Chapter Twenty-Five
I looked at Celeste, quickly pulled my hands away from her and Keegan, and worked to unfasten my necklace.
“What are you doing?” Keegan asked as I pulled the pendant away.
“Celeste needs this.” I looked at my daughter and drew a deep breath. “Turn around.”
She frowned in confusion, but she did what I said and pulled her hair away from her neck as I quickly fastened the pendant around her, barely any light guiding me to do so.
“Why would you do that?” Keegan asked as Gideon stood by, a knowing look on his face.
“Because the Priestess marked her, and this will keep her safe, or at least safer, with it on.”
“But you need it too,” Keegan’s voice was gruffer.
“I know what I’m doing. It’s the best way to ensure she makes it out of here.”
Twobble nodded. “She has a great point.”
Celeste turned to me. “What about you?”
I smiled and held her hand again with a quick squeeze. “I’ll be fine.”
The lie sat strangely in my chest, but not because I thought I was about to die or something. Rather, the moment the pendant left my skin, I realized how much it had been shielding me from the shadow energy running through the air.
The shadows in the room immediately noticed the lack of protection surrounding me, and cold crept along my arms beneath my sleeves. I felt it curling over my birthmark, making me grit my teeth.
Celeste touched the moonstone lightly where it rested against her chest, and the pendant glowed softly beneath her fingers.
Keegan saw the shift in my face immediately. “Maeve.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re pale.”
“I’m in an evil tower surrounded by cursed architecture and emotionally unstable magic. Pale feels reasonable.”
The humming had stopped, and silence slid through the room.
“Uh-oh,” Twobble whispered.
Shadows rolled through the archway first, twisting together in long ribbons that crawled along the floor.
The temperature dropped, and Celeste stepped closer to me as I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
The Priestess emerged slowly, with her gown moving like smoke trailing across stone. The black fabric was threaded with faint silver runes that shifted every time she moved.
Even her garments held protection spells.
Her eyes found Gideon first as he straightened. The Priestess’ eye narrowed on him.
“You’ve chosen wrong, Gideon.”
He stared at her. “I don’t believe so.”
Anger flickered across her face…and possibly, possession?
The shadows circled around her feet.
“You helped build this place,” she said softly. “You shaped its bones with me.”
“I created a prison of my own making.”
“A necessary one.”
“I wasn’t talking about here.” His eyes locked on her.
“Oh, darling. Did they get to you? Soften you up a little too much?”
The Priestess’ gaze finally shifted to Celeste and me.
The moment her eyes landed on the pendant around my daughter’s neck, something dark and furious moved through her gaze.
“You gave her the moonstone,” she nearly hissed.
“Yes,” I said, smiling.
“How predictable.”
“You kidnapped my child. You don’t get to critique my parenting decisions.”
Beside me, Twobble whispered, “Honestly, that felt powerful.”
The Priestess’ gaze remained fixed on Celeste, and I felt my daughter stiffen beneath my arm.
“You were always going to bring her here eventually,” the Priestess said quietly. “Blood calls to blood.”
Celeste lifted her chin. “I came because you fooled me.”
A tiny smile curved the Priestess’ mouth. “Oh, she does sound like you.”
I stepped slightly in front of Celeste, and the shadows reacted instantly. They rushed toward me with wicked, twisting tendrils that slithered across the floor and to my ankles.
Keegan moved before I could say a word as magic exploded outward from him in a silver burst.
He shoved Celeste and me backward while driving his power straight into the shadows. The impact cracked the stone beneath our feet, and the room shook hard enough that dust rained from the ceiling.
The Priestess barely blinked, and she lifted her hand slowly as shadows gathered into spears.
“Keegan,” Gideon said low.
Keegan spun just as the spears launched.
One.
Two.
Five.
A dozen at once.
They ripped through the air with shrieking force, slamming toward us from every direction. Gideon threw both hands forward, magic exploding into brilliant shields that curved through the room in sharp arcs.
The first three spears shattered against it.
The fourth broke through as Keegan shifted. His claws ripped through the shadow spear before it could strike Celeste. The force hurled him into the wall hard enough that the stone cracked beneath the impact.
“Keegan!” I shouted.
The Priestess moved her fingers again, and the shadows answered as the walls split open behind her.
Symbols ignited along the floor beneath her feet. Everything felt ancient and wrong enough that my birthmark burned sharply.
“She’s feeding from below,” Gideon warned.
“No kidding,” Twobble squeaked.
The Priestess’ eyes locked onto me again. “You shouldn’t have removed the pendant.”
I swallowed against the pain crawling beneath my skin. “I’m still standing.”
“For now.” Her hand snapped upward, and a beam of black magic tore across the room directly toward me.
Keegan lunged as I threw up my hands instinctively.
But Celeste stepped in front of me, and my grandmother’s beam struck the pendant.
The moonstone erupted, and light burst through the chamber so brightly that every shadow recoiled violently from the walls. Silver wings spread outward from the pendant in shimmering layers that wrapped around Celeste’s body. I was watching living magic protect my daughter.
The attack slammed into the barrier before ricocheting backward across the room, hitting the Priestess.
She staggered as shock flashed across her face.
The reflected magic struck the wall behind her and exploded through the stone in a burst of golden rays and shattered rock.
For one stunned heartbeat, nobody moved.
Celeste looked down at the pendant glowing against her chest before returning her gaze to her great-grandmother.
“You missed,” she whispered.
