Chapter 13 #3
His smile was amused when Tallu turned to him.
I looked down again, squinting until I saw some evidence of where the path had once been.
Now the path broke off into a sheer cliff face ending in a forest of scraggly pine trees.
They were too far down and too spread out to break our fall. We were trapped.
“We learned from Forsaith, too. This way,” the dwarf said. He led us into one of the large openings on the mountain wall, massive columns decorated in the Krustavian style framing the doorway.
I had expected more untamed spaces like the caverns we had just traveled through—massive uncut gems hanging from every wall to show Krustau’s wealth; it could let such treasure sit unattended.
Instead, we walked through rooms that could have been extensions of the Lakeshore Palace: rooms with friezes that covered all four walls, tables and chairs carved from old wood, and decorated with plates and bowls made from diamonds, even a library with Krustavian books from floor to ceiling.
In every room, dwarves occupied the space, their laughter dying when they saw us, lively conversations turning to silence at a glimpse of Tallu’s crown.
At the back, Asahi was growing increasingly tense, and the angry hornets of his thoughts made me wince, bringing a hand to my temple before I dropped it at Tallu’s frown.
No one tried to follow us, although I couldn’t help but count the number of people we would need to kill to escape.
“Are all of these people members of the court?” I asked, desperate to hear some sound other than the threatening silence that surrounded us.
“Court?” Our guide sniffed. “That’s an imperial conceit. These are the members of Badger Guild, those who aren’t working.”
At the next doorway, I blinked, recognizing that the dark colors of their clothes had traces of dust and chipped stone at the hems. One of the women saw me looking and crossed her arms, glaring.
I smiled, trying for friendly, but it had the exact same effect of dropping an annoyed skunk into a tea party. Her lips went even thinner, and I took two steps to catch up with Tallu and our guide.
“What a welcoming guild,” I muttered.
The dwarf grunted, stopping in front of a pair of enormous stone doors.
They were covered in gemstones patterned like mosaics.
They must have weighed as much as a whale, yet our guide touched the handle of the first door, and both opened immediately.
Like the bears earlier, the stone seemed to move itself.
We stood at the entrance to the room, and I was reminded of all those months ago when Eona? and I had stood at the edge of Tallu’s throne room. It had been dark there, too.
But this was a different sort of dark, not simply a difference in light. We were deep in the heart of the mountain, and the pathway into the throne room was lit by small, glowing rocks, throwing their pale green light into the darkness as though it could illuminate more than our own feet.
Our guide stood at the doorway, his body turned perpendicular to ours, watching with interest. We didn’t move.
Finally, gruffly, he said, “The King of the Shadow Throne, Inor, head of Badger Guild, will see you now.”
“How did he know we were coming?” I asked, more to say something and thereby stave off having to enter a room of such oppressive darkness for a moment or two.
“There’s not a single thing that occurs in the Krustavian Mountains that the king does not feel and know.” Our guide turned, walking away from the doors and the darkened room in front of us.
I could feel eyes on us, but when I turned, there were no dwarves behind us. I didn’t like the feeling, the sense that their king didn’t need guards, that his power was so great he could crush us without them.
From the tension in their bodies, I could tell that Asahi and Sagam felt the same. Both of them were looking away from Tallu and me, their heads moving back and forth, and Asahi kept raising his hand to feel at his waist, even though his sword and scabbard were gone.
Tallu raised his chin, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. I pushed my shoulders back, placing my hand on his arm again. I reminded myself that the king of the Shadow Throne had no idea who he was dealing with.
We walked into the dark, Sagam and Asahi directly behind us, so close that I could hear the unsteady sound of Sagam’s breath drawn through his mask and the too-calm sound of Asahi’s regulated breathing.
I was right. The small rocks that had so vividly illuminated our way through the caves below were not nearly bright enough to light the massive, dark room we found ourselves in.
Yet it was the only path we had to follow, and Tallu strode with the confidence of an emperor who had never found his footing wrong. I kept pace, lengthening my own stride to keep up with his longer legs.
The rocks ended in a semicircle, and we pulled to a stop. A voice boomed from the darkness.
“Who would see Inor, head of Badger Guild, King of the Shadow Throne?” The words were spoken in accented Imperial. They seemed to come from everywhere: behind us, in front, and so close on the sides that it was whispered in my ear.
I jerked my head, turning quickly, but there was nothing there.
“I am Emperor Tallu, patriarch of House Atobe, first Dragon Chosen Emperor of the Southern Imperium, here at the request of the Shadow King.” Tallu stared straight ahead, and I squinted, wondering if he could see something I couldn’t.
The floor under our feet rumbled, and I bent my knees, one hand forward, the other back, ready for an attack, but instead light sparkled above us, a thousand stars blinking on.
They lit an enormous room, illuminated columns breaking it up. Ahead, atop a massive dais, a throne sparkled with light, the glow growing slowly until it was so bright it might as well have been the sun.
It was made of solid gemstone, carved from a single rock. The dwarf sitting on it wore a crown of black stone, his dark hair curling over it. His pointed ears were accented by golden rings linked together by small chains.
When he smiled, the glow in the room brightened further.
“Welcome, Emperor Tallu. Shall we finally talk as men—” His lips curled even higher, turning into a smirk, and he raised a hand, knuckles gnarled from mining work, pointing at me. “—or do you require another headless corpse to understand my position?”