76. Vera
Vera
Nobody spoke as we prepared to leave the underground bunker. My stomach had been in knots ever since my revelation about the final amulet. Not because I was nervous, but because mere hours after finally promising to be with Everett, I was already keeping things from him.
“What did the original demithes give?”
“Everything.”
The Elders said the originals sacrificed the deepest parts of their soul to forge the amulets, and it destroyed them.
All the warnings I’d received over the last couple of days made sense.
The cost, the sacrifice, the surrender. It was because the guardians and the Fates knew I’d have to follow in the footsteps of the originals.
There was no way Everett would let me do this if he knew the full story. But if I didn’t get that final amulet, we had no hope of raising the kingdom. No hope of breaking the infection that now held Odessa and Everett in its clutches. No hope of going home.
I didn’t know what the forging would require of me, but I had to make sure the rest of the plan would work, even if I wasn’t there to do it.
“Tessa,” I hissed across the bunk room. Everett was in the makeshift weapons room gearing up, and it was the first moment Tessa and I had alone. “We need to talk.”
She paused strapping her twin daggers to her thighs and raised an eyebrow. “Everything okay?”
I quickly peered around the curtain to make sure he wasn’t coming back yet, then turned to her. “I need you to listen to what I’m about to say without arguing, alright?”
She opened her mouth, but the look on my face must’ve stopped her. Her brows pinched together. “Okay, I’m listening.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s about forging the amulet.
I know I told you and Everett that I didn’t know what to expect, but that wasn’t entirely true.
The Elders showed me a final record written by the originals, one that talked about the Lightbringer’s mission.
It also mentioned how they forged the first two. It required a…sacrifice.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, I do not like where this is going. Vera, you can’t—”
“No arguing, remember?” I interjected. She shut her mouth and gritted her teeth with a glare.
“The Elders said it took what was most vital to them, and it ended up killing them. And no,” I rushed on, seeing that she was about to cut me off.
“You’re not going to talk me out of this, so don’t even bother.
I’m only telling you because I need you, Tessa.
If I don’t make it, I need you to finish this once we have the final amulet. ”
She kneaded her forehead with her knuckles. “That’s a big ask, Vera. How am I supposed to just go along with this? With you sacrificing yourself?”
“I know. I know it’s a lot. But you’re the only one I can trust.” I put my hands on her shoulders and forced her to look at me.
“Please, Tessa. I have to go into this knowing everyone will be okay if I’m not there.
The record technically only said the Lightbringer was needed to deliver the Sacred Three.
Once I forge it, my job is done. All three will exist. I’m hoping anyone will be able to unite them after that.
You just have to get the other two from the Elders. ”
Tessa was already shaking her head. “This is crazy. We’re not doing this without you. We’ll find another—”
“There is no other way!” I exclaimed. “Everett and Odessa’s time is almost up. We have to act now.” I squeezed her shoulders. “I need you to understand. And most importantly, I need you to make sure Everett doesn’t try and stop me.”
She closed her eyes. “Vera,” she whispered. “Don’t ask me to do this.”
“I’m so sorry. I don’t want to.” My nose twitched as I fought off the burning in the backs of my eyes. “But what would you do if you were in my position? If you had to choose between your own life and the lives of those you loved?”
Tears swam in her dark eyes as she looked at me. “I am in your position, Vera. Because you’re one of the ones I love. And now you’re asking me to let you die for us.”
Pressure rose in my chest. I threw my arms around her neck and crushed her to me.
She jolted at the sudden contact, then returned the embrace.
“We don’t know that it’ll kill me,” I said, clutching her tight.
“No matter what it tries to take, I will fight with everything I have. This is just a last resort.” I pulled away, wiping a tear from my cheek. “Promise me, Tessa.”
She sniffed. “I don’t like this.”
“Now you sound like Everett,” I said with a faint smile.
She exhaled and wiped her own tears away. “Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll get the three amulets and figure out how to finish it.”
“And?” I prodded.
Pursing her lips, she said, “And I’ll make sure Everett doesn’t try to stop your stupid, stubborn, ridiculously noble plan.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Thank you, Tessa.”
“But he deserves to know,” she added softly.
“It wouldn’t change anything.” I averted my gaze. “And it would only make things harder.”
She looked at me, keen eyes piercing. “Harder for who, you or him?”
