CHAPTER 14 #2
Arrows flew from hidden seams, faster than my eyes could track.
The sergeant worked his fingers like a conductor, tapping and gesturing in midair.
Every impact had my spine and fingers tingling.
When he lowered his hand, over a dozen arrow shafts jutted from the wall, some buried deep, some broken, and some still trembling faintly from the force.
The silence that followed was oppressive, broken only by a soft exhale somewhere behind me.
“I think that’s all of them,” Kwabena said, surveying the arrow-pierced corridor with a tilt of his head.
“Good call, Ben,” Zephyr called from the rear.
Kwabena shot a look over his shoulder, lips tugging up. “Might not be at my fittest, but this is far from my first rodeo, boy.”
Boy was not a word I’d use to describe the six-foot-something wall of muscle that was the Captain of the King’s Army, but instead of sounding offended, Zephyr let out a dark, hearty laugh and said, “I know, old man.”
With a grin, Kwabena turned forward again and lifted his cane. “Tread carefully, just in case.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. As we moved into the corridor, I mirrored his steps, watching as he planted each foot only on the slabs that had already sunk.
Somehow, despite the cane, he moved with the agility of a nimbler person as he expertly used it to leverage himself across larger distances.
My disadvantage in height proved to be more of a handicap as I followed his every step, at times fighting to place my feet on the exact same spots he vacated. I concentrated on each footfall, matching the rhythm of his movements. One step. Then another.
Almost there.
My next stride fell a centimeter short.
A whisper of pressure from my heel met the edge of a risen slab . . . and it gave way.
My gasp was swallowed by the groan of metal. I felt it, rather than seeing it. Before I could react, an arrow was flying towards me.
It all happened in a blink.
Instinct had me snapping into a phased state, but something else moved first—a hand closing around my arm and pulling. Hard.
It sank through me as I became intangible, but the sudden backward momentum still knocked me off balance.
I stumbled, caught myself almost too late, and found my back pressed against Armand’s chest. My agitated breaths reverberated around the corridor as I fought to steady myself.
Then my eyes snapped up, locking onto the space I’d just left.
An arrow was suspended in the air, frozen mid-flight. If it wasn’t for the firelight dancing along its shaft, I’d have thought it an illusion.
But it wasn’t. It had been a very fast, very real arrow, stopped just a breadth away from where my heart would have been. As I looked at it, it cluttered harmlessly to the floor at my feet.
As if in a trance, I turned to look over Armand’s shoulder. Captain Kentar stood still as stone. His arm was extended, palm splayed in the arrow’s direction.
An arrow which he’d stopped before it could have harmed me. His breathing matched mine, shallow and shocked.
Zephyr had just saved me. The Captain of the King’s Army who’d been nothing but a thorn in my side since the moment I stepped foot in this kingdom had chosen to save my life, even though it’d have made his so much easier to have me gone.
It was such a stark contrast to the brooding and constant confrontations of the last few days, I had no idea what to make of it.
Armand had saved me, too, when he’d pulled me backwards.
Or they tried to, anyway. I’d saved myself by becoming intangible, but still. None of them had risked it.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Don’t mention it,” Armand mused, slicing through the spell of silence that had been gripping us. His shoulder nudged mine. “You had it handled. Now can we please get off this cursed corridor already?”
I tore my gaze from Zephyr, and pressed my lips together when I caught the strained twist of Armand’s expression. “With pleasure.”
The last few feet passed without incident, and I silently offered my thanks to the Evergreen Mahogany and everything that it gave us as I welcomed the once again solid, unmarred stone on the other side.
Kwabena was waiting just beyond the threshold. As we approached, he turned, face marked by deep creases of regret. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I thought I’d gotten them all . . .”
I placed a hand on his shoulder and immediately felt the tension there. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He didn’t look convinced but, before he could reply, a sharp metallic squeal echoed from somewhere ahead. The ominous sound slithered down my body, and I felt a shudder run through the sergeant where I still held him.
“Let’s find Sirclen’s stuff and get the fuck out of this place,” Armand muttered, no longer amused.
No one argued.
We pressed forward.
