Chapter 12 #2
“How do you know what language that is?” I asked curiously. None of the symbols on the sign remotely resembled the characters from any language I knew.
An amused hum left my mate’s throat. “I’ve had a lot of time to study…pretty much everything I could get my hands on. I was bored until recently, kitten.” Until he met me, he meant. He was bored until he met me.
“It looks like there are more signs inside, on the wall,” Julian called out.
He and Tore stood near the entrance of the keep, peeking through the ‘windows’ on either side, which were basically just openings in the stone walls.
As I placed my hand on the stone, I felt a flash of magic roll over me, and my wolf instantly projected the image of her jumping upwards.
She didn’t offer any other information, looking confused herself, but she continued to look up, so I followed suit. My gaze ran over each stone as it traveled upwards, all the way to the top where there was a window.
Well, clearly something was up there…something my wolf was trying to tell me was important.
“It doesn’t look abandoned on the inside,” Tore murmured, stepping through the door.
Some of us followed while Dakota and Caedmon stood in the doorway to keep an eye out for threats.
I looked around the main floor of the keep and noticed that tables were set out, the tops shining as if recently polished.
The place really didn’t look abandoned, but even I could sense no one was here.
“Do the signs say anything?” Caedmon asked Ryder, who stood at the far wall near a staircase…if you could call it that. I walked towards him, examining the one piece of the tower that did appear in disrepair.
While the stairs’ stone foundation wound all the way up to the top of the tower, there weren’t many ‘stairs’ to speak of, many of the stones having crumbled to create what appeared to be more of a stone ramp than anything else. And that wasn’t even including how narrow it was!
In fact, the entire staircase was only as wide as maybe two or three of me, attached to the side walls of the tower and jutting out from it a few feet at most. The other side was completely absent of railings, so trekking up the staircase would be a dangerous endeavor.
One wrong step and you were either sliding down with broken stone to the bottom or falling off the side to the bottom floor. I swallowed nervously at the imagery.
It was also the moment I decided that I didn’t want any of my mates doing something so dangerous.
Ryder shook his head. “Just some brief military history—almost seems like a museum, like something you would find on a guided tour.”
“My wolf is saying I need to go up,” I said, my words echoing softly in the empty chamber. “I don’t know why, but I think she’s right—I think I need to go up there.”
I wasn’t lying, she really was being adamant—but I also didn’t want any of them volunteering to do it. They were much larger than I was, so it made more sense for me to do it, and I felt empowered by the knowledge that I would actually be able to help with this.
“It could be a trick,” Dakota warned.
“It could be,” I agreed, “or it could be the right thing to do. I didn’t get the urge to go up there until I touched the building, so maybe it’s instinct?
I’m still figuring out how all of this works.
” Because my magic was so much more complicated than I could have ever guessed.
I thought I’d been nothing when I lived with the Whitepaw Pack, but now that I knew the truth…
well, it made sense that there were so many layers to my magic.
“We can’t exactly just walk up there,” Julian said, eyeing the staircase.
“And I would love to say I could scale the outside,” Ryder began, “but the only windows I saw were at the very top, so that would be a difficult feat considering there’s really nowhere to grip onto.”
“If we’re going to do this, I think at least two of us should stay outside, just in case—like when we were in Bardelina retrieving the Fengari Stone,” Tore suggested. “That way if anything does happen, we can help.”
I nodded in agreement and then tilted my head back, trying to get a better look at the staircase to see if it got any better towards the top.
“Effie…” Caedmon said, drawing out my name in a way that said he knew what I was thinking and didn’t like it.
“I need to be part of this. My magic is really insistent on it.” I looked towards them, holding their gazes and hoping to infuse as much confidence as possible—it wasn’t often I was so adamant about something, but I needed to do this.
“I don’t like it,” Dakota rumbled, “but I agree. If your magic is giving you the go-ahead, then it’s probably alright—it’s never steered you wrong.”
I blinked, realizing that he was right. Even when I had allowed myself to be mistreated by the Whitepaw Pack, my magic had been extremely against it. Maybe I really did need to trust my magic more.
“So who’s staying outside?” Caedmon asked, clearly upset but not arguing about the decision.
I was glad my mates were trusting me on this because as much as I knew I needed to do this, I was still nervous, and I worried I would fold easily if they pushed too hard.
After all, how the heck was I going to get up four stories with no stairs?
“You,” Dakota suggested. “Julian and you can both shift if we need help, but I also think having three shifted wolves in a confined space could be dangerous. So between Effie, myself, and you two, it would be better to split it.”
Julian chuckled and shook his head but didn’t seem to disagree, coming over to me and pressing a light kiss to my cheek. “Be careful.”
“Why are you laughing?” I asked.
“Because Dakota is selfish,” Caedmon mused, squeezing my waist and following Julian out. Dakota offered an unrepentant shrug, and I loved that he was so willing to find any way to be close to me, even if the others thought he was a bit selfish.
I didn’t mind each of them being selfish with me occasionally—then again, I pretty much loved anything they wanted to do with me.
“So how the hell are you getting up there, kitten?”
I looked at Dakota, Ryder, and Tore and then back at the stairs. “Shift—I’m going to shift.”
And pray to the goddess it was going to be that easy.