Chapter 19
Killian
We emerge from the shadows on the northern part of the Saunoque Mountains, high in the snow-capped peaks where the temperatures plummet well below zero and blizzards batter the summits day in and day out.
It’s a place where the world stands still, thin and frayed, smothered in a white rage that swallows everything. Here there are no edges, no mercy, no forgiveness.
Here you are insignificant.
Aimee’s teeth chatter under her fur-lined cap, and she hugs her midriff in an attempt to preserve some warmth.
The blizzard blusters all around us, howling winds dredging up the powdery snow in blinding sheets. The frozen cruelty behind each gust feels like a stinging slap against numbing flesh, as if the mountains are punishing us for merely existing, for daring to disturb their icebound solitude.
Little icicles form on her long eyelashes, and her cheeks redden under the cold’s bite.
“Aren’t we going underground? Why in the name of the unholy Gods are we so fucking high in the m-mm-mountains?” she asks as her eyes roam the vast expanse of white nothingness surrounding us.
There’s no shelter as far as the eye can reach.
No respite. No welcome.
Nothing but the endless roar of an unrelenting storm and the suffocating frostiness.
Lesser creatures would cower on this altar of colorless doom.
But I don’t have that luxury.
“This is where your friend said the entrance to the tunnels is,” I answer, loud enough to cover the wrathful winds.
“There’s nothing here but white death,” she wails, throwing her arms in the air before snatching them around her body as if the gelid air personally offended her.
“To the untrained eye, yes. But we’re two of the most powerful creatures in existence, and we’re supposed to uncover this access point to Ereshkygall’s hiding place,” I say as I search the peak for anything amiss in the towering snow.
“All I see is how I’m going to freeze my ass off, all because of the fucking Goddess of Death,” she huffs, and I smile under my breath at her antics.
I can’t help myself but find pissed off Aimee adorable. Like a kitten that mewls in the mirror, trying to be all mighty and imposing.
But she’s no kitten, no.
She’s as fierce as they come. Even when she is terrified, uncertain, or doubting herself.
Even in the middle of an Akaoriforsaken snowstorm, she’s the blinding sun I revolve around.
I curse myself mentally for taking so long to acknowledge this simple fact.
We’re inevitable.
We’ve both made mistakes, and directly or indirectly we both have blood on our hands, but this love?
This love is inescapable.
And I might have just fucked it all up with my ego.
“We could unleash our shadows to scour the area for us; they can detect what even our senses might not pick up on,” I say as I try to focus on the task at hand, and not how easy it would be to envelop her in my arms and forget about the outside world.
“And lose a layer of warmth? No, thank you.”
“Your shadows don’t keep you warm, little umbra,” I say, laughing.
“That’s easy for you to say,” she answers back, narrowing her bewitching amber eyes at me. “You’re practically a walking block of ice; you’re not even wearing a fucking cape right now.”
I grab the lapels of her heavy cloak, engulfing her with my body, and I breathe in relief when she doesn’t reject the gesture, her head burrowing into my chest.
“Unleash your shadows, love; I’ve got you.”
She puffs a breath of hot air that tickles my skin before sighing and relaxing in my grasp.
Black swirls pour from under her clothes, pooling at our feet and blending with my own before they sweep the entire area in a brush of darkness.
For a second the world goes caliginous, before the shadows recede like a smoky veil that’s being lifted.
Nothing stirs in the milky-white hellscape, and I deflate. I really thought this would work.
Could it be that Sariah gave us the wrong location?
“There,” Aimee breathes against my skin, pointing a shaking finger toward a spot in the faraway distance. I squint my eyes against the blinding snow, and that’s when I see it.
A dot on the horizon.
A speck of black in a sea of white.
A barren patch of rocks.
The entrance.
I waste no time in blinking us into nonexistence and reappearing in front of the mouth of a cave that opens in the rock like a frozen wound, bleeding stillness.
The swirling storm dares not venture past its threshold, as if it knows better than to disturb the ancient magic.
The howling blizzard falls abruptly silent here, a hush so sudden that it rings loudly in my ears.
The wind dwindles to a dead breeze, heavy and ominous.
I don’t trust this treacherous silence. More than a warm welcome, it feels like a muted threat, like the cave is holding its breath, ready to pounce on whoever dares to intrude its darkness.
Out there, you’re at the mercy of the raging elements, but here there’s no safety to be found either. I can’t shake off the feeling that our journey is not just of discovery, unearthing Ereshkygall’s hidden resting place. It’s also a gamble for survival.
Aimee peels herself off me, fixing her hood with jittery fingers, before straightening her shoulders with quiet determination.
“Here goes nothing,” she whispers before disappearing inside the cave.
I follow her in silence into a pitch-black tunnel that winds down the mountain.
We walk in damp darkness for what feels like hours on end before the tunnel opens up to a perfectly square chamber, its walls polished to perfection.
Several hidden sconces flicker to life, casting an aethereal blue glow, revealing a huge inscription carved directly into the stone wall.
All truth requires sacrifice
What are you willing to part with?
“A fucking riddle? You’ve got to be kidding me!” Aimee exclaims.
“I’m more worried there’s no exit from this chamber,” I say, frowning. “This must be the first trial.”
“How anticlimactic,” she huffs in disappointment, kicking a few pebbles with her boot.
A deafening groan erupts, the kind that vibrates through bones and nerves alike.
The whole chamber starts shaking like a slumbering beast waking up after eons of sleep. The walls start moving, slowly at first, closing in on us at a menacing pace. Stone scrapes against stone, and the shards raining on us from overhead thicken the air with dust and danger.
“I take it back, very climactic,” she screams in panic as her shadows swirl behind her. “Killian, do something. Make it stop.”
The walls are upon us in mere seconds, threatening to squash us like rotten fruit, and I’m torn between reaching out for Aimee to anchor her in her fear and frantically looking for the way out of here.
The tunnels behind us have disappeared, an indifferent wall of smooth stone standing where a gaping hole was just minutes ago. It’s as if there had never been anything else there.
The chamber keeps shrinking by the second, compressing to the point of suffocation, leaving no room to think clearly. Only pure, unadulterated panic, where each heartbeat echoes too loudly and blood thuds deafeningly in my ears.
This place is designed to be the perfect tomb.
Massive.
Impersonal.
Brutal in its simplicity.
Only it will not be fucking ours.
Aimee clings to my forearm, murmuring broken words I can’t even decipher over the loud grinding of rocks. I keep her upright with one arm banded around her waist, pushing against the block of granite hurtling at us with the other.
I’m trying to find a lever, a crack, any blemish on the stone’s sleek surface that could be a clue, a way to stop this death sentence.
I throw all my vampiric strength into reversing the unforgiving progress of the wall, but it’s the wrong move. Instead of slowing down, the stone lurches forward, picking up speed, until the gap narrows at arm’s length.
The suffocating fear throws Aimee into a frenzy, and she’s frantically touching the rock, probing, grasping, while muttering the same word on repeat.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
I don’t know what to do. If I can’t use my powers to surpass this trial, if it’s not a test of strength, then what is it?
What can we possibly give the mountain that would prove our worth, our singularity, and purpose?
“Ouch,” Aimee exclaims, cradling her hand against her chest. “This fucking wall bit me.”
The iron scent of blood fills in the small space left between us, and my fangs burn in hunger, just as the trickle of her blood on the wall glows bright red, moving sinuously toward the words etched in unforgiving stone.
“The blood,” she whispers in awe, realization washing over her features. “The blood is the answer. Quick, Killian, it’s like a minuscule prickle on the surface, barely there.”
I feel the surface, searching for anything jagged, spike-like, but my palm meets only flatness.
“Faster, Killian, I don’t want to fucking die here,” she wails, moving next to me and groping the moving wall to no avail.
I feel the bite of rock against my back, and any semblance of composure vanishes. I can’t let us die in this cursed contraption.
Not like this.
Not at odds with each other.
I sink my fangs into my wrist, ripping flesh and bone, and smear the crimson liquid onto the cold surface.
Nothing happens.
For fuck’s sake, I’ve exhausted all our options. All that is left is to embrace the outcome.
I grab Aimee in one swift movement and crush my lips against hers. She moans in my mouth, opening up and pushing her tongue against my own. I bit her lower lip, drawing blood and lap it slowly, letting the small high conquer my veins.
If we have mere seconds left, then I want to die with her taste on my tongue, with her blood smeared against my fangs, with my name the last sound her lips will ever utter.
I grab a fistful of her hair harshly, and just as I’m about to sink my canines into her sweet neck for one last time, she half moans, half cries.
“Killian, look.”
I follow her gaze to the halted walls, both glowing in veins of gleaming scarlet, the rivulets becoming one inside the ominous encryption.
With a loud groan, the walls recede to their initial position, just as an archway appears out of thin air in front of us.
A sigh of relief so harsh escapes my lips, it resounds in the once again quiescent chamber.
I cling to her in desperation, not wanting to acknowledge that for a second there, we were goners.
I almost lost her.
Lost myself.
Aimee’s shoulders shake soundlessly, and her tears soak my shirt. I brush my thumb under her eyes, gathering the moisture and licking my finger clean. She blinks her tears away, gazing at me from under damp eyelashes.
“I was useless,” she says in a broken voice.
“No, umbra, you figured out the answer,” I try to reach for her, but she pushes off me, squaring her shoulders.
“I almost got us killed.” Her voice bleeds with a quiet determination. “I will do better, Killian. I have to. Too many people depend on us.”
She presses forward, disappearing under the archway.
I follow in her footsteps, a visceral feeling settling deep inside my soul.
I will accompany her to the ends of this realm if need be.
She is stronger than she realizes. She might think she failed, but she saved us.
Her fear of death is not a weakness; it’s an instinct sharpened like a blade. It’s what makes her unbreakable, even if she doesn’t yet realize it.
As for me, death never bothered me in the least. A mere byproduct of living for one thousand years.
It’s the fear of continuing my existence without her that unravels me.
A world barren of her is a world not worth saving.