Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
ELLIE
“In the final accounting, we are measured not by what we conquered but by what we preserved.”
The Healer's Codex, ancient Tidevein manuscript
It’s still dark when I wake to find myself alone in bed. The side where Sacha sleeps is cold, telling me he’s been gone for a while. I throw back the covers, and hurry across the room, easing the door open.
My eyes find him immediately—tall, straight-backed, sitting cross-legged in front of the large window. Moonlight streams through the glass, surrounding him in a faint silvery glow that deepens the shadows pooling around his body.
Through the bond, I can sense his intense focus. It’s so strong it actually makes my stomach ache.
Two hundred and fifty people. He’s going to try and transport two hundred and fifty people through shadows to Blackvault.
I stand in the doorway, staying as quiet as possible, wanting to watch but afraid to disturb him. I can feel how much this is costing him through our bond. The fear he won’t admit to. The resolve that drives him forward. The responsibility for all these lives pressing down on him.
Then the tenor of his concentration shifts. The fear doesn’t disappear, but something else joins it. Readiness mixed with grim resolve.
His head turns. His eyes open, and meet mine across the room.
“It’s time.” His voice is quiet. Shadows cling to him like smoke, wafting away as he rises to his feet.
I can’t bring myself to speak, so I nod, and retreat to the bedchamber to dress quickly.
All the arrangements were made last night.
The four masters have insisted on coming, with Meren arguing that he wouldn’t be left behind for this final assault.
Kalliss had listened to him then agreed.
Vorith stated she was going, and Nyassa also made it clear she had no intention of being left behind.
Sacha didn’t disagree with any of them. He told them that he would not force anyone to be a part of what was ahead, and only those who wished to take part would be included.
Varam and Mira stepped forward quietly, and informed him that there had been over five hundred volunteers between Veinwardens and Veinbloods.
He nodded, and asked them to choose two hundred and fifty from them.
The surprised gratitude that flowed through the bond made me want to reach out and hug him.
Instead, I touched his hand and smiled when his fingers squeezed mine.
The throne room is already full when we arrive. Veinbloods and Veinwardens stand in groups, talking in hushed tones. The atmosphere is tense. These are men and women who are willing to play a part in ending this war, knowing full well they might not return.
“If anyone has changed their mind, this is the moment to leave.” Sacha’s voice carries through the room. “Everyone else, form a circle.”
People look at each other, but no one moves toward the door.
“Join hands. Whatever happens during the transportation, do not let go until I say so. Your connection to the person beside you, and through them to me, is the only thing that will keep you anchored in the void.”
Sacha reaches out and takes my left hand. Mira takes my right, and Varam is on Sacha’s other side.
Once the circle is complete, the shadows around Sacha thicken. They spread outward in tendrils that reach toward each of us. The temperature in the room drops noticeably until I can see my breath misting in the air. Several people shift nervously as darkness begins to climb their legs.
I watch it engulf my boots, my mind flashing back to River Crossing. How his attempt there failed so catastrophically. How he nearly died trying to escape.
Sacha’s fingers flex, squeezing mine, and I force the memories away. His breathing beside me is deep and steady, and the bond between us pulses in time with each exhale.
“Hold fast to each other.” His voice holds an otherworldly quality, deeper than normal, resonating with the power he’s building. “Trust in me. And when we arrive, be ready to fight.”
The shadows surge upward like a black tide, swallowing the entire group. My last clear sight is of Sacha’s face, distant and composed while he channels power that could tear us all apart.
Sound becomes muffled and distorted. My stomach lurches violently as up and down lose all meaning.
The sensation of falling and flying happens simultaneously, my body unable to process what’s happening to it.
The only thing that keeps me from panicking is Sacha’s steady presence through the bond.
I can sense the effort, the strain of moving this many people, and the way he’s fighting to hold everything together.
Time moves strangely. Seconds, minutes, or hours pass in what feels like heartbeats. The darkness presses against my skin, and more than once I’m certain we’re going to be lost forever in this place between places.
