Chapter 24
The walk to the cairn is dim under the clouded sky, but Torver could light the way himself with how he’s glowing. His insides flutter when Lavellin looks at him. Even the weight of his pack can’t hold him down.
Shale crunching beneath their feet, Bassen notes their entwined hands with a simple raised eyebrow—not the scandalised reaction Torver had been bracing for. He’s grateful for her restraint, embarrassed at her complete lack of surprise.
What is surprising, though, is that he’s not spiralling into a pit of shame and loathing.
When the sun had risen that morning, light filtering lazily through the tent fabric, his usual turmoil had been absent, and the sight of Lavellin still sleeping beside him had made him feel warm, not empty.
When he ran his hands over body, he found no bruises at which to wince.
No teethmarks. No evidence that their doings had been an elaborate self-harm.
Instead, he felt peaceful. Safe.
He wants to take the experience in his hands and inspect it, decipher it. But there’s no time. And perhaps he’s thankful for that. Either way, he swallows his feelings for the final time, secure in the knowledge he is going to explore them properly when this is all over.
Retreating from his thoughts, Torver notices an osprey circling overhead, its grey and white plumage growing ever lower until he can make out its eyes. It seems to look directly at him, before landing on top of the stones. The cairn’s lone guardian.
And then—entirely too soon, they have arrived.
At the foot of the cairn they halt, standing in a circle like the stones of Cole Ridge.
“This is it,” Bassen whispers.
Winander puts his large hands on her shoulders. “Do you feel ready? We can wait if you don’t—”
“I can do it,” Bassen says firmly. Too firmly. Torver can see how her hands shake but he knows it’s not from her consequence. “It’s not like King Eveling is going to wait for me, is it?”
Lavellin chuckles darkly, releasing Torver’s hand so it can wring its own two together. Torver coolly observes a pang when it does so.
“They’ll all be massing by the border by now,” Lavellin says. “There’s a valley that Eveling spoke of as a gathering place. Every fae warrior will be in a camp there, training. Preparing for the day.”
Bassen’s face pales yet further. “I wish you hadn’t told me that.”
“Sorry.”
Trying to push the image that Lavellin has conjured from his mind, Torver steps forward and presses his left hand to the cairn.
The grey of the stones fill his vision. Only at the edges can he still make out the green of the land; the dramatic mountains rising around them.
Swathes of distant trees blur into a verdant cover, sharp drops in the mountainface cast shadows.
“There’s really a sleeping dragon under this?” he murmurs, his brows tense in a frown. “I would have thought it would be bigger…”
“Me too.” Bassen approaches to examine the structure. “So, what do we do? Do we start pulling down stones and the Beast will be beneath it? What should—”
Lavellin interrupts and its voice sends a rush of warmth through Torver’s body. His hand withdraws to his side.
“It’s not beneath the stones themselves,” it says sagely. “Don’t you know?”
Bassen’s expression shifts to one of confusion, slight outrage.
“Not beneath the—?”
“The cairn just marks the entrance.”
“The entrance?”
Lavellin huffs. “Your Meddera really censored everything, didn’t they? It’s a shame.”
It shakes its head and circles the stones, until it is hidden behind them. Torver hears a satisfied sound, like it’s found what it’s looking for.
“A shame you don’t know about this,” its voice is raised slightly, beckoning them. “I thought it would be hidden, but it’s right here.”
Torver, Bassen, and Winander hurriedly follow the sound of its voice. At the back of the cairn, it stands in front of tall stone pillars positioned as if either side of a grand door.
Except there is no grand door in the side of the cairn at Dunmail Raise.
Just a tunnel into the cold, dark earth.
“I thought everyone knew about the maze,” Lavellin says sheepishly.
“And you never fucking thought to mention this?” Bassen howls in aggravation when they hit their third dead end. They double back on themselves and take a different turning.
“I thought you knew!” Lavellin insists, throwing up its hands. “I thought it was just unspoken!”
“Unspoken?”
