CHAPTER THREE #2
Another arrow met its mark, drawing the Guardian’s attention away from her to bellow at Ethenn.
Evylin scrambled to her feet, drawing her sword once more.
Then, all at once, an enraged howl ripped through the Chamber, and the Guardian vanished.
The knife she’d embedded in its shoulder now clattered to the floor.
Evylin stared in shock, taking an instinctive step back. Her eyes darted around the space. With the disappearance of the Guardian, the Chamber now looked decidedly empty. Though the room remained a shadowscape of purple, she saw with far more clarity than before.
Whipping her head toward the dais, Evylin took stock of her team. Thom lay on the far side, Auden kneeling next to him. A flash of golden light marked his healing. Rafferty stood alone, his short swords searching the air.
“Is it gone?” he asked.
Evylin bolted for the final group. At the back of the dais, Ilain and Ethenn crouched next to Deckard, his head in his hands. She dropped to her knees beside Ethenn, panic rippling through her. “What happened?” she demanded.
“He’s just fine,” Ilain assured her.
Deckard dropped his hands and looked up at her. His eyes searched the darkness before finding hers. “I’m all right,” he promised. “My head’s just spinning a bit.”
Evylin looked to Ethenn. “He took a hit for me,” the hunter explained. “I still don’t know how he managed it.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, confused.
“I mean, it’s bloody dark in here,” Ethenn remarked. “I could hardly see well enough to focus on the Guardian. But when it struck out to hit me, the colonel was just . . . there.”
Ilain narrowed her eyes as Evylin glared at Deckard, but he waved a hand. “I saw its attack coming and found the speed to intervene.”
“And you got hit in the process?” Evylin surmised.
“I was only knocked to the ground. No cuts or scrapes, I promise.” He held out a hand to Ethenn. “Help me up, would you?”
Despite their notable height difference, Ethenn easily pulled Deckard to his feet. Auden and a freshly healed Thom ambled over, drawing Rafferty along.
“Is everyone all right?” Auden asked.
“Define ‘all right,’” Rafferty said.
“We’re all well,” Deckard assured Auden before turning to the weasel. “You look perfectly fine, Rafferty. What’s wrong?”
“Oh, I’m right as rain, Colonel,” Rafferty returned. “It just seems you lot can see far better than I can.”
“I doubt that,” Thom grumbled. “I’m completely in the dark. Are we sure the Guardian’s gone?”
“It’s gone,” Auden confirmed. Then he scanned Thom and Rafferty anew. “Neither of you can see?”
“Nope.” Rafferty frowned, his eyes searching unseeingly.
Auden turned to the rest of them. “What about all of you?”
Evylin looked to Ilain, Deckard, and Ethenn. “It isn’t perfect,” she admitted. “Everything is still very dark, but I can make things out well enough.”
“Same for me,” Ethenn confirmed. “But I’ve always had good eyesight.”
“Hunters,” Rafferty grumbled.
Deckard nodded his agreement. “I can see shapes but no details.”
Ilain looked toward Auden. “It seems by Allore’s grace that we’re only down two members,” she remarked.
“Are you all right?” Deckard asked Thom, taking a step toward his brother. “It sounded like the Guardian broke something.”
“It did,” Thom said. “My whole left leg, according to Auden.”
“I got him patched up,” Auden assured them. “It’ll be sore, but he can run out of here all the same.”
“I can’t run if I can’t see,” Thom argued.
Deckard frowned. “That is a problem. We have Shades to face upstairs. Can we defend Thom and Rafferty the whole way?”
“We don’t have much choice,” Evylin said. “They can’t exactly stay down here.”
Ethenn nocked an arrow. “I’ll hold the back,” he suggested. “If you, Auden, and Ilain clear the way, the colonel and I can defend Thom and Raff.”
“It’s as good a plan as any,” Evylin lamented.
With their worrisome plan in place, Evylin reclaimed her knife from the floor and reset her grip on her sword.
She jogged lightly to the front to walk alongside Auden and Ilain while Deckard and Ethenn herded Thom and Rafferty at the back.
The long walk through the dark purple Chamber and up the stone staircase took several minutes, especially as their sight-impaired comrades struggled to gauge each step.
Evylin could feel her magic thrumming under her skin, begging her to return to the action.
That was something she’d come to learn about her Warrior instincts.
When they kicked in, she stopped thinking quite as rationally.
