49. Everett
Everett
The wraith’s hold over me shattered the moment Vera and Arcadia opened the crypt. One second, I was standing inside the nightmare, with stone walls closing in and chains biting my skin. And the next, cold air rushed in as the world snapped back into place.
I tried to get my bearings through the dust and debris hanging thick in the air. I helped Kieran to his feet, and his arm trembled in my grip.
He cleared his throat. “Are you—”
“I’m fine. You?”
His eyes shuddered, but he nodded curtly. He didn’t have to say anything. I knew if he experienced anything like what I had, we’d be seeing it every time we closed our eyes for the foreseeable future.
I dragged in a breath that felt too thin, like the air had in the cells all those years ago. For a moment, I waited for the darkness to close in again. I closed my eyes and shook away the sensation, then opened them to see Vera standing before me.
Her shoulders slumped in relief when I met her gaze. “You’re okay,” she whispered.
“I’m okay,” I repeated with a nod. “Let’s go get your amulet.”
We hadn’t spoken since last night. I wasn’t sure if coming today was a good idea. I almost volunteered to stay back with Odessa, but no matter how strained things were between Vera and me, I could never let her do this alone.
Vera summoned light in one hand and shadows in the other, then took a step over the wreckage of the entrance.
She and Arcadia cast balls of light into the high ceiling of the mausoleum, allowing us to see what rested beyond the marble.
Three rectangular tombs stood on a platform in the center of the huge room.
White marble lids rested on top of each, covered in dust from lying there for Fates only knew how long.
There was an ominous presence I couldn’t quite place that put me on edge.
Maybe it was the ancient darkness, the sense of being trapped here without a way out.
The wraith had certainly seen that fear inside my head.
It had shown me iron bars and endless corridors, years slipping by while I grew older, weaker, fainter.
Forgotten. A future where my captivity had never truly ended.
My jaw tightened. I rolled my head along my shoulders, and my eyes caught on rows of glyphs on the wall.
They reminded me of the symbols in the cave where we opened the portal.
I moved closer, tracing the dusty edges with my finger.
One of them was a phoenix, one looked like an X on top of a rectangle, and the other was a cracked clay pot turned upside down.
“Arcadia,” I called, motioning to the glyphs, “what do these stand for?”
He examined them. “This is the symbol for ‘rise,’” he pointed first to the phoenix, then the rectangle, “that one is ‘forge,’ and the clay pot is ‘vessel.’”
There were dozens, if not hundreds, of other symbols chiseled into these walls.
Maybe they could tell us more about the Sacred Three and this mysterious kingdom.
I softened my mind the way I did when creating illusions, letting the images seep into my magic.
The glyphs sharpened in my mind’s eye and carved themselves into my memory.
It was a trick I had trained my Illusionist magic to do in order to recall visions in flawless detail.
I wanted to be able to remember as many of these as I could to research when we got back to the palace.
An ear-splitting crash made me jump. I whirled around, blade ready, to find Vera on the raised platform. She had thrown the lid off one of the tombs, sending a plume of dust into the air. I resisted the urge to chuckle. Typical Vera.
I stepped up to the platform and peered inside the open tomb, where a preserved body lay wrapped in cloth from head to toe. Silence filled the room. Vera took a deep breath, then slowly stretched out a hand.
Arcadia jumped up the platform at the same time I reached for her, both of us shouting a warning.
“Daughter, I do not think it’s wise—”
“Don’t touch the—”
Too late.
A dirty, cloth-wrapped hand burst into the air.
Its fingers were mangled and clawing for something to grab.
Vera and I leaped back in shock. Holes where the mouth and eyes should have been appeared in the cloth, and the body bolted upright.
Its mouth opened to reveal a gaping cavity, so large its jaw must have come unhinged.
It let out a low roar that rumbled through the crypt like thunder.
Stone cracked as the other two tombs split open, lids breaking down the middle and falling to the platform.
Two more wrapped figures emerged, and as one, the three of them rose from their tombs.
Their limbs were bent at impossible angles before cracking into place with sharp pops.
The chamber filled with dry, rattling rasps.
My eyes were locked on the sight until Vera grabbed my arm and yanked me off the platform.
“More guardians!” Arcadia yelled. “Do not let them break your skin!”
Before we could make a run for it, one of the creatures pushed off the stone platform, launched over our heads, and landed at the entrance with a roar.
Starke unsheathed his sword and swiped at it, but it merely batted the weapon away like it was a gnat.
It swung its other hand back, bony fingers visible and sharp.
On instinct, I raced forward and leaped into the air, colliding with Starke. We both smashed into the side wall. I scrambled off him and held out an arm. He hesitated, then took it. “Thanks, Swift.”
We bolted back into the fray. Vera and Arcadia were battling one, while the other two came at Starke, Kieran, and me.
I summoned my Illusionist magic, envisioning heavy clouds of shadows, then pushed the image toward the corpses to block their view.
It bought us a few seconds as they stumbled around in confusion.
One of them lunged clumsily in my direction. I drew my dagger and caught it mid-stride, blade driving through the cloth and snapping its ribs. The corpse didn’t even slow down. With a rattling breath, its fingers closed around my upper arm, crushing me as if my bones were nothing more than twigs.
I grunted as my shoulder popped out of place. I managed to wrench myself free and kicked its chest with all my strength. It staggered backward and crashed to the floor.
An inhuman shriek split through the crypt.
My stomach dropped as a shadow wraith burst straight through the solid wall as if it wasn’t even there.
It glided over the corpses, slashing the air.
Starke dodged it, and it landed on me. Its shadow claws raked at me just as I threw myself out of the way, shoulder stinging.
Its momentum carried it behind me and back through the opposite wall.
I caught my breath and glanced around, looking for Vera amidst the chaos. How was she going to find the amulet when we could barely fight these monsters off?
An oncoming roar blasted in my ears, and I barely had time to raise my good arm before a corpse crashed into me and drove me backward.
I grabbed the cloth on its chest to regain my balance, but my feet caught on the steps of the platform.
My spine hit the ground. The corpse pinned me down, its hollow mouth yawning open inches from my face.
Rancid breath washed over me. Just as I was about to slam my forearm into its jaw, something shiny flickered.
A dirty gold chain peeked out from pieces of ripped cloth. My eyes traveled until I saw the outline of a circular crest beneath the corpse’s wrappings.
The amulet.
I reached for it without thinking, but the second my skin touched the chain, my hand seared in pain. I yanked back with a hiss to find my palm charred. The corpse snarled and threw itself off me.
“Vera!” I shouted, pointing at the creature. “It’s there! The amulet!”
She was in the middle of fighting both a corpse and a shadow wraith at once, but at my words, her head snapped toward me.
In the blink of an eye, she strided out of existence and reappeared right in front of the creature with the amulet.
Sharp fingers protruded through its cloth wrappings as it brought its arm back, preparing to strike.
My heart jumped in my throat. If it broke her skin—
Vera was faster. Her hand closed around the chain at its neck and tore it free, then shifted her fingers into talons and sliced off its arm. Victory shone in her golden eyes as she held the amulet higher.
But it was short-lived.
The three corpses froze and dropped to their knees. In my next breath, they turned to dust and blew away, leaving behind their rotted cloth wrappings.
And then the amulet crumbled to ash and fell at Vera’s feet.