Chapter 38
Istumbled on the rocky path, unbalanced due to my still-bound hands and heavy exhaustion.
The path lit only by the first slivers of the sun peaking over the horizon, I followed the king to where the saddled horses waited.
I had been deep in a fitful sleep when Pierce roused me and we set on this journey.
I tugged at my bound wrists, a force of habit since I knew I couldn’t get free. If only I had access to Wista’s herbs, her tea would have healed the inflamed skin overnight. She was far away, tending to Eleanor, keeping her safe along with Harkin.
A small gust of cool air whirled around us, whipping my loose and knotted hair around my face and sending a shiver down my spine.
An inescapable sense of dread had been steadily building since Pierce woke me.
This trip into the depths of the forest could only mean one thing, but how would I make a wish if the sun wouldn’t reach me within the dark trees?
When we entered the forest, it was quiet, only the slight rustling of leaves as the breeze followed us in could be heard.
Gray light filtered through the canopy overhead, our only guide through the overgrown path.
It was that strange time between night and morning, a moment suspended as nocturnal animals returned home and those who prowled during the day had not yet risen. Even the owls were silent.
It took me a while to recognize the path, and it wasn’t the way to Shade’s cave, but to the Emyrdeis castle ruins. The route I took with Eleanor and Harkin.
Vines joined the surrounding trees, spotted with an occasional burst of purple. Purloe flowers.
The familiar scent, the one I now knew anywhere, penetrated the air, and when I squinted through the dimness, I could just make out the remaining castle turrets, a deep black against the lightening sky. I inhaled deeply, seeking the calming effects that usually accompanied the scent of purloe.
It didn’t come.
Lilac and sandalwood were there, but something was missing—Shade was missing. Instead of calming me, it filled me with a surge of intense longing laced with apprehension.
What could Terym possibly want at the castle?
I racked my brain, running through what little I knew of the history before the Great Divide.
The castle had been in the Emyrdeis line for generations.
The building of its walls the first true claim of the land of Galisordis.
An intimidating presence to anyone who thought to defy the Emyrdeis rule.
It stood through hundreds of battles, only falling to the fight between the Dark Bright Brothers, Bastian and Raiden. Shade.
After I’d learned who Shade really was, I had read several interpreted tomes on the history, none of them hinted to why we would be here.
Gensen raised a hand, halting our party at the edge of the clearing marking the castle grounds.
I avoided Pierce’s gaze when he helped me from the horse, though I could feel his eyes drilling into my skull.
He had returned to his usual kind self on our journey here.
The other men were rough in their treatment of me, but not Pierce.
It didn’t matter. I hadn’t been able to look at him since Eleanor’s punishment.
Smoke filled the air when torches were lit around us, spitting out dancing light and caging us in a ball of yellow, the clearing beyond dim in the still-hidden sun.
“We’re looking for an archway,” Terym said, lifting a large book to show the gathered men. Gensen brought a torch close to illuminate the page. It was aged and fragile, the drawing unfamiliar—definitely not one I had seen in my research.
An intricate archway protruded from a solid stone wall.
Engraved into the stone were depictions representing each of the four Gods, placed in a way to create a large doorway.
Terym’s men immediately set off, taking most of the light with them.
My “guard” kept me encircled, and with Pierce at my side, there was no escape.
Terym paced before us, face on his shoes, but every so often, he would glance to the bobbing flames in the distance.
It wasn’t until the sun was high in the sky that one of the soldiers called out. They found something.
Terym set off in his direction, commanding us to follow. We passed Shade’s mother’s pergola, and I stared at it, wishing I could release Shade in that very spot so he could see it for himself.
We arrived at a section of the castle almost entirely in ruin, the crumbled walls reduced to small stones and dust. Thick leafy vines covered what remained of the stone, and thorns tore at my skin when we pushed through them and deep into the building itself.
On the other side of the thicket, Terym’s men waited, gathered around a wall completely intact and entirely free of the vines darkening the room. The stone, smooth and clean, glistened under the flickering firelight. It looked like it was built yesterday, exactly the way the pergola did.
I froze in place, heart beating wildly in my chest.
There, engraved in the white stone, was a beautiful carved archway.
