64. Vera
Vera
Sloane strided us—or “blinked,” as the Pyraethis called it—to an underground bunker.
I took in our surroundings with sharp eyes to find us standing in the center of a low cavern.
Several tunnels branched out from the room in all directions.
The rock walls were slick with moisture, and lanterns hung from iron hooks to cast light onto the stone floor.
Everything appeared to be carved from rock, even the narrow bunk beds inlaid in the walls on the outer edge.
Orbs of dim light magic bobbed up and down the tunnels as a couple of people passed into the central area, keeping their voices low.
They wore attire similar to Sloane’s. Boots, leathers or loose trousers, cropped shirts, torn and dirt-smeared fabric.
Cloth was tied around their heads, and weapons and water bottles were strapped to their belts.
Starke looked around. “What is this place?”
“Headquarters.” Sloane walked briskly to a desk on the wall across from us, grabbed a bag hanging off the chair, and started loading small weapons into it.
“Headquarters?” Tessa asked, forehead scrunching. “Is this some sort of rebellion?”
Sloane’s attention was on her bag. “Something like that.”
“It looks like a refuge,” I said, eyes lingering on figures hunched beneath blankets in the bunk beds. “Are you hiding from something?”
She dropped the bag and put her hands on the desk, forearms strained. “We’re staying safe. There’s not much else you can do when your entire existence is threatened by the people in power.”
“I don’t get it,” I said, shaking my head. “What are the High Elders doing that’s so terrible? They just want to raise the kingdom. Isn’t that what all of you want?”
“If that was actually what they were doing, then yes. But it’s not.” Sloane’s jaw ticked. “You don’t understand. You haven’t seen the things we have.”
“Then tell us. What’s going on?” I asked.
One of the middle-aged men who had been walking with a magical light orb stopped when he saw us. “Sloane,” he hissed, scurrying to us with wide eyes. His mousy brown hair hung over his forehead. “What are you doing, bringing them here?”
“This is her, Dom. The Lightbringer.” At Sloane’s words, Dom’s face paled. His gaze dragged up to me in surprise.
Sloane stepped toward him. “It’s time. The Elders made their move. We have to act now if she’s going to take them down.”
“Whoa.” I put my hands out. “Nobody said anything about me taking anyone down. I just need to find Everett.”
“They took him because he’s close to you!
” Sloane said, voice rising. Dom hushed her, glancing around at the sleeping people.
She lowered her voice. “Don’t you see? They don’t care about his life.
They’ll use him to get close to you or to trick you into doing whatever they want, and then it’ll be too late for us all. ”
Starke held out his hands in a placating gesture. “I think everyone needs to calm down.”
Tessa snorted. “Never tell a group of women to calm down, Captain.”
An internal clock ticked in my chest, counting the seconds since Everett had been taken. Each moment made my stomach tighten like a corkscrew. “I don’t have time for this.” My breath hitched. “They could have done anything to him by now.”
Sloane planted her hands firmly on my shoulders. “Keep it together, Lightbringer. Before we do anything, you have to know the truth. You have to know what you’re up against.”
I met her gaze. “Tell me everything. Now.”
She looked back at Dom, who nodded, and she said, “Follow me.”
We were led down one of the winding tunnels, which opened into a series of smaller rooms carved from the wall.
Torn curtains hung from the ceiling to act as makeshift doors.
The scent of salt and sea got stronger the longer we walked, and moss cropped up on the walls.
It glowed with the same sort of golden light from the sea, and I figured we were close to the water.
When we slipped inside one of the rooms, my mouth fell open.
Embedded in every inch of the circular walls were thousands of small crystals.
They jutted from the rock, refracting faint light as I passed in front of them.
I could’ve sworn I saw faces reflected in the smooth sides, and whispers floated around my ears like a breeze.
“This is the Remembrance Wall,” Dom said in a hushed tone.
I brushed a hand along the sharp edges of the crystals, and a hint of magic rippled over my skin. “A remembrance for what?”
“Our people,” Dom said simply. “Each crystal represents a lost soul.”
“These people…they all died?” I asked, and Sloane nodded. “How?”
“The Elders.”
A pit formed in my stomach. “What did they do?” I whispered.
“They aren’t who you think they are,” Sloane said, but she wasn’t looking at me. She walked to a small section of crystals, her fingers running tenderly across one of the stones.
“The three High Elders are the firstborns of the original demithes,” Dom said.
I blinked, not sure I was understanding correctly. “Which Elders?” I asked, thinking maybe he meant from the past.
“The ones you know as Arcadia, Maeve, and Julius,” Sloane said, sneering at the names.
Next to me, Tessa’s lips parted. “The firstborns of the original originals? As in, from all of creation?” Dom nodded solemnly, and Tessa cocked her head in a feline way. “If they’re their children, shouldn’t they be very dead by now?”
Sloane’s lips thinned. “They would be, if they weren’t nearly immortal.”
Immortal. Everett had deciphered the symbol from the crypt, the one that meant ‘forever life.’ I thought it was nothing, merely a myth of their people, but now… “How is that possible?” I asked.
“The originals were obsessed with finding the key to immortality ever since they were created,” Sloane continued.
“It was the reason the Fates put the enchantment on Pyraeth in the first place.” She raised her hands to the ceiling, as if gesturing to the kingdom beyond.
“The originals tried to kill the Fates to take their place and live forever.”
“Well, they didn’t succeed,” Starke interjected. “We saw their tombs. We fought their corpses.”
Dom nodded. “The originals eventually died, but their children—the High Elders—took up their legacy. They rewrote history to paint their parents as martyrs and the Fates as the cruel, unjust oppressors, all while continuing the hunt for immortality. They’ve spent centuries searching, but have only found loopholes. ”
“Like the stasis,” I said. “The ritual they used to put our friend into a frozen sleep. Maeve told me how the originals would perform it on themselves to stay alive for the next one hundred years, when they could wake up and look for the Lightbringer again.”
Sloane nodded. “That same ritual allowed the High Elders to live on and off for centuries, as well.”
“How has nobody noticed? Or done something about it?” Tessa cut in.
“It’s an endless cycle,” Dom explained. “They pretend to die so they can create new identities for the next generation. They wake themselves up and do it over and over again. Once one generation dies out, they use magic to trick the next one into thinking they’ve been elected as new leaders.”
I shook my head. “Surely that doesn’t work on everyone. Haven’t some people lived long enough to remember who they really are?”
Sloane’s brow furrowed. “What people?”
A sense of foreboding filled the air. “The Pyraethis,” I said.
“The Pyraethis?” Dom echoed carefully.
“The people here,” I said, voice sharpening. “The ones in the streets, the villages, the staff at the palace. Your people.”
There was silence. Sloane dragged her eyes to Dom, and the look they exchanged made my blood chill. “Vera,” Dom said quietly, deliberately.
Dread spiked in my chest. I had a bad feeling about this. “No.”
“Those people you’ve seen…” Sloane started. “They aren’t real. There’s nobody left. The rest of the kingdom is dead.”