Logic and strategy pervaded, but in a far more reactive fashion.
She wanted to move, fight, run, jump, and slash.
It made her feel discombobulated when she forced herself to slow her gait.
Her skin tingled with unspent energy, and her head swirled with excitement even as her heart weighed heavily in her chest, each beat a reminder of how fearful she was of losing any of her teammates.
Finally, they reached the top of the staircase.
Auden paused at the iron door that awaited them.
“I’ll go out first,” he offered, the Day Relic’s yellow pulse and the Night’s purple beam resting on his coat.
“If nothing else, I may be able to slow the first wave of Shades with the additional power.”
All of them prepared as Auden cautiously opened the door. Evylin remained at his side, watchful. She lifted her sword, prepared to strike the second a Shade showed itself.
Emerging from the staircase, the team walked out into a tall but narrow stone enclosure.
Twinkling violet gems glittered across the midnight purple stone ceiling, and veins of amethyst ran through the rock.
It would have been beautiful if she hadn’t been far more aware of the arching passage before them.
They were in a cave, Evylin realized. The home of the bloodwolf. She’d read about their habitats in her novels. Tight, enclosed spaces that often twisted and turned with numerous dark passages so winding you could easily get lost.
Cool, damp air tickled Evylin’s skin as she and Auden moved for the passage, Ilain at their back.
As they continued, the Shades’ hum rose to Evylin’s ears.
The sound was pure, sharp, and piercing.
The Shades of Night sang differently from those of Day and Water.
The haunting minor refrain sent chills down her spine even as she admired its beauty.
The dichotomy of Night filled her once more: safety and anxiety, protection and betrayal, peace and terror.
Senses honing as the magic tugged at her, Evylin lifted her sword. Her focus refined while her heartbeat rose, a furious hammer against an anvil. The cave of Night grew clearer as her vision sharpened.
Evylin could see down the singular passage now. Rock pillars twisted out of the ground, keeping the path narrow and hard to maneuver. Out of their shadows rose the clay and magic forms of the Shades. Smoke-like shadows curled around the clay, holding their strange, amorphous figures together.
In an instant, Auden’s hands flew forward. A stream of light burst out, causing Evylin to recoil, her eyes watering at the sudden brightness. “Don’t!” she called even as the Day magic seared the Shades into oblivion. They burst apart into thick clouds of smoke, obscuring the hall.
Furiously blinking away the spots that now burned her retinas, Evylin attempted to glare at Auden. “You can’t use Day in here. I was just getting used to the dark.”
Auden held his hands up in apology, his eyes blinking wildly like the rest of their team. “My mistake,” he assured her. “I wasn’t thinking. I will use Time or Night from here on.”
“And I,” Ilain added with a sour tone, “will refrain from using Fire.”
“Wait,” Rafferty interjected. “Why don’t you use Fire to make a light? Then Thom and I could see.”
Ilain tossed him a disdainful look. “Even without Fire magic, I’d be of far more use fighting than as your magical lantern.”
“Fine,” Thom grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “Let’s just get out of here!”
Moving for the passage, Evylin could feel her magic working to clear her vision rapidly. “Stay close,” she warned Deckard and Ethenn. “The more of those Shades we bring down, the more difficult it will be to keep sight of each other.”
Deckard strode forward with purpose, his every move primed for attack. “We’ll be right behind you,” he assured her.
His promise did little to assuage her concern, but Evylin pressed into the opening.
The cave matched the descriptions she’d read in her novels.
The passages were winding and narrow; the ceiling soared in some places and dropped low in others.
They had to crouch, walk single file, and turn to the side to slip through some sections.
In others, they had plenty of room to spread out.
As they traversed the difficult terrain, at each step of the way, they had to fight Shades.
True to their promises, Auden and Ilain utilized their lesser forms of magic, which helped everyone grow more comfortable in the darkness.
But it also meant their attacks weren’t as strong as they might’ve otherwise been.
Auden struck out with invisible forces of Time magic, manipulating the Shades as they ran for them. He’d reverse their timeline, throwing them back on their tracks, or locking them in time, their forms freezing altogether.
Ilain brandished her Elemental magic with a flourish.
As always, her magic carried a more dramatic, embellished flair.
Wind sliced like a blade under her command.
She drew pillars from the rock with Terrae magic, piercing into the Shades.
And, more rarely, she summoned spiraling spears of water that disappeared in a spray of droplets after hitting their marks.