Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Stone
Stone and Aesira’s boots crunched against more dead twigs and glass and bits of stone from the crumbling pillars.
Green vines and plants grew through every tiny crevice, small slivers of light seeping in through the cracks in the walls.
There was so much to see. So much to study.
All of the plants and the flowers and ruins, Stone could stay perched here all day with his notebook.
But, with everything they’d seen, there was no sign of the king.
“We’ve been walking for almost thirty minutes,” Stone said, “which tells me this building stretches farther back than I anticipated. We should start heading back before Birdie and Bee begin to worry.”
Aesira’s face scrunched. She did not like the sound of that, Stone gathered, but he could tell in the deep sigh she released and the resolve of her shoulders that she agreed with him.
“You’re right,” she said. “By the time we make it back, our hour will be up.”
He followed behind Aesira, using the torch to find their way toward the entrance all the while he couldn’t stop fixating on the details in the ways she moved.
The breaths she took, the faces she made and the observations surprised him. Not because they were unpredictable, but because he had learned so much about her in such a short time. It surprised him that he cared to learn so much about her.
He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts, he failed to see a large crack in the floor. He tripped, sending himself and the torch flat against the hard ground.
“Are you alright?” Aesira pulled him up.
“Just wasn’t paying attention.” She still clung to his shoulders and the weight of her hands on him was another thing that surprised him.
How much he liked it. Craved it. He opened his mouth, no plan as to what to say, but knowing that he wanted to say something when she turned abruptly and bent to grab the torch from the ground.
Stone’s stomach dropped. What was his problem? He had never let anyone get this close before, why the hell would he think it was a good idea now?
“Stone.” Even that, her saying his name, was enough to send a lightning strike through his chest. “Look at this.” Aesira was still kneeling on the ground, holding the torch outwards.
Rocks bit through Stone’s pants as he kneeled beside her. Aesira swept away the loose vines that were shriveled and brown and underneath, there was–
“It’s a hatch.” Aesira ran her fingers over a bronze, circular handle. The metal was worn in places, likely from use, and attached to it was a wooden hatch. “Where do you think this goes?”
Stone surveyed the room, something prickled at the back of his neck. Like he was being watched. “I don’t know,” he said. “But we should keep moving. We can come back tomorrow.”
“Stone, we're right here.” She pulled on the handle. It didn’t budge. “We have to check it out. What if there’s a clue about Desmond inside? What if Desmond is inside? An underground hatch would be the perfect place to hide, don’t you think?”
Hide from what?
Stone’s stomach knotted. Any other place, he would have said fuck it and threw the hatch open himself. But a sharp feeling, with teeth and watchful eyes, tore at his middle. “What happened to ‘it’s not here for us’. We should leave it alone just like we left the flower alone.”
“That was different,” she said. “Desmond wasn’t going to be hiding under that glass case." She tapped the door again. “But he could be in here.” His mind flashed to the spring, to the black water and to Aesira on the shore.
“I don’t want you to get hurt again.” He grabbed Aesira’s arm and tugged her closer. He hadn’t admitted how much it bothered him that night, thinking he might have lost her but he couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to her.
She cocked her head to the side, her smile illuminated by the warm light of the torch. “You worried about me, smuggler?”
“Something like that.”
Her arms wrapped tighter around his middle. “I’ll make you a deal. We’ll just take a peek at the bottom, if nothing’s there, we turn around. Save any further exploration for tomorrow. Deal?”
He didn’t like it, but he knew her well enough to know she wasn’t going to change her mind and the alternative was her going in alone, which absolutely wasn’t going to happen. “Fine,” he said. “Deal.”
She handed him the torch and knelt before the hatch. The handle released a loud groaning sound that echoed through the empty chambers of the ruins.
Dust and moths fluttered up from a deep, inky chasm in the ground.
“I need the torch.” He stepped closer and angled it over her shoulder, the pathetic flame barely lighting enough to see the rickety ladder bolstered to the inside of the hole.
The bottom was nowhere in sight, the darkness was seemingly endless and that feeling in his gut, the one that was hungry enough to eat him from the inside, began gnawing at his sides.
Aesira tied off her hair at the nape of her neck. “I’ll go down first–”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Stay here then,” she said. “Be the lookout. I need to check for Desmond.”