The maze is dark, lit only by a torch that Winander constructed with a tree branch and a rag soaked in the small amount of cooking oil they had left. The walls are a mixture of loamy mud and grey stones and it smells terrible.
A small click alerts them to the springing of another trap and they throw themselves to the ground to avoid the pair of arrows that fly overhead.
“And that,” Bassen yelps, “is never going to be okay! Who designed this place?”
Torver hauls himself from the muddy floor, his palms coated. “I thought the journey would be the hardest part,” he grumbles, rubbing the bleeding notch in his earlobe where the first arrow trap had caught them unawares.
Just as he’s about to lead them down a promising left turn he’s found, Lavellin’s hand snatches his collar and yanks him back. Torver lets out an involuntary yowl, his shirt garrotting him somewhat.
“Sorry!” Lavellin squeals, pointing into the impenetrable dark. “Could you not see the spike pit?”
“The what pit?” Torver wants to cry.
“How is human vision this bad?” Lavellin shakes its head. “How are you not all dead already?”
Torver presses his face into his hands, crushing down the scream that is begging to be released.
“This way looks good!” Winander points to the right and Lavellin squints into the passage.
“Lead on, pa,” it says, rubbing Torver’s arm in apology. They share a long look and it takes his hand again. Torver smiles despite himself.
“We better find it quick,” Bassen grumbles. “We’re going to run out of yarn. And who knows what else is down here?”
Bassen lets out yarn behind her as they walk so that they can find their way back out again—the unravelled remains of Torver’s woollen cloak, which he’d agreed to sacrifice for the purpose.
The ball in her hand is getting smaller and smaller and they’re still no closer to finding the sleeping Beast.
This is all getting horribly real, horribly quickly.
They round a corner to be presented with a choice of four different passages. The options seem identical until a screech behind them makes Torver leap in fright. A screaming bird shoots into one of the passages and Torver swears loudly.
“Must be hunting rats.” Winander exhales at length when they’ve recovered from the shock. “That explains the lack of them.”
Torver nods and he can’t imagine anything worse than if this horrid maze had also been full of rats. He’d rather run headlong into the spike pit.
He’s dealt with enough of the horrid creatures to last him a lifetime.
“Should we follow the bird?” he asks, pushing the thought from his mind. “It probably knows what it’s doing—I’ll trust anything that hunts rats.”
They round the corner and, as with every corner, Torver expects to see it.
He braces himself for the dragon with red scales and enormous wings and poisonous claws with the power to kill everyone in the Kingdom.
His heart jolts painfully in his chest when each turning reveals only more dark mud, cold walls. Squelching, stinking earth beneath his feet.
Frustration and fear congeal in his stomach. An alloy that makes him want to howl.
“Can you sense the Beast, Lav?” He clenches his fist. “Hear it? Anything—I just want to get this over with before I have a heart attack.”
Bassen scowls. “You think you’re nervous? I’m the one who has to kill it!”
Winander’s torch flickers in the foul air.
“I’m losing my mind,” she continues. “What if I can’t kill it? What if I wake it up? I mean—King Dunmail died getting this thing to sleep! Why do I think I’m more powerful than the most powerful king of the old times?”
Her breathing accelerates and Winander uses his non-torchbearing side to take her hand in his. She takes a deep breath.
“Can you smell it, Lavellin?” she asks.
The fae inhales at length. “I don’t think so. It’s hard to know what to smell for. I can’t really hear a heartbeat either—it’s hard to hear anything over the racket you lot are making.”
Torver’s hand flies to his pounding chest defensively. “Well, forgive me for giving the moment the reverence it deserves. This is insane. Remind me why we’re doing this?”
They trudge through the maze, finding dead ends and false turns, traps and pits. Until—
“Is that a door?” Torver hisses.
Their passageway narrows and at its end, there looks to be a thick, wooden door, pushed partway open, soft light on the other side.
On either side of the door, two pillars stand chest height, and atop the one on the right—the bird that had shot through the air of the maze like a roll of thunder.
An osprey.
