, the hush of breathing.
Then the ground trembled.
Just once, like something massive had shifted beneath it.
Daegel raised his torch higher. “What in the—”
Something erupted from the darkness ahead—its massive body slick and gleaming like obsidian. It struck so fast that Einan and Rydian barely dove aside before it slammed into the spot where they’d just stood.
A pair of gleaming yellow eyes, larger than I’d ever seen, stared straight into mine.
For a moment, everything stopped.
Then it opened its mouth, and a roar shook the air, deep and guttural, echoing down every corridor.
“Get clear,” Rydian barked, shadows flaring from his hands.
I retreated along with the others, drawing Dorcha as I went.
From the looming darkness ahead, the rest of the creature burst through the rock—a worm-like monstrosity thick as a tree, its scales black and glassy, its body ridged with spines that pulsed faintly with blue light. Its mouth gaped open, a ring of fangs glistening with frost.
Soldiers began yelling as the creature’s tail lashed across the tunnel, sending two Withered flying into the wall.
“Back,” I shouted, raising my sword.
I lunged, slicing into its side. The blade barely cut through the glassy scales before the creature reared back and slammed its body into the rock wall, trying to crush me against it. Thorne shoved me aside, hard enough that I hit the wall with a pained grunt.
“Thanks,” I managed.
Thorne was already moving, trying to put himself between the creature and whoever it chose next. The serpent whirled, far quicker than Thorne or anyone else could move, and snatched a Withered soldier with its maw, impaling him on its fangs.
The soldier screamed—and then abruptly fell silent.
The creature dumped him aside and then turned for its next victim, its jaws snapping inches from my face. I rolled, furyfire bursting from my palm. The blast hit its flank, searing through the first layer of armor. The air filled with the smell of burnt carcass.
The serpent shrieked, a sound that echoed inside my skull.
Daegel said something to Slade, and they began inching around, trying to sneak up from the creature’s rear.
Rydian’s shadows coiled up the serpent’s body, wrapping around its neck like chains.
He yanked hard, forcing its head back, then drove a second wave of darkness straight down its throat.
The creature convulsed, shrieking as its breath was cut off.
The serpent thrashed, slamming its body into the walls so hard the tunnel shook. Shards of rock rained down. One caught my shoulder with enough force to make me stagger.
“Now,” Rydian shouted, voice rough with strain. His shadows bit deeper, even as the serpent choked and thrashed.
Keres darted in, daggers flashing, driving one into the seam beneath a scale. The monster jerked hard. Its armor split, leaking black ichor that hissed against the hot stone.
I stepped in to finish it, furyfire blooming along my blade. Pain stabbed through my arm as I swung, and Dorcha slipped from my grasp.
The creature saw the weakness.
It lunged.
Thorne caught me around the waist and spun us both out of reach. The creature’s fangs scraped the wall where my head had been an instant before. Its breath hit us, a blast of cold so sharp it burned. More ichor sizzled along the stone where it dripped from the creature’s pointed fangs.
Poison venom.
Rydian roared. His shadows speared forward, plunging into the beast’s open eye. It screamed—a high, piercing sound that made every torch gutter. Then the darkness erupted outward, bursting through its skull and severing the scaled creature from itself.
Its head hit the ground with a wet, final thud.
I slumped against the wall, clutching my shoulder. My fingers came away slick with my own blood. The wound burned, cold seeping inward.
“Don’t touch it,” Thorne said, waving Keres over. “Looks like poison.”
“It was just a falling rock,” I said, but he ignored me.
Keres was already there, tucking her blades away, eyes narrowed at the torn flesh. “Hold still.” She reached for her salves, shadows gathering at her fingertips to pull the toxin free.
The world tilted. A deeper cold crawled up my arm, and my knees nearly buckled.
Rydian’s arm braced my back, steadying me. “Easy.”
Black ichor pooled beneath the creature’s severed head, viscous and smoking in the torchlight. The remnant of power inside it whispered—cold, wrong, barely alive. Something in me answered before I could think better of it.