Then the darkness begins to thin. Solid ground materializes beneath our feet, and suddenly we’re stumbling out of the shadows and into a more natural darkness that smells of dirt and damp.
The sound of breathing is loud around me.
I blink rapidly, still clutching Mira and Sacha’s hands, trying to orient myself.
Then light blooms, making my eyes water.
Kalliss holds a small flame above his palm.
With a flick of his wrist, it separates into smaller flames that spread throughout the space, lighting up where we're standing.
Several people have collapsed to their knees, overwhelmed by the disorientation of traveling through shadow. Others stagger, reaching desperately for walls or companions to steady them. A few double over and retch violently, their bodies rejecting what they’ve just experienced.
Sacha sways on his feet beside me. And for one terrifying moment, I think he might collapse, but he forces his spine straight, drawing on reserves that shouldn’t even exist after what he just did.
“Did everyone make it?” Varam asks, already moving through the group to check on those who are on their knees.
A quick headcount confirms what seems impossible. All two hundred and fifty of us made it through intact. Shaken and disoriented, but alive and whole.
“Where are we?” Kalliss studies the walls, his voice shaking slightly.
“Beneath Blackvault’s outer fortifications.” Sacha’s voice is clipped. “These caves connect to the fortress’s dungeons.”
“How do you know about this place?” Meren asks, as he peers into the darkness beyond our circle of light.
Sacha doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he looks around the cavern, and a wave of anger courses through the connection between us. It’s cold and deep, the kind of rage that’s had years to ferment.
“I was brought here after Sereven’s betrayal. Before the tower. Before …”
Before he was locked away for twenty-seven years. Before everything that made him into the man standing beside me now.
What did they do to him in this place? What did he see down here in the darkness beneath their fortress?
I’ll never ask, never force him to relive those memories just to satisfy my curiosity. But it’s clear whatever he experienced here, it played a part in shaping him.
“We should move. It will take at least an hour to reach the surface.” He steps toward the front of the group, shadows still clinging to his clothes like remnants of the void.
As we start walking through the narrow passages, my hands begin to shake.
At first, I assume it’s a delayed reaction to the shadow travel, but it doesn’t stop.
Instead, it gets worse. Sparks flash between my fingers.
Silver light flares beneath my skin, the power behaving in a way it hasn’t since I gained control over it. No matter what I do, it won’t stop.
The path we’re following feels wrong in a way that makes no sense.
Not wrong like dangerous, but wrong like returning to a place you never wanted to see again.
At first it’s small things. I know when a fork is approaching before we reach it.
I can tell which turn Sacha is going to choose before he makes it.
But then memories start to rise. Brief flashes of being carried along these underground pathways as a small child, thrown over someone’s shoulder while voices argued overhead. The sound of boots echoing through a confined space.
Terror and pain washes over me in a wave so intense it steals my breath.
“Ellie?” Mira’s voice seems to come from very far away. “What’s wrong?”
That’s when I realize I’ve stopped walking. The group continues moving ahead of us, but I can’t make my feet take another step. I try to answer Mira, but I can’t speak because the memories are coming faster now, becoming more intense, more vivid.
More real.
Being small, so terribly small, helpless in someone’s arms while awful things happen around me.
Something foreign and burning being forced into my body, power blazing through veins too young and fragile to contain it.
Being taken deeper underground to a cavern carved from ancient rock, to a place that feels wrong and dangerous.
“I remember this place.” The words come out shaky.
Sacha turns back, concern sharpening his features. “How?” You have never—” But even as he says it, I see understanding dawn in his eyes. “They brought you here.”
His palm cups my cheek, warm and real, and present.
“There’s a place …” The knowledge surfaces from a deeply buried part of my mind. “Deep beneath the fortress. It’s carved from black stone, and symbols cover the walls. There’s a platform in the center with restraints built directly into it.”
“The ritual chamber,” Vorith says quietly. “The one that used to contain the crystal before it was corrupted.”
“It’s still there … the chamber I mean. I need to find it.”