From the end of the muddy corridor, it calls to them. Beckoning. The band of black feathers across its face casting its eyes in gloomy shadow.
“Okay, what on earth…” Bassen’s voice is low.
The bird turns its back to them, looking over its shoulder for a moment before flying through the door.
“Did that bird just…invite us in?” Torver’s pulse quickens, his grip on Lavellin’s hand tightens. Relief and terror vie for supremacy in his racing thoughts.
They’re here. They must be.
The sleeping Beast is on the other side of that door—there can be no other explanation.
Sharing a look, the four of them move hesitantly towards it.
The soft light guides them through and on the other side is a grand chamber with a vaulted ceiling, supported by carved pillars. The floor under their unsure steps is littered with hoarded treasures. Lit torches inexplicably line the walls, casting the scene in a golden glow.
Before he can wonder why there are lit torches at the centre of the underground maze, Torver’s breath catches, matched by the gasps resounding at his side.
He’s pictured this moment. Tried to imagine what it might be like, what it might feel like to see it for the first time.
He’s imagined the Beast curled like a sleeping dog.
Tendrils of fire snaking from enormous nostrils with each breath.
He’s imagined a sea of red scales that stretch as far as the eye can see—a creature suspended on its side like a labouring ewe.
He’s imagined the bones of King Dunmail arranged valiantly beside it, his heroic hand outstretched towards the slumbering terror, encased in kingly rings.
But he doesn’t see a sleeping dragon and a dead king.
Torver looks into the centre of the chamber.
A skull the size of a house looks back. The osprey perched atop its horn, preening.
Winander drops his torch and it gutters out in the mud.
“It’s already dead,” Bassen says hollowly.
Torver’s skin tingles, the hairs of his body stand on their ends. Fear cloys at him like a grasping hand.
“It’s already dead,” he stutters. “I don’t get it. You don’t have to kill it—it’s already—”
He chokes on his confusion, the uncanny feeling in his gut that something is wrong.
“The Meddera…” His world is spinning on its axis. “Obedience…”
The mountainous skeleton in front of them isn’t the living threat that has ruled them. It hasn’t been a living dragon in a long time. Not a scrap of flesh remains, only bleached, porous bones.
“It’s already dead.” Bassen’s yarn falls silently to the floor when it slips from her hands. Torver finds himself rushing to her side, linking his arm through hers like he’s done so many times before.
The empty eye sockets of the Beast’s draconic skull look down on them, threatening to pull him into their endless, inky depths.
Torver is small, rodential in front of it, its fangs longer than his limbs.
Lavellin moves to his other side, Winander on the other side of Bassen, until they are a trembling line of incomprehension.
The black and white bird shifts its wings and Torver grips Bassen’s arm tighter, reaches to grab at Lavellin’s sleeve as the osprey leaps from the dragon’s skull. It flies towards them and Torver clenches. He braces for claws, to feel the wrath of a wild animal cornered.
But the osprey doesn’t attack. It flies to the ground in front of them.
And in the time it takes to land, its feathers shift and swirl. Its talons elongate, its beak twists, its wings flare wide as they bend in unnatural angles. Its beady eyes grow large, its legs lengthen and thicken grotesquely.
Torver’s mouth turns dry. He flinches in confusion. Watching, disoriented, as the osprey turns into a man.
A man he has never seen before, but who is familiar all the same.
A man who is tall and hollow-cheeked, his shoulders draped in a loose red cloak cinched with a jewelled belt at his waist. His crown of ruby and gold glints in the torchlight, mirrored by the red and gold silk slippers on his feet.
Charcoal darkens his eyes in a black band, just like the markings of an osprey.
Surely, there is only one person this man can be. And his gaze roves over them, catching on Lavellin, before finally landing on Torver.
Torver shudders—it should be impossible. He steps back, pushes the others behind him.
But King Dunmail stares into his eyes, unwavering. His thin lips curve into a smile.
“Torver, is it?” he says. “Good to meet you, at last. I thought you’d never get here.”