Chapter 6 Heidi
HEIDI
Wait. How does this thousands-of-years-old ghost know the name I prefer to go by?
I've chosen to go by my middle name ever since I started living among humans, along with avoiding using my surname, Murley, whenever I can. I don't mind when Everett or anyone else calls me Heidi, but most of the time, it's just nice to have a different name from what my parents called me.
Again, I check to make sure no one is looking. Everyone is wrapped up in whatever is happening up ahead, which makes me hopeful that we're about to make some serious progress. I look back at the purple-draped ghost.
"Um…yes? I'm an empath," I add, so that he can have the right word in his vocabulary.
"Thae, I have seen this," he nods. "But the mark is absent?"
He gestures at the left side of his own face to indicate mine. My heart trips, my hand nearly lifting to where makeup perfectly hides the port stain birthmark on my face, as usual.
"How do you know about that?"
"As I said, I beheld you. In my mortal life serving as a priest of Galene, she blessed my vision to see eras afar. I foresaw you guiding searchers to this place, to seek the lost ones. I also saw your charm, which brings the voices of spirits to your mortal ears."
Realizing how helpful a coherent ex-seer ghost might be with understanding this place, I do another quick scan to make sure no one is watching before whispering, "Who are you? What do you know about them?"
"I am Athanis, and I am one of the many who sealed our peoples' knowledge and the chruthadihunei in slumber," the ghost tells me, gesturing to the other blurry spirits roaming this rough-hewn stone and dirt tunnel.
"The chr…" Who am I kidding? There's no way I can pronounce whatever he just said. "The what now?"
Athanis thinks for a moment. "Those altered within this laboratory. In your words, perhaps they would be called…altered ones? Subjects?" He waves off his translation attempts and focuses on me with intensity. "The great corruption upon this land. It is over at last, yes?"
I nod. "The Entity was killed eight months ago."
Relief fills his face. "He will be safe, then."
"Who are you talking—"
"Heidi? Over here," Everett calls me over, checking over his shoulder for me.
I quickly look away from Athanis. Doing my best to ignore his attempts to get my attention again, I hurry to Everett, Silas, and the fae gathered in an alcove-like indentation off the side of the newly-dug tunnel.
As soon as I step over a mound of dirt to join them in this space, I see what they're excited about.
An intricately engraved metal door is lit dimly by the mage lights. They've carefully cleaned the indentations in the ancient metal, and now Silas is translating the ancient fae engravings into a notebook in real time.
"This must be the entrance to the lab," I realize with elation.
Silas pauses his translating to glance at me. "How did you know it's a lab?"
Oops.
Before I can backpedal or come up with a reason for knowing that, Athanis pokes his head into my peripheral vision, examining Silas. Silas frowns briefly at the ghostly newcomer.
"Well, Crane? What are we waiting for?" one of the fae excavators asks, wiping dirt off his hands and scratching his pointed ear. "What does the door tell us?"
Even though I'm carefully not looking at Athanis, Silas's scarlet gaze moves from the ghost back to me with a flicker of suspicion before he faces the door again.
"The engraving commemorates this research facility as having been built by the fourteenth queen of Saogheile and is dedicated to some ancient, long-dead god of discovery. "
"Saogheile?" Everett repeats, struggling to make the same guttural sound in the middle.
"The ancient fae name for our motherland. It seems this was a scientific laboratory, after all. Perhaps Felix is right, and this place and the sleepers were preserved by the fae to be kept from Amadeus," Silas muses.
"Thae! Tell the blood fae he is right," Athanis says, motioning at me.
I go on pretending not to see him, but Silas is clearly noticing the way this ghost is trying to interact with me.
Noah whistles. He's one of the more friendly fae appointed by the fae elders to be on the excavation team.
"If they were hidden before Amadeus, it means they've been in here for…
what, three thousand years, give or take?
That's wild. We'll need to lay strong preservation charms the moment we step inside to prevent scrolls or anything else from oxidizing. Can you sense them in there, Elise?"
I nod. The sleepers' desperate emotions calling out for help lace slowly through the air in this tunnel, but they're strongest right by this door.