I tried not to think about how far we were from the surface. How deep we might be beneath the desert. I focused on the soft click of Kwabena’s cane and the shifting glint of torchlight against stone worn smooth by time.
Not long after, a staircase appeared. It was narrow, much narrower than the one we’d taken earlier, going up in a spiral.
There was no other path to choose, so we began to climb.
The ascent was painfully slow, both because of Kwabena’s limp forcing him to take one step at a time, and because of his careful exploration of every level, wary of any more traps.
I didn’t mind. As much as I wanted to get out of this suffocating, dank, ancient-smelling air, I wanted to do so alive.
After the episode with the arrows, I was all in for not taking unnecessary risks, even if it meant a few more minutes of torture.
If it’s hours, though . . .
Breathe.
What felt like eons later, the staircase came to an end as abruptly as it had appeared. One moment, we were going up the narrow stairs, the only sound that of our combined heavier breaths. The next, it spewed us up into a massive, open chamber. My first step on even ground faltered.
“Wow.” The word fell from Armand’s lips.
The air was thick and dry up here. I craned my head, taking in the vaulted ceiling that was lost to the absolute darkness above, hung with ancient-looking chains and rusted brass cogs.
The faintest shaft of dusty sunlight lanced through the air, barely illuminating the oppressive gloom.
It was enough to lessen some of the pressure in my chest, though.
We must be above ground level again.
At the far end of the space, I noticed the outline of a low pedestal surrounded by a ring of square stone slabs, a mirror of the one we stood upon.
Under the torchlight cast by the Kobrants, I could appreciate the carvings in the closest slabs.
Faded glyphs and unintelligible symbols marred most of their surface.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Armand murmured. For once, I couldn’t agree more with him.
The floor separating the pedestals was a grid of mismatched flagstones, some cracked and some worn smooth. The walls on either side were lost to the unyielding darkness, offering no further clues about what we might be facing here.
“There’s a door on the other end,” Kwabena pointed out, squinting across the vast chamber.
I spotted it. It was barely visible in the gloom—only the faintest glint betraying its presence. It was far too clean, too smooth. Not stone and . . . recently installed.
We all turned toward it at once.
“Fucking finally.” Armand’s boot struck the floor with a soft thud—and the response was immediate.
Overhead, a crack split the silence like a whip.
And the ceiling exploded.
Ancient stone shattered in a rain of jagged shards as massive shades dropped from above. Blades. Dozens of them, gleaming like polished fangs as they began to swing across the chamber.
Another metallic slab crashed down in front of the door at the other end, barring it from view. This one was heavier and broader. Its edges digging into the wall.
Armand had stepped back onto the raised platform, eyes wide as he watched the deadly room.
“That complicates things,” Kwabena said, gaze locked on the rows of swinging blades. “We could try to hold them, one at a time.”
Zephyr shook his head, jaw clenched tight. “We’ll wear ourselves thin before we’re halfway through.”
He was right. As trained as we all were, there was always a limit to how much abilities granted by the sap could be used.
Much like with any muscle, exerting them took a toll in the user.
People like Zephyr, Armand, Kwabena, and I trained our entire lives to grow the endurance of our abilities, but there was always a limit.
Just like I couldn’t sustain my intangible state for longer than a few seconds, Kwabena and Zephyr wouldn’t be able to move entire buildings or smaller objects for long periods of time.
And there were a lot of very large blades in that chamber.
“I’ll go,” I said. They all turned toward me, a variety of protests readying on their faces. I didn’t give them the chance. “I’ll phase through. Check if it’s worth the risk.”
Armand still protested, “I could also try, shielding as I go.” But as he said the words, he realized why that couldn’t happen. Shielding wouldn’t keep him from being thrown around by the massive blades like a ball, just from their sharp edges.
I was our best option.
I found the captain’s eyes darkened by the burden of dozens of protests. When a moment later he hadn’t voiced any of them, I figured he’d reached the same conclusion.
Taking a deep breath, I reached for that familiar pull inside me. The particles of my body shivered, edges blurring.
The world dulled, sounds muffling, and as the edge of the first blade came down, I stepped forward.