The artist from Terym’s book hadn’t done the sight true justice.
A large sun beside an equally large moon were set at the top.
Branching out from the sun were curved vines and flowers similar to the real ones surrounding us.
From the moon, crashed large waves and swirling wind, spiraling down to make up the second half of the arch.
Circling it all, were a mix of symbols. The language of the Gods.
Breathtaking. Magnificent. Ethereal.
I had only seen such exquisite carvings once before.
My heart sank low into my gut. Shade had never mentioned this place. Why hadn’t he told me?
Terym caressed the carved stone, sending uneasy nostalgia crawling along my skin and adrenaline pumping through my veins.
“Bring my wife.”
A guard thrust me forward at the king’s command, sending me stumbling over the loose rocks beneath our feet.
With each step closer to the archway, the thrumming in my pocket intensified.
As if Shade and his magic could sense our proximity to the archway and where it led.
The warmth of the metal grew hot, so hot I was sure it would burn if I touched it with bare skin.
Once within Terym’s reach, he seized my hand and dragged me close.
His jeweled knife flashed in the torchlight, and I struggled against his hold.
A knowledge deep in my bones told me that if he drew my blood and placed it onto the white stone, the archway would open a door, and I couldn’t let that happen.
The king was far stronger than me, and he barely moved as I tried to wrench free from his grasp. Sharp pain erupted from my palm when the jeweled knife pierced my skin, and I released a soft cry of shock. Then Terym forced my still-bound but freshly bleeding hands against the white stone.
As soon as my blood touched the surface, a deep rumble sounded beneath us. Exactly as it had when I’d opened Shade’s cave, the stone wall crumbled under my hand, falling away to reveal stone steps descending into the earth.
I stared at the smooth stone, and déjà vu washed over me.
Unlike last time, when Terym stepped up to the entrance, he passed through easily, there was no invisible barrier to impede his entry.
A knot of dread settled in my gut at watching the king descend.
I didn’t know where this led, but I didn’t want any part in it.
I had no choice but to follow, not when a guard pushed me through the archway and I stumbled over the top step.
The scent of damp dirt hung heavy in the air.
The way down narrow enough my shoulder brushed the walls covered in drawings.
Depictions of violent battles against demon-like creatures made of shadow and fire.
Villages burned to ash. Men, women, and even children slaughtered.
The churning in my gut increased the deeper we went underground. All the while, the lamp in my pocket burned. The vibrations reached a numbing speed, and my earlier dread morphed into panic, my chest tightening and my breaths growing short.
It couldn’t be …
Footsteps echoed ahead and a few moments later, we stepped into a cavernous room, these walls filled with more drawings.
The room rose in a large cylinder to the sky, the sun visible at the top and beaming down on us.
The guards spaced out around me, allowing me to follow the wall around the room.
My hand trailed along the stone, the story showing a young king traveling up a snowy mountain atop a giant horse, leading into a depiction of the same king kneeling in a dark room before the Gods, who sat above him on massive thrones, their faces shrouded in darkness.
Then demons of fire and shadow fell into a fissure cracking the ground open, a man in a deep-purple tunic fell with them, his blond hair wild, while the Gods looked on from above.
The king, surrounded in lithe tendrils of smoke that twisted into a lamp.
A small black lamp identical to the one beating a staccato rhythm in my pocket.
My eyes settled on him. Raiden Emyrdeis.
Shade.
The king who’d sacrificed his life to stop his own brother from destroying his kingdom. The world. He watched his brother fall beneath the earth, his face pained and shoulders slumped. I ached to see him now, to comfort him despite the time that had passed since the moment depicted on the wall.
Movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention, and I turned to face the current king.
Terym stood before the illustration of hundreds of demons falling through the large crack and into darkness.
Humanoid figures made of fire and shadow twisted in rage.
He caressed those drawings, tracing over the evil almost reverently.
My heart stalled, then took off at an alarming rate, pumping adrenaline and panic through my veins. The way he looked at them, the way he traced their forms.
I finally understood. Every decision he had made, to find Shade, to keep me close to his side, it had all been leading to this.
He wanted to release the demons.
“Oh, Gods.”