Chapter 16
Saipha and I stand on the last stair at the bottom of the residence hall’s staircase. Night has fallen on the Tribunal.
I spent the entire day in her room but still feel like I’ve fallen down a set of stairs…
twice. Bandages fashioned from torn strips of cheesecloth she found in the workshops are wound tightly around my torso underneath my shirt.
I almost asked Saipha to find Lucan to ask him to refresh the salve he made, but I’d rather be in pain than go to him for help.
Expectedly, no one else is out. No one else is reckless enough to do something like this.
That’s probably why Saipha likes it.
She would never say it, since I got hurt, but I know a part of her is genuinely a little jealous I had “all the fun” last night. That I’ve had a chance to prove myself as a candidate for Mercy already and she hasn’t. This drive is what will make her an excellent Mercy Knight.
I kept an eye out for Lucan on our way down, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
I wonder if he used the rest of the night, or the day, to find a key.
Something I should have been doing—would’ve been, if not for being shackled on the roof and then needing to recover as much strength as I could, as quickly as possible.
“Ready?” Saipha asks.
I’m not, but I’ll need days to heal, and we don’t have them. The best I have is a chance at a sigil that’ll do it for me. “Ready.”
With that, we both lunge forward. I go straight for the yellow tapestry and shove it aside to reveal the dragon automaton, hoping Saipha’s right and this yellow dragon replica has a sigil that’ll help fix me.
Between that and the silver dragon’s armor sigil, I’ll be nearly invincible. Getting the rest would almost be easy.
Saipha runs in the opposite direction, straight for the copper dragon tapestry. She stops right before it, holding herself in place, waiting for the tapestry to roll up.
I’m searching for the yellow dragon’s pedestal panel when it hits me.
Something’s wrong.
None of them are moving. I’m squeezing into the narrow nook the dragon is tucked within. It should have wheeled out by now.
“Isola, how long does this take?” Saipha calls.
I don’t answer, instead ripping off the panel door and crawling underneath.
It’s nearly pitch-black inside, and I struggle to find my way by touch alone.
My movements are nearly frantic, fingers gliding over the completely still springs and gears as I inch my hand toward the center point, where the sigil should be.
There’s just enough light to see that it’s gone.
Did the inquisitors disarm them? No, there’s no way they would make this place less deadly. Unless they didn’t want us to find more? But if that were the case, I imagine I would already have faced their wrath for finding and using one.
I study the remnants of the chalk where the sigil was. There are only a few pieces of lines—nothing I could connect with confidence. It was smudged off with a handprint that I know. My back tingles.
Lucan did this. As I was distracted by just how large his hands were, he was scheming. I curse under my breath.
“They’re gone,” I announce as I emerge from underneath the mechanical dragon. “All the sigils are gone.”
“What?” Saipha crosses over with urgency. “How are they all gone? Did the inquisitors disable them?” She’s looking around the room. There’s barely a sliver of moonlight to see by streaming through the slitted windows high above.
“You really think they’d make this place easier on us?” I ask flatly.
“Then how?”
“I bet Lucan saw what I did, and last night after I was taken away, he smudged them so I couldn’t get any more advantages.” My fists shake with barely contained rage.
“Given how hard you said it was to get one, I’m not sure he could’ve.”
“He’s perfectly capable, I assure you,” I say, thinking of how easily he moved to dodge the dragon attacks.
“Spoken like someone who’s been carefully watching the way he moves.” Saipha calls me out.
“Only so I know the sort of person we’re up against.” My tone is way more defensive than I’d like.
Saipha scans the room to hide a smirk. “Well, whatever happened…it seems safe here, for now.”
Clearly, nights are the inquisitors’ hours.
This is when they’re going to push us in whatever ways intrigue them.
And here we are, exposed. I’ve no delusion that they’ll spare me if they come upon us, even having tested me last night.
The Tribunal isn’t about one test—it’s about pushing us until we break.
They say it’s the only way to ensure the safety of our city, but I can still feel that inquisitor’s baton under my chin.
The way it was so, so obvious she wanted to hit me with it.
I can’t help the thought that she enjoyed watching me suffer…
“Why don’t we check the other automatons, just to be sure?” Saipha says. “And then, if not—”
“If not, you go back to your room,” I say firmly, not wanting my friend to endure what I suffered last night.
“I’m not leaving you out here alone again.” Saipha folds her arms. “And the more you argue with me, the more time you’re going to waste.”
“Fine.” I move to another dragon.
One by one, we check the remaining dragons. Saipha helps me maneuver the panels off. I know, though, even before I look, all the sigils are gone based on the automatons not trying to tear our heads off.
“At least we have each other,” Saipha says in an attempt at optimism. I do appreciate her for it. “Let’s go to the greenhouse. The shed where you hid last night sounded defensible.”
I agree, and we make our way for the side door that I slipped through after learning the sigil last night. The stairway is quiet.
“Stay on your guard,” I whisper.
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” She sounds confident, despite being frustratingly unarmed.
One floor up, we find a dead end. I pause, blinking like my eyes can’t quite focus on what’s in front of me.
I don’t remember this from last night, or when I was searching yesterday for a key.
Eyes adjusting, I notice a door the same shade as the stone that surrounds it.
I shake my head and push the door open, and I am met with a long, dark passage.
“Is this right?” Saipha steals my thoughts, sounding just as hesitant.
“I thought so…” I shake my head. “Let’s go back. We must’ve made a wrong turn.”
“Things can look different in the dark.” She gives me an encouraging smile, but it doesn’t spread across her face like normal. She’s doubting herself, too.
We turn around to retrace our path but only make it a short way before my heart begins to stutter and my steps falter.
The flat hallway now feels as if there is a slope to it…
a slight angle that wasn’t there before.
I try to ignore the creeping sensation of dread and convince myself I must be mistaken. But I’m not. I know it.
Saipha sighs with relief when the door we entered through comes into view, but I’m still fighting to keep my breathing even and my fear in check, hopeful the changing slope was only my imagination. Back in the stairwell, we wind down and down. Hope is short-lived. My heartbeat picks up again.
“Was the central atrium this far down?” Saipha’s voice is strained.
“No… Something’s not right.”
We move faster. The walls of the stairwell begin to blur, lines warping. They seem to oscillate as if the monastery is a living, breathing thing, and we are being pulled to its core.
A flicker of light catches in the corner of my eye. I turn, but there’s nothing there. The air has gone cold, and it creeps down my spine, forcing me to fight shivers and chattering teeth.
“Where…are we?” Saipha presses even closer to me, and I immediately appreciate the warmth and security.
“I don’t know.”
The stairwell opens into a vast chamber. But it is certainly not the central atrium. The air is thick here, with the peaty smell of damp earth and…something else. Something sharp. Almost stomach-churning. It’s a strangely familiar aroma, but try as I might, I can’t seem to place it…
“We should go back.” Saipha staggers backward and out of view. It’s as if the shadows themselves have come to life, consuming her in one bite.
“Saipha?” I whisper. No response. “Saipha!” Louder. The darkness swallows her name, not even giving me an echo in reply. I shuffle through the inky blackness in the direction she disappeared, breath and body trembling. “Saipha!” I shout.
I’m met with nothing but silence, and the feeling of danger looms over me like a predator.
Something catches my eye. I spin in place. A blue flame hovers in the distance, casting the dirt floor in an otherworldly glow. If I can see it, maybe Saipha can, too. I run toward it.
The blue fire darts away just as I’m about to step into its glow. I pivot hard, trying to keep up. It teases me through a seemingly endless space that holds nothing but shadowed mists and dirt floors. All the while, I’m calling for Saipha.
Still, no response.
The ball of flame darts right, and I turn, then stop when a gust of warm air is accompanied by a low growl. Freezing in place, I notice a dagger-sharp talon the size of my leg curling by my foot. Mercy, I nearly tripped over—
My chest locks tight as my gaze drags upward to a thick, monstrous arm and across a broad, scaled chest. Up a neck that coils with terrible grace toward a face carved from every nightmare I’ve ever swallowed down.
Behind it, terror seizes my chest as wings unfurl, vast and silent, blotting out the dark with something darker still. I can’t move.
Then I see its eyes. Obsidian pools split by lilac slits—cold, unblinking, and locked on me.
The sound that leaves my throat isn’t a scream. It’s a whimper. Small. Broken.
And far too human.