The Priestess’ expression darkened into something terrible, and the room exploded.
Shadows burst from the floor in violent waves while the symbols beneath the Priestess ignited fully. Every candle in the chamber flared black instead of blue, and I felt the ice hit my body as shadow magic swirled around us.
“She’s angry,” Twobble announced unnecessarily.
“Thank you, Twobble!” Keegan said through gritted teeth.
“I contribute where I can!” But then he dashed behind the Priestess as she thrust both hands outward.
The shadows bolted toward us in spinning arcs sharp enough to slice stone from the walls.
Gideon shouted something in the old mage language and threw up another shield while Keegan shifted back into human form long enough to grab me and Celeste both and move us behind a fallen section of broken rock.
Twobble wrapped himself around the Priestess’ ankles and bit firmly as the shadows hit Gideon’s shield hard enough to drive him backward across the floor.
But the shield held.
Celeste clutched the pendant. “Mom.”
“You stay down.”
“She’s trying to separate us.”
I knew.
The shadows weren’t random anymore. They moved deliberately through the room, erecting barriers between us and the exits.
The chamber was becoming a trap.
Again.
Keegan crouched beside us, breathing hard. One sleeve was torn open, blood streaking his forearm where one of the shadow spears had grazed him.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s suspiciously close to my line,” I muttered.
His mouth trembled despite everything.
The Priestess lifted her gaze toward Celeste again.
“You should not have survived that.”
Celeste stood slowly before either of us could stop her.
“Same goes for you.”
Honestly, I was both horrified and deeply proud.
The pendant glowed brighter against her chest as she stepped forward. The moonstone’s light stretched across the floor in pale silver lines that pushed the shadows back inch by inch.
The Priestess noticed.
So did Gideon.
Keegan stood up as a shadow flung Twobble off the Priestess, and Celeste took another step forward.
Gideon’s eyes widened slightly. “The pendant is responding to her.”
“She’s Elira’s blood too,” I whispered.
The Priestess’ expression sharpened instantly at the mention of my other grandmother.
“Oh,” she said softly. “Now I understand.”
My grandmother started laughing as the shadows around her rose higher.
“You thought the Academy chose you, Maeve.” Her gaze slid toward Celeste. “But perhaps it was waiting for her.”
My stomach dropped. “No.”
Celeste looked at me quickly, confusion flashing across her face.
The Priestess smiled, but the gesture was cruel.
“She carries it differently than you do. Cleaner. Stronger.” Her smile deepened.
“Don’t talk about my daughter like she’s an object,” I warned.
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t dream of it. In fact, she’s a weapon.” Her gaze fell onto mine.
Magic surged through the room before I even realized I’d moved.
Hedge vines exploded from the floor beneath the Priestess, bursting through the stone in thick green waves threaded with gold light. They wrapped around her wrists and ankles, thorns digging deep enough that she yelped in pain.
Keegan moved immediately, joining the attack with Gideon as the room became more chaotic.
Shadows collided with silver light, warlock fire, and mage light.
Hedge vines climbed the ceiling while the Priestess tore through them with black magic hot enough to leave scorch marks in the stone.
Twobble dove behind a broken pillar with a bag of glowing goblin powder clutched against his chest.
“Don’t come close,” Twobble warned.
He threw the powder straight at the shadows circling behind the Priestess.
The explosion that followed filled the room with blinding green light and an odor that smelled alarmingly like gunpowder.
The shadows shrieked.
Twobble blinked in surprise. “Well, that worked better than expected.”
The Priestess spun toward him with murder in her eyes.
“Twobble,” I said quickly. “Run.”
“Excellent suggestion.”
He vanished behind another pillar just as black magic slammed into the spot where he’d been standing.
The shadows rose around her in a towering spiral, and the room shook violently as the symbols underneath her feet brightened, but this time the magic didn’t feel like destruction.
Gideon saw it first, and his face drained of color as he stared at the circle spreading across the floor. It wasn’t destruction. It was an opening.
“No,” he said quietly.
The Priestess smiled as the sound of stone grinding against stone rolled through the chamber. The walls shifted outward rather than inward, and cracks spread across the ceiling, while the floor beneath the symbols split inch by inch.
Cold air that was laced with shadow magic rushed upward from below, and my birthmark seared painfully on my hip.
Keegan grabbed my arm immediately as the floor trembled again.
“What is she doing?” I whispered.
Gideon’s gaze remained fixed on the widening cracks. “She’s opening the foundation chamber.”
The shadows whipped harder around the Priestess now, her gown and hair moving wildly as the black magic circled faster and faster.
The floor split wider, and a pulse of blue-black magic erupted upward through the opening, and every candle in the room exploded at once.
Celeste stumbled backward into me as the pendant flared instantly, wrapping around both of us.
Below the cracking floor, something moved just enough to make my stomach drop.
A shape shifting beneath layers of shadow and ancient magic…something sleeping far too long.
Twobble slowly rose from behind the pillar he’d thrown himself behind earlier.
“Oh,” he whispered. “That seems terribly fitting.”
The Priestess’ eyes gleamed. “You all believed the compound was the weapon.”
The shadows bent toward the widening crack beneath her feet.
“But it was only ever the door.”
Gideon swore under his breath as Keegan stepped in front of Celeste and me again, and every muscle in his body tensed as another pulse shook the chamber.
“What’s under there?” I asked.
Neither of them answered, and that was answer enough.