"Good," another excavator, Brahm, grunts. "Get ready, everyone. Let's get these things extracted along with whatever else the elders might find useful and get the fuck out of this hole."
"Those things are people," I point out, irked by his wording.
"Indeed, and there is one who leads these searchers who is easily corrupted by greed," Athanis tells me, narrowing his eyes at Brahm. "I have beheld it. My noble friend must not leave with these seekers, lest they twist him into something dark and cruel."
Noble friend? I want to ask him what he's talking about, but Brahm is already challenging me, ripping my attention back to him.
"Do you know that for absolute certain? Don't monsters dream, too?"
"I'm not sure, but—"
"There's no but. What if these are dangerous shadow fiends or creatures down here? Does an empath like you have any way of knowing what you're actually sensing, or does your kind just have a bleeding heart for anything with a pulse? Don't be so naive, step back, and let the experts—"
He yelps as ice crackles up his entire body, encapsulating everything but his flared nose and wide eyes. The other fae excavators stumble away in fear as Everett leans toward Brahm. Even I try not to flinch at the chill in my brother's voice.
"Talk down to her one more fucking time and see where it gets you."
I start to tell him it's fine and to let the poor frozen fae go, but Silas interrupts, glaring at the others in the tunnel.
"As for what may be found useful, I'll remind everyone here that we reached out to the elders for this excavation to ensure historic fae records remain with the fae. Understanding and preserving our heritage is of utmost importance. However, anyone found still alive down here will be temporarily placed under the elders’ supervision before being set free—assuming they are not deemed dangerous.
No innocent is to be kept in the fae research facility indefinitely. "
"He is right, but the corrupt one will not honor this," Athanis says urgently, turning to me again with pleading on his face.
"Elise. You must help me. Because he saved my family, I swore an oath to the gods to help my warrior friend in this new era.
I have foreseen vastly opposite lives he may have here.
If the corrupt one keeps him, he will do great harm to my noble friend. "
Noble friend? His words almost get me to turn my head and look at him, but I force myself to stare at the door instead.
"We understand that, of course," Noah pipes up, ever the peacemaker. He rubs his neck with a slight grimace. "Although you may face some pretty intense resistance when you talk to Chancellor Marwood about this."
"I'd expect nothing less," Silas mutters dryly.
I don't know much about the fae in general, let alone how their leadership works.
But from conversations with the fae working with us on the excavations, I've gathered that although they fall into the House of Arcana, fae consider themselves to be of a different origin and identity from other legacies.
They have their own culture and figureheads.
I've heard a lot about Chancellor Marwood, who's overseeing this excavation from the fae side of things.
I have no idea how highly a chancellor ranks in their leadership, but from what the excavators have mentioned, Marwood loathes the Amato quintet.
He frequently claims they'll be worse than the Immortal Quintet one day.
He sounds like a true ray of sunshine.
Come to think of it, if Athanis foresaw some corrupt fae leader who's going to take things too far and pose a threat to the sleepers…it's probably that guy.
"You will aid me in keeping my oath to protect my friend, will you not?" Athanis demands near me, floating through one of the other fae. "He will become of great importance to you, as well. This I have seen."
Everett is finally unfreezing Brahm. Everyone else is distracted with that, so I nod as subtly as I can. Of course, I'll do what I can to free an innocent and prevent them from getting hurt.
"All right. Preservation charms at the ready," Noah says, preparing a spell that glows around his fingers.
The other fae excavators prepare their own spells until the tunnel is filled with the multicolored glow of the casters about to unbury an ancient mystery. Silas is the last to prepare his spell as Everett and I step back, and then the metal door is ripped open with magic.
The entry of the ancient fae laboratory is full of skeletons.
According to Silas and the other fae examining the scene, some remains were obviously left from a brutal fight.
In contrast, others seem to have starved to death or died of slow wounds sometime after this laboratory was magically buried underground.
Some of the excavators have been making nonstop guesses about the fates of the skeletons scattered throughout the long entry and the two adjoining rooms we've ventured into.
Me? I don't have to guess because Athanis has decided he's talking to me, whether I acknowledge him in front of the others or not.