Chapter 25 #2
Zayn found his courage first, stepping forward with his hand on his sword.
Courage wasn’t enough, though; the temple rejected him before he’d even taken two steps inside, engulfing him in pressure that nearly made him crumple to his knees.
The whispering briefly rose into a high-pitched wail as he stumbled back.
Thalia barely managed to catch him before he fell.
“So much for the valiant charge I had planned,” he said with a shaky laugh.
Thalia snorted at this, shoving him back upright. She considered the entrance for a moment before swiftly following our lead with a blood offering, taking out a small knife and whipping it across the heel of her hand.
The drops sizzled and hissed as they landed in the basin. Another wail rose from inside the temple.
Frowning, she tried reaching her hand across the threshold, but jerked it back almost immediately.
“It’s as we expected,” she said, wincing and shaking her hand. “No one is charging into this place except those with Vaeloran blood.” Her gaze trailed to Aleks. “And hopefully those with very deep ties to the Vaelora, too,” she added.
I cautiously stepped closer to the entrance.
When I reached over the doorway, the whispers seemed to quiet, as if the spirits inside were drawing back, watching to see what I would do next.
I glanced over my shoulder and found that Aleks had taken several steps away from the door.
His face was pale, his expression difficult to read.
Zayn went to speak with him while Thalia pulled me aside, her grip gentle but firm.
“Assuming he can make it across the threshold,” she said, low enough that only I could hear her, “are you sure you want to go in there alone with him?”
I frowned. “He isn’t going to hurt me.”
“That isn’t the only thing I’m worried about.”
I looked back to the waiting stairs. The whispers were getting louder again; I would have sworn I heard my name lifting clearly among them more than once.
“You were listening to Eamon’s warnings, weren’t you?
” Thalia asked. “According to legend, the chamber beneath this temple doesn’t just demand you to carve your truths into its walls—it can force you to speak them.
Every truth you have can be exposed. You can’t lie here; people have gone mad trying to do so. ”
I glanced at Aleks, my stomach twisting into knots.
Every truth you have.
I might end up telling him everything Orin had said. Everything I’d learned alongside my brother and Eamon. Everything I’d been too afraid to say.
I turned back to Thalia, forcing my voice to remain steady. “We’ll be fine,” I assured her, even as doubt coiled tight around my heart. “What choice do we have?”
She shook her head and mumbled, “I wish I could go with you instead.”
I smiled sadly at her. Then I offered her that sign of affection we’d created, just for the two of us, months ago—my hand over my heart, tapping twice.
Her mouth remained fixed in a tight line, but she returned the gesture, adding the usual affectionate eye roll and slight smile that was typical from her.
“We’ll be back,” I promised.
“In one piece,” she commanded. “Mind and all.”
“In one piece,” I agreed as Zayn and Aleks rejoined us.
All trace of amusement was gone from Zayn’s face. Aleks was still impossible to read, but there was no hesitation in his movements anymore.
He apologized for his moment of doubt, and then his hand found mine, squeezing once. “Are you ready?”
No. I wasn’t ready. But when had I ever been ready for any of this?
“Let’s go,” I said.
We descended into the dark together, like we had so many times before.
The stairs seemed endless, spiraling down into the earth, lit only by occasional flickers of pale light, the source of which I could never seem to pinpoint.
We passed several cave-like rooms that held the stone slabs I’d seen both in my vision and in Eamon’s book.
Graveyard after graveyard full of them, all arranged in neat little rows.
It was tempting to get closer, to try and get a better look at the things carved on them.
But I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to start again if I stopped, so our relentless descent continued.
The whispers grew louder with each downward step, some transforming into distinct voices—some pleading, some angry, some broken by grief.
I lied to them.
I should have saved them.
It was my fault.
I couldn’t stop it.
I loved them more than the world—
The confessions of every Vaelora who had ever carved their truth into this place. I should have tried to block them out. It would have been safer. But I couldn’t help listening. Couldn’t help wondering about the ones that had walked before me, and how I measured up to them and their sins.
Finally, the stairs ended.
We stepped into a vast circular chamber that took my breath away.