Fuck that.
If she was going, so was he. Stone angled the torch in a way that she could better find her footing. On the first step, the ladder creaked, more moths scattered through the opening. “Just go slow.”
She smiled up at him, half her body now inside the hatch. “Yes, darling.”
Stone groaned. "Commander, if you're going to call me pretty names can you at least save it for when you're in my bed and not climbing to your certain death?"
Her faint laugh echoed up the hatch. "Sorry, darling."
“I’m serious,” he said, heat rising to his cheeks, the back of his neck. “Pay attention to your footing, you don’t know how old that ladder is.”
Her sigh drifted up through the hatch and settled around him. “Scared of a little adventure, Odega?” Another step down. Another damning creak.
Scared of whatever is sure to be lurking at the bottom, he thought. Scared of the teeth ripping through my stomach.
Once Aesira was fully on the ladder, he handed her the torch and began his descent.
Slowly, one unstable rung at a time, they made it to the bottom.
The light from the torch flickered across cracked walls.
Dead vines wove through the room, tangling with forgotten webs.
More moths fluttered in the air, circling around the light of the torch.
Stone covered his mouth with the back of his hand as dirt kicked up beneath their boots.
“Over here,” Aesira whispered but her voice carried through the chamber as if she were yelling.
That’s what they were in.
A chamber.
Every which way they turned was a different tunnel. Each one full of shadows and a promise of a disastrous end. The tunnels were wide, easily enough space for the entire crew to walk shoulder to shoulder, proving the expanse of not just this ruin, but of Ravki.
If the king was hiding here, it would be almost impossible to find him.
“Stone, look.” Aesira held the torch to a wall where symbols were etched into the granite. “What does it say?”
He wiped the dust off his glasses and stole the torch from Aesira so he could hold it closer and get a better look. The symbols were carved deep. Large swirls followed by small triangles.
Runes.
“This is ancient Ravkian,” he said, sweeping his finger over a large rune. “Protection.” He swept his hand across the ancient wall, scattering a few loose pebbles to the ground. “And this”— his fingertips brushed against the largest rune—“is for light.”
“Protection and light.”
He nodded. “Protection, light”—his fingers were frenzied, running across the wall—“Harmony, peace, balance. Magic.” His eyes darted to hers for a moment before he moved to the last rune where his fingers stilled, ice splintering through his veins, that monster in his gut opening its maw and ripping at his middle.
“What is it?” Aesira traced the rune in front of them. “Stone?”
“Drako.” The Ravkian word rolled off his tongue, lit a fire to something deep in his belly. “Dragon.”
Aesira stiffened next to him, lacing her fingers with his. “We should look a little further.” She made to walk away but he pulled her back.
“Something isn’t right here. It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in years. It’s unlikely Desmond—”
She pulled her hand away. “I just need a few more minutes,” she said. "I just have to be sure he's not here."
She grabbed the torch and spun toward one of the hallways.
“Aesira, you’re wasting your time.”
She stopped, her boots digging into the ground, dust and dirt billowing out from beneath them.
“There are no boot prints other than our own,” Stone said. “The dust on the ladder was inches thick.” He took a tentative step toward her. “I’m not saying he isn’t in Ravki, I’m just saying he isn’t here. There are dozens of other buildings, Aesira. He could be in any one of them.”
She spun so quickly the fire on the torch flickered, nearly going out. “He has to be,” she said, “and I have to find him.”
She closed her eyes, her shoulders slumping forward.
“I can’t go back without him. I can’t fail again.
” She bit her lip on the last word, like she didn’t mean to say it.
“We don’t have time to comb through each building.
It would take weeks.” She threw her arms wide and spun around.
“Look at them! They’re massive, Stone. The search would be endless. ”
“Then we return to Vargah and have your sister send a larger crew.”
Her laugh was humorless. An empty, cold, sound that raised the hair on his arms. “You don’t know anything, Odega.”
Stone gently grabbed her hand, untangling it from where she gripped her hair. “So then tell me.”
She shook her head and spun back toward the tunnel. “If I return to Vargah empty handed, my father will disown me. More than he already has.”
“I don’t understand.”