I didn’t answer. I turned around and dabbed at my eyes again as footsteps sounded outside the curtain. A moment later, Dom and Everett entered the bunk room.
“Ready to go?” Everett asked, a borrowed sword at his back and a couple of daggers in his belt. I nodded, wiping any hint of my conversation with Tessa from my face.
“It’s been an honor to stand by you, if only for a short time,” Dom said, holding out his hand to me.
I grasped it. “Take care of yourselves. I don’t know what to expect in the coming hours or how the Elders might retaliate if we fail. Just be prepared for anything.”
“We’re always ready. I hope we meet again, Vera.”
I swallowed. “Thank you for—for everything. I couldn’t have done this without you and Sloane.” Her name caught in my throat.
“She died knowing our revolution had finally come.” Dom gave me a sad smile. “She was right, you know. All we’ve done is wait for our deaths, and now the rest of us have hope beyond that, thanks in part to her. She’ll never be forgotten.”
We said our goodbyes, and I turned to Tessa and Everett, taking their hands.
For the second time that day, we strode back to the entrance of the catacombs.
My muscles tensed as my feet hit the stone floor.
All three of us were ready for a fight, but no guards were there to stop us.
No wards, no flying arrows, no fire wraiths.
We passed the same obstacles we faced before, now covered in ash from the fires, some areas still smoking.
But it was deathly still. Too still. The spikes didn’t jump up from the floor to impale us. The chasm from earlier was still there, empty and abandoned. There was no strange freezing magic, no obsidian blades threatening to slice us to pieces, and no shadowy, mysterious storm cloud.
Absolutely nothing but quiet. The fact that there were no defenses made me more wary than any enchantment could.
“Well, that was easy. I love a good trap,” Tessa said sarcastically at my side, twirling her twin daggers in the air.
“We don’t know it’s a trap,” I countered.
Everett quirked an eyebrow. “The Elders burned this place down just to stop you from leaving last time.”
“And they took Starke. Probably as leverage,” Tessa added. “It’s a classic trap move.”
“Fine.” I waved a hand in the air. “It’s a trap. I’m sure they’ll be smarter about it now. They didn’t expect me to show up last time.”
“They still need you,” Everett said. “That makes them desperate.”
“That makes them dangerous,” Tessa emphasized.
“I’m dangerous, too,” I said, straightening my spine. “Especially when they threaten my people.” I glanced at Everett. He nodded, but at the last second, he winced. My eyes instantly fell to his infected shoulder.
My throat tightened, but I shoved down the rising dread.
Squaring my shoulders, I walked through the hole where the door I’d blasted away last time had been, the one that led to the catacombs.
What we saw inside was a charred, blackened ghost town.
The fire had burned everything in its path.
Black dust clung to the stone walls. Huge piles of ash now lay where bodies of the deceased once stood in rows.
Remnants of heat still flickered in the air; embers and soot kicked up with our entrance.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I couldn’t explain it, but it felt like someone was watching me. Hushed voices wrapped around me, sparking the magic in my chest the way a spell would.
“They’re here,” I said. “They’re watching us somehow.”
“They know you’ll keep looking for the final amulet,” Everett said grimly. “It’s our only way home.”
“If they think I’m just going to hand it over, they’re sorely mistaken.”
“How do you plan on forging it, anyway?” he asked.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tessa shoot me a look. I brushed it off and turned away from both of them. “Let’s just keep going.”
We ventured through the main cavern to the three long tunnels at the end. I pointed to the one I went down last time. “That’s where I found Everett, but the fire probably destroyed it all.”
Tessa gestured to the far left tunnel. “I remember seeing more altars down there. One had a phoenix on it.”
We slowly crept down the dark path. Something on the walls on either side of us caught my attention. Lines of wood ran through the center, parallel to the floor. I stopped walking and drifted to the side, noticing how the wood smelled like smoke.
I wonder…
Summoning my phoenix fire, I put a hand to the wall. Flames poured from me and ignited the wood. The fire ran straight down the line in the center of the wall, all the way to the curve in the tunnel. I lit the other side, and it did the same thing.
A familiar humming started low in my ears, tugging my chest. The same sound that called me to the strange island in the storm and to that cave beneath the lighthouse. The same one that led me to open the portal.
We were in the right place, I could feel it.