Heat flared from the rune at my throat—then raced down my arm, through my veins, white-gold and furious. The pain vanished. Flesh knit beneath Keres’s hovering hands, the torn edges drawing closed as if stitched by invisible thread. Strength flooded my limbs so sharply I gasped.
Rydian jerked back in shock. “Aurelia—”
“I’m fine,” I said, though my voice came out strange, layered with a hum that wasn’t mine.
Keres stared, then grabbed my wrist and turned my arm to the light. The wound was gone—only clean skin and faint smudges where poison had touched. Her expression shifted from suspicion to something like wary respect. “Well. That’s new.”
Daegel held up a jagged spine with the tip of his sword, black ichor dripping. “It was poison,” he confirmed before glancing at my now-healed arm.
I pushed to my feet, breath steadying. The heat beneath my tattoo cooled; the hum faded. But the memory of that power lingered—wild, ancient, and hungry for more.
“You have the power to heal yourself,” Leif said, his voice hushed with awe.
I glanced at him then away again, unease filtering through me as I noted all of the Withered watching me with that same reverent expression. Even Einan was slack-jawed.
I found Rydian’s gaze, and in it, no trace of damnation.
“It’s called Makarios,” I told them. “A gift from the Furiosities.”
A few of the Withered gasped at that.
“They are not what we think,” I added, my voice only trembling slightly.
Keres’ expression was hard, but her eyes glittered with appreciation. Slade and Thorne said nothing. But Daegel nodded at me.
“They want to defeat Heliconia too,” I said. “They are the reason I was Chosen. Their gifts…”
I trailed off. If the Withered rejected me because of the gods who’d gifted me this power, I needed to let it happen now. Before any more of them died for me.
“The Fates are of the light. They alone bestow gifts to chase away the darkness,” someone said.
“The Fates have vanished,” I said, impatience creeping in. More than anyone else, I knew the frustration of the Fates’ abandonment. I’d watched Sonoma and the others try for years to call their masters—to no avail.
“They have left this realm and us,” I went on. “We must fight with what we can in order to save ourselves.”
A few murmured, but no one argued.
“We’ve all learned the hard way that our leaders were not who we thought they were,” Einan said into the silence. “Our minds are open to new allies, lest we find ourselves with no one beside us at all.”
Leif looked at the elder Withered and nodded.
A few of the others made quiet signs against ill fortune, while others murmured their support. It was better than outright rejection. Or hostility.
Keres snapped her kit closed and straightened. “Whatever it was, it saved us time and a good deal of pain. Can you walk?”
“I can.”
“Good,” she said briskly, already shifting back to business. “Because we shouldn’t linger.”
Her abrupt words seemed to break whatever spell the others had fallen under. They began to move, to gather their weapons and supplies and murmur amongst themselves.
I exhaled, glad for the reprieve.
Still, Rydian remained at my side, and I was glad for that too. For however long it lasted.
Daegel glanced between us. “Orders? Burn the carcass?”
“Leave two to set it alight once we’re clear,” Rydian said. “Eirnan, you said there’s a place to rest ahead?”
“A cavern not far,” Eirnan answered, torch lifting. “It will provide cover against anything else lurking here.”
Rydian nodded. “Let’s move.”
Even after Einan strode away, Rydian lingered. I looked up and found myself held still by his gaze. Too close. He was standing way too close. With an arm around my waist. When had that happened? And the way he was looking at me—I’d rather be poisoned again than resist that look.
He reached up and brushed his knuckles along my cheek. “I thought—” His voice frayed, then hardened.
He shut his eyes. When he opened them again, I glimpsed true fear. Only for a moment before it was gone again. Not gone, I realized. Hidden. Tucked away so no one else saw it. Or to pretend he hadn’t felt it himself.
“I’m fine,” I assured him again, gentler this time.
He nodded as if he didn’t quite believe it. “Stay close.”
“I intend to,” I said, thinking of the Withered who’d looked at me like I was a demon.
He stepped away to confer with Daegel and Eirnan, shoulders squared, shadows still moving restlessly around his boots.
I inhaled, feeling the serpent’s life force thrumming faintly under my skin. Then I sheathed Dorcha, drew a steadying breath, and fell in with the others as we pressed deeper into the dark.