The walls here were covered—completely covered—in carvings.
Scenes and symbols and words in several different languages, cut by dozens of different hands over countless centuries.
Some carvings were shallow and hasty, others deep and ornate.
All of them pulsed with a faint, ghostly light.
“We’re here,” Aleks said in a hushed tone. “Now, where do we start looking for the piece of Lorien that’s supposedly here as well?”
I withdrew Grimnor and studied it for a moment, hoping the entity sleeping within its blade might make himself useful again, as he had in the Hollow Grove.
But the sword remained cold and lifeless in my grip—and it felt strangely heavy, too.
Aleks read the disappointment on my face. “Nothing?”
“Not this time. It seems like whatever energy saturates this place is completely crushing any magic Grimnor holds. Which includes Lorien’s power too, I guess.”
“Just our luck.”
“It feels like the air in here is suffocating our own magic too, doesn’t it?”
Aleks summoned a small flicker of light to his palm, with obvious effort.
“…You’re right,” he agreed—though he didn’t seem disappointed by this.
I guess it was somewhat of a relief, to not have to think about our magic and the way the bond between us was changing.
But it made me feel oddly vulnerable, too.
I was no stranger to fighting the battle of us and our magic, whatever form it took.
And without that familiar fight to focus on, I felt… exposed.
Like there was one less thing insulating us from the truths that threatened to condemn us in here.
“…Mind carved into one realm,” I recited, trying to keep moving. “I wonder if we need to look for whatever thoughts or confessions Lorien carved here?”
It was as good a plan as any, so we split up and started to do just that.
I had only been searching for a few minutes when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Aleks had stopped moving.
“Nova. Look.”
I hurried to his side, gaze trailing up to where he was pointing.
Lorien’s name was carved there—a hasty signature I could barely recognize. Above it, several lines of text stretched across the wall.
His confessions.
But they were crossed out, struck through with several deeply carved lines that made it impossible to read what he’d written.
“That’s…strange. Who would want to cover up whatever he confessed?”
After a moment of considering it, Aleks said, “…Why do I feel like the Order had a hand in this, too?”
I didn’t reply. Couldn’t reply. My attention had snagged on the mere mention of the Order, and now my thoughts were racing, all the truths I was trying to bury about that clandestine organization threatening to rise up.
Confront him, something whispered. Confront him with the truth.
When I spoke again, my voice didn’t sound like my own. “You should know.”
He gave me a curious look.
The words surged out of me, harsh and quick, even as I tried to hold them back.
“You know about the Order and the hands they have on all these different things. The hands they control. The lives they manipulate like pieces on a board. Deep down, you know. You’ve always known, even if you don’t remember. ”
Aleks had gone very still, his eyes widening with something between confusion and dawning horror.
I pressed my lips together, fighting the compulsion to keep speaking, to spill every secret I’d been holding. I bowed my head, shaking it as pain radiated through my clenched jaw.
I would keep my mouth shut.
I wouldn’t give in to this place so easily.
The whispers around us grew louder, swelling like a tide rushing in to fill the silence I was desperately trying to keep.
Then, a singular voice rose above them, not from any one direction, but from everywhere at once. Maybe from the walls themselves. It said only one word: TRUTH.
The word reverberated around the chamber. The carvings on the walls began to glow brighter, light pouring out of them and spinning into a cyclone that reached nearly to the ceiling.
A woman stepped out of the swirling mass of light.
She wore a white silk dress with swaths of gossamer fabric that trailed behind her like folded wings.
A gold ribbon was tied around her face, hiding her eyes, but she moved with grace and precision, all the same.
She held a small crystal dagger on a cushion of blue velvet, offering it as she stopped before us.
Again, a disembodied voice spoke, filling the room and vibrating through the very core of my being: Those who seek the path forward must first shed falsehoods. Carve your confessions or let them destroy you. The choice is yours.
I stared at her. I wanted to rip off her blindfold, for some reason; the urge was so strong, my hand cramped from my efforts to fight against it.
Aleks looked between me and the blade she held for a long moment before he seemed to make up his mind. He stepped forward.
“I’ll go first.”