Chapter Thirty-Five #2
Kaelen starts toward him, but the druid is faster. He waves his hand again, while keeping a wary eye on Elianna, and Kaelen collapses. I run over to check, but he’s not dead, either, thank Artemisen. His eyes are rolled back in his head, though, and his body is rigid.
My breath stops. This can’t be how I lose him. Not now, not with the scent and feel of his body still imprinted on my skin.
Not ever.
I slowly stand, resolve burning inside me.
A part of my mind catalogs that Darnen didn’t knock me or Trick to the floor, even though we hold weapons. Perhaps he doesn’t see us as a threat.
He’ll regret underestimating me.
“You’re finally here,” Darnen says. “Show me the amulet, girl.”
“You can’t—” Elianna begins, but he points at her, and she stops speaking. I don’t know if her silence is voluntarily or magically imposed, but she remains silent and shakes her head when I look at her.
When I stand, Trick steps between the druid and me, his face hard. This journey has honed my cheerful, carefree friend to a serious, deadly version of himself.
“You will stay away from Soli,” he says calmly. “Or we will have words.”
Darnen raises a hand but then just laughs dismissively. “Try something, and you die.”
I put a palm on Trick’s arm. “We have to do as he says for now. I can’t lose you. Let’s just see what he wants,” I murmur. “Storms pass.”
“We will never quit,” he whispers and stands aside.
“Let’s try to avoid the pain this time, okay?” I say with more confidence than I feel. Which is to say, any confidence at all.
“Wise choice, girl,” Darnen says. “I don’t want much. Just to see the amulet and show you a prize of my own.”
I give up any idea of pretending not to know what he’s talking about.
Everyone here has more knowledge than they should of who we are and what we’re doing.
So, I slowly pull the amulet from beneath my shirt, being careful to show only it and not the first key.
The druid didn’t mention the key, so maybe that’s at least one thing he’s ignorant about.
I’m not about to give him any information he doesn’t already have.
“Do you want to hold it?” I ask, careful to project wide-eyed innocence.
He sneers at me. “Nice try. Come here, slowly. Leave the knife behind.”
I casually lean down and drop my dagger next to Kaelen’s outstretched hand, an extra weapon for if—when—he wakes. Then I cross the marble floor to the druid, Elianna on one side of me and Trick on the other.
The amulet is still warm but doesn’t emit even a hint of light. Maybe Darnen won’t believe it is what it is.
“Stop there,” he demands when we’re within six paces of him. “I don’t want to catch fire by mistake.”
He believes.
Up close, the druid doesn’t look at all like what I would have expected an evil fallen druid to look like, had I ever had occasion to think about it.
He has hard, acetic features, with high cheekbones and a long, straight nose. He might be someone’s stern grandfather. Or a scholar who studies only the most serious texts.
Instead, he’s a fallen sorcerer who deliberately gave himself to Corvynne’s terrible cause.
“Finally!” He rubs his hands together like a storybook caricature of an evil villain.
If he cackles next, I’m going to punch him in the face, druid or not.
My insides twist into an impenetrable knot, and I’m probably going to throw up at any minute.
If Chitai were only awake, she could tease me about incapacitating emesis.
Please, let them all wake up to tease me again.
“What now?” Elianna demands. So, she can talk. Good.
“Now, I throw you all in a stewpot,” he crows.
I gasp, and he rolls his eyes.
“A bit of druid humor. Relax. Now, we’re going to the top of the temple, and you will help me retrieve a certain key I’ve spent nearly half a century trying to capture. This way, please.”
He turns to face a solid stone wall and sketches a design in the air, and a section of rock slides back to reveal a narrow, shadowy staircase leading up.
“Great. Another tunnel,” Trick mutters. “This journey is hell on my dislike of close spaces.”
Just then, a dozen Zhagarn flood into the rotunda from various doors and staircases, their iron armbands gleaming in the candlelight from the chandelier and sconces.
“Keep everyone company,” Darnen orders them, and they spread out to stand next to my three fallen friends and the Scholar Superior, Bean, and Haven. The scholars all wear remorse and resignation on their faces, but I can’t forgive them for being part of this trap. If my friends don’t survive …
Oh, goddess. Kaelen. Pain sears through me, but I shove it aside.
I need to focus.
“Up the stairs,” the druid orders. “Now.”
“And me?” Elianna asks. “Aren’t you afraid of what I can do to you?”
He winces almost imperceptibly. Good. We have at least one arrow in the quiver—his fear of Elianna.
“The more the merrier,” he says lightly. “My wards should keep you from accessing your magic, as they have since you entered the temple, haven’t they?”
Elianna says nothing, but her face tightens. He takes it as agreement, because he laughs again.
Not quite a cackle, but close. I clench my hands into fists, just in case.
“Now, amulet bearer,” he commands, ice in his voice. “Or I’ll kill your friends.”
I stride to the staircase and take the first step. “Coming?”
We climb and climb the twisting, spiral staircase for so long I realize we must be nearing the summit of the mountain.
“How much farther?” My voice echoes oddly in the stairway. Maybe because of his warding magic.
“Just around the next turn,” he says with barely suppressed excitement. “Finally. After all these years. Corvynne’s reward will be great for her humble servant.”
Despite the danger, I roll my eyes. “Humble?”
“Just keep moving,” he snarls at me.
When I make the next turn, the staircase ends at a large wooden door crossed with metal straps. Darnen pushes past me to open it.
“After you,” he says mockingly.
I raise my chin, grit my teeth, and take a step into the room, only to be flung back against the wall by the force of the wind rushing through the chamber’s open sides.
I look around and gasp. The room is indeed at the top of the mountain.
Pillars on two open sides and stone walls on the other two hold up a roof that offers only limited protection from the elements.
My teeth chatter so hard I can barely speak. “You wanted to bring us up here so we c-c-can freeze to death?”
“No. I wanted to bring you here so you can retrieve that.”
He points to the center of the room, where a transparent sphere floats over a marble plinth. Next to it, a skeleton lies crumpled on the floor, one hand stretched out, as if the last thing the dying person did was reach for the sphere.
Or the ornate golden key floating inside it.
The amulet rapidly heats so much that even through my shirt it starts to be painful. The key still hidden behind my neck gets hot, too.
That can’t be good.
“What exactly do you want me to do?” I can’t take my eyes off the sphere, especially since I don’t want to look at the skeleton.
“I want you to walk over there and retrieve the key,” the druid says, a sly grin on his face. “Then you’ll give it to me, and I’ll let you all go.”
“Well, that’s a lie,” Elianna says, her voice hard.
“What happened to him?” I point to the skeleton.
Darnen shrugs. “He died trying. We just haven’t tossed him out yet. Zhagarn!”
Six of them swarm up the staircase and into the room behind us.
“Remove that,” the druid says.
Two of the Zhagarn immediately cross the room, pick up the skeleton, carry it to the open wall, and toss it over the edge.
“How many?” I fight the lump of dread blocking my throat and force out the words. “How many have died trying to get it?”
“Who knows? We tried quite frequently at first, but it became hard to recruit … volunteers,” he says lightly, as if he’s not discussing murdering innocent people.
“We’re almost out of scholars now, after five decades.
So, maybe fifty or sixty that first week, then we slowed down for a while, and I’d guess one a week for the past forty years.
Maybe, hmmm. Maybe three thousand in total, give