Chapter 11
By the time I made it back up the steps to the Chamber of Truths I was on my knees, crawling, wheezing. I’d eaten everything in my bag, emptied the flasks of all their water and ale, but I was still exhausted.
“Never again,” I rasped, sprawling across the carved spirals on the floor, staring up at the ceiling as I tried to remember how my lungs filled, and how my legs usually worked when they weren’t shaking.
It really ought to have occurred to me when I was descending all those stairs that I’d have to climb back up.
I splayed there for long, long minutes, turning over everything I’d seen.
I couldn’t be sure Gaia was the one who led me there; maybe it was one of my human gods.
Maybe it was a goblin with immense power who wanted to stop Cleodora.
But whoever it was, they’d given me a way to stop the Greenheart queen before we all became her subjects.
I counted myself very, very lucky that she hadn’t struck my mind in the time I’d been out of the Chamber of Truths, away from the Mother’s protection.
That could have gone disastrously wrong.
Not only would I have learned that she was searching for Gaia’s mausoleum, but she’d have cut me with a command to go there and fetch whatever powerful object she desired.
“I am not a dog,” I declared, still a little breathless.
“I don’t remember saying you were,” Kier’s warm, amused voice slid across the cavern like a kiss. I groaned and pulled myself up, propped myself against a wall. “Letta, why do you look like you’ve been run over by a group of wild bison.”
“Funny story,” I panted, meeting his eyes as he crossed the wide space. He set down a tureen of something that smelled hot and fresh and amazing to kneel beside me, taking my face in both hands. “And don’t be mad.”
“Why would I be mad?” he asked, but not reassuringly—with suspicion, like he knew he wasn’t going to like what he heard.
I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and turned my face to kiss his palm. “Tiny chance I used one of the open archways to leave the Chamber of Truths for an hour. Two hours, tops.”
Three if you counted the torture of climbing back up. I was trying to forget that part, though.
“Zaba.” Kier’s voice was a crack across the chamber’s cavernous silence.
“I know, I know, it was reckless and irresponsible and I could have lost myself to the Gr—”
I choked on my tongue, blood filling my mouth. “Shit,” I grunted. I forgot for a minute he didn’t know who controlled me.
Kier’s protectiveness flared, overriding his irritation at my day trip. Evening trip, whatever. He sat beside me, back to the wall, and opened his thighs to pull me between them, wrapping me up in his arms.
Heat and strength and safety engulfed my body.
I melted into him with a groan, my head falling on his shoulder.
The scent of him was like a balm, soothing and strengthening all at once.
I felt better with him holding me, already recovering from the hellish climb. Mate bonds were something else. Damn.
“I found something,” I said when I was sure I could talk again. “A cellar full of stars. Someone guided me there—”
Kier growled.
“No, not her. It felt… different. Maternal, wise, old. Ancient, even.”
Kier’s head turned, and I followed his stare to Gaia’s statue across the room.
“Yeah, I already entertained that delusion. I must be crazy.”
“If you are, I’m crazy, too. I swear I’ve felt her guidance before, during battle.”
“You do have a magical dragon…” I pointed out.
“Insanity,” he dismissed. Then, “What did you find?”
“There were stars all over the ceiling, shining like flecks of starlight.” I told him about standing on the largest star, about the vision, the lake, the mausoleum. “I know it sounds completely batshit, but I swear it’s Gaia’s grave.”
Kier was quiet, his hands flexing where they rested on my stomach. “That really is insane, Zaba.”
“I know.”
“Could you find it, if you tried?”
“I think so.” I hadn’t seen the area around the forest, but I knew it was on the border between Greenheart and Bluescale.
Hell, the troupe could have been close to it when we moved among the forests, hiding from soldiers I thought were sent to kill me.
“There must be magic around it,” I mused.
“Something to keep people away, or they’d have discovered it. ”
“We’d better take a sizable armoury of stones,” Kier replied.
I whipped around to stare at him, hope making my heart quicken. “We?”
“You didn’t think I’d leave my wife behind, did you?” he asked, those blue eyes I loved so much glittering with amusement, his mouth parting in a slow smile.
I threw my arms around his shoulders and kissed him hard. Kissing naturally led to him fulfilling all those promises he made me earlier.
The food went cold, but it was a sacrifice I happily made. We were going to find Gaia’s grave, steal whatever Cleodora wanted before she could get to it, and save our people. Not that Kier knew those last bits.
Happiness was like a shooting star in my veins. I was getting out, getting fresh air, adventuring. I couldn’t wait.