27. Ava
AVA
On the second night, a mere hour after the sunset, the shadow found a way into the keep.
Ava and Brynja stood outside the door, staring at one another in horror as gleeful laughter ricocheted through their thoughts.
I’m coming, it whispered, its voice crackling with power. You can’t hide any longer. I’m coming.
“What do we do?” Brynja rasped as she tightened her grip on her spear. “Jerrid won’t make it back in time. We’re on our own.”
Ava’s blood chilled, but she’d already come to that conclusion herself. It wasn’t news to her, but a bitter taste rose in the back of her throat as iciness surged through her body, robbing her of coherent thought. What options did they have left?
She took a stabilizing breath, steeling herself for what must be done. “Talos. We’re going to have to use Talos.”
Brynja bared her teeth, but she didn’t argue. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
They moved down the corridor toward Finnr.
“It’s coming!” he shouted, hands pressed against his head.
Brynja barged into the closet where Talos crouched on the floor, eyes squeezed closed. He’d managed to free his ankles, but his hands were still bound behind his back.
“Talos, you can feel it coming, right?” Ava said as she hurried forward.
His eyes snapped open, but he didn’t say anything.
“Do you want to live?” she demanded as she reached for the chains. “If you want to live, you’re going to have to help us fight this thing off. We’ll help you get to the border if you do. You help us. We help you out of Gelaira. Do you understand?”
Talos glared at her.
Brynja leaned down and grabbed him by the collar, shaking him roughly. “I know you heard her, elf. Do you agree to these terms or not?”
He shook himself free with a muffled curse, but then he squinted at them each in turn. Ava could almost imagine the wheels in his head turning as he weighed the pros and cons of their proposal and how he could best manipulate matters to his advantage.
At last, he nodded.
Brynja untied the gag from his mouth with short, jerking movements. “If you start cussing at us, I’ll put the gag back on.”
He licked his lips and raked her with a fierce glare, but she didn’t react.
Ava still hung on to the chains, but the anxious fluttering in her stomach held her back from releasing him. She knew the risks of what they were about to do. She didn’t trust Talos. She couldn’t trust him, and yet they had no choice.
“All right,” she began, choosing her words carefully, “this is how this is going to work. We’re going to release you, and I’m going to help you fight the shadow. Once you’ve defeated it, we’ll see you safely to the border.”
“You?” He laughed harshly and leaned away from her. “How are you going to help me defeat this creature?”
Ava clamped down on her lips before responding. “Never mind how I plan to help you. Just believe me when I say that I will.”
Brynja exchanged a look with her, but Ava gave a slight shake of her head. She wasn’t about to tell Talos about her plans to feed him the energy she’d stolen from Jerrid, the magic sizzling in her veins and waiting to be released. She couldn’t use it herself, but she could give it away.
And when the time was right, she would give it to him and hope against hope that he used it wisely.
They removed the chains slowly and then backed away. Finnr loomed in the doorway, a grim and mildly confused expression on his face, but he didn’t question their actions.
“All right,” Ava said as she swiped her sweaty palms down the front of her clothes. “The shadow is inside the keep. It’s coming. We need you to drive it back out. It doesn’t like light or fire. That’s how you’re going to fight it.”
Talos’s lips peeled back in a snarl, but he didn’t say anything. He just rubbed his bruised wrists and flicked his gaze toward Finnr and the door behind him. Ava’s breath caught in her throat, and she braced herself for the moment he tried to escape.
But he remained where he was. Waiting.
She exhaled slowly.
“Let’s go,” Brynja growled. “I don’t want it to come down here and find us. Let’s take the battle to it. Fight it on our terms. Keep it as far away from the others as possible.”
Talos gave her a mock solute. “You’re the boss. Lead the way.”
Finnr eased out of the way. As Ava inched into the corridor, she realized he was clutching a dagger in his hand, which he flourished at Talos.
“I’ve got my eye on you,” the man said. “Trust me when I tell you I’ll stick this into your back if you try anything funny.”
Talos narrowed his eyes, but he raised his palms as if in surrender.
So far so good.
But how long would this uneasy truce last?
Ava led the way down the corridor, leaving Brynja and Finnr to keep an eye on Talos. At least they were armed and stood a chance of keeping him in line. Unlike herself…
The shadow laughed in the recesses of her mind. Sending out the greeting party, are you, little elf?
She ground her teeth together and tried to close off her thoughts. She didn’t want it to know what they were planning. Their only hope was if they could take it by surprise and drive it back, buying them time for Jerrid and Prince Haryk to arrive.
It won’t work. I know what you’re up to…
Her blood chilled as she reached the front entrance and found it secured tightly. So it hadn’t got in through the entrance. Where was it?
She turned to exchange a look with Brynja. The human girl’s expression was fierce, but her eyes were wide. They all knew this final battle was like spitting into the wind.
Ava took a stabilizing breath and continued down the hall, away from the entrance, toward a winding set of stairs that led upward into the keep.
The shadow must have found a window that hadn’t been shuttered properly or a crack in the wall somewhere.
All night long it had spiraled around the tower, testing their defenses, trying to find a way in.
It had been inevitable that it would finally find a weak spot eventually.
“Where are you, Jerrid?” she mouthed as she came out onto a landing that split in three different directions.
One path went upward, while the other two hallways angled down long corridors. She stood still, listening and searching the shadows for signs of movement. Behind her, Finnr’s heavy breathing filled the hallway.
Welcome to my kingdom, the shadow hissed in her ear, its laughter igniting terror in her belly.
The hallways before them stretched longer, as if giant fingers had caught the end of the corridor and were dragging it farther than it was meant to go. The walls rippled as they tightened and stretched until the hallway seemed to go on infinitely. There was no end in sight.
“How is that possible?” Finnr rasped.
So, he had seen it too. Ava blinked furiously, trying to make the corridor return to its original shape. This shouldn’t be possible. Walls didn’t just move. Hallways didn’t expand. Buildings didn’t change.
And yet this one, impossibly, had.
Talos cursed under his breath and began to retreat away from the unsettling anomaly.
Finnr jolted forward and muttered, “Oh no, you don’t.”
The dark elf stopped edging backward and stood still, glaring down the hallway. Ava uncurled her fingers briefly before tightening them into fists again. Should they wait here for the shadow to come to them? Or should they venture down that unnatural hallway?
“It’s probably setting a trap for us,” Brynja growled, as if reading Ava’s mind and knowing her unspoken dilemma.
“But is the trap meant to lure us forward or keep us frightened and standing here?” Ava whispered back.
All four of them exchanged glances.
“I, for one,” Talos began, his jaw tight, “have no intention of standing here and being taken unaware. If you want me to fight this thing, I say we keep moving.”
“As loath as I am to agree with anything he says,” Finnr said, jabbing a finger toward Talos, “I do admit I’d rather go down fighting.”
“At least we stand a chance that way,” Brynja muttered, although her mouth pulled into a tight frown as she stared down the endless corridor. “We’re sitting ducks if we stay here. I vote we go onward too.”
Ava didn’t disagree with them, and yet…
As her gaze returned to the hallway and the wrongness of what they were looking at, Ava couldn’t shake the feeling that the corridor was somehow alive. She did not want to walk down that passage. She didn’t want to know what waited for them at the end of it—if anything waited for them at all.
What if it just went on forever, trapping them in a journey that never ended? No end in sight and no way back? What if that was the trap?
Where are you, Jerrid?
She swallowed hard and forced herself to take a slow, stabilizing breath. They had no choice. They needed to do this, to keep the shadow busy until Jerrid arrived with reinforcements, to buy the others as much time as possible.
They were the bait, the decoys, the last desperate straw…
“Let’s go, then,” she whispered. “At least we’ll keep it busy until help arrives, whatever happens.”
Finnr and Brynja nodded, but Talos’s lip curled as the human man jostled him into motion.
“It’s noble that all of you are so eager to die in your noble cause,” Talos said, “but I have no intention of dying today.”
“Do your part, then, and maybe we’ll all make it out of here alive,” Brynja fired over her shoulder.
Ava didn’t have to turn around to feel the anger and hatred oozing from the dark elf. They were going to have to be very, very careful. He would gladly see them all dead, especially if it meant he could get away.
Doubts clawed at her mind as she eased down the hallway, waiting for the danger to jump out at them. Maybe bringing Talos along had been the wrong choice. Maybe they would have been better off without him…
But it was too late to turn back now.
They had committed themselves to this path, and they had no choice but to proceed.
Laughter wedged itself into her mind, guttural and deep. Yes, you’ve committed to your doom, little elf…
She shook her head and took another step forward, and then another, and another. Instinct screamed for her to stop, to turn around and run back in the direction they had come.
But she pressed forward, the air so thick it felt as if it were trying to slow her down, as if the air itself were alive and fighting against them. They waded through the tugging air, stepping farther and farther away from safety, from solid ground, from everything that made sense.
The hallway taunted them with its endlessness, every step a futile exercise.
No hope, no hope, no hope…
Ava shook the whisper away. There was always hope, as long as life remained in the body, as long as good people continued to fight. Hope might be fleeting, but it was steadfast and true, a guiding light through the darkness. If anything could see them through, hope would.
You’re such a foolish child. The shadow giggled as it coiled through her thoughts. Hope only prolongs your suffering. It’s better to just give in. Accept. Float away. Melt away…
Her nostrils flared, and she surged forward with renewed determination. There would be no floating or melting away. No giving up without a fight. Not quietly slipping into eternity.
There would be blood and sweat right up until the end.
And that’s exactly what it will cost. Blood and sweat and so much more… And in the end, I will still find you. And devour you. And then I will be all that remains after you are long forgotten, swallowed up in nothingness…
“Look out!” Brynja’s scream echoed off the walls of the corridor.
Ava lifted her head moments before a shadowy tentacle lashed at her face. She tumbled backward, tripping over the person behind her as they all staggered to get away from the sudden attack.
The tentacle struck again, this time at her feet. But Ava flung a weak burst of magic at it. The shadow magic recoiled with a hiss, sparks striking the floor as sizzling smoke and the stench of burned hair filled the hallway.
“Talos!” she screamed.
He stumbled to her side as if he’d been thrust forward. The dark elf lord braced himself and drew two fireballs of magic into his palms. Ava took a step back so that he stood at the front of their group, but she snapped her fingers and kept a flicker of flame burning in her palm.
The shadow appeared farther down the corridor and coiled toward them with lightning speed. Talos yelled and threw his fireballs. But he didn’t hurl them toward the shadow.
Instead, he flung them at the ceiling above their heads. Heat exploded with a roar. Hands shoved her roughly into the wall. A foot trampled on her toes. Brynja yelled…
Ava coughed and backed away, the ceiling creaking and groaning as it began to cave in. Stones cascaded down. Hands pulled her to safety, out of the path of destruction. Somewhere ahead of them, in the smoke and darkness, the shadow shrieked in fury.
“Move back before the whole ceiling comes down!” Brynja yelled in her ear.
Ava’s mind echoed back her words as she struggled to obey, her thoughts still too muddled to understand what had happened.
Finnr caught her other arm, and together they slogged back down the hallway as fire, wood, and stone collided behind them. In their haste, their feet tangled together, and they all went down in a heap of arms and legs.
Ava crawled out of the mess, blinking furiously and staring behind them. The hallway had collapsed and created a barrier between them and the shadow. Blue fire smoldered and sparked, the smoke pungent in her nostrils.
Brynja tugged her to her feet, and Ava turned to face the others.
Finnr stood alone in the corridor, a bedraggled and dirty figure in the wreckage of the passage.
Talos, their one hope for survival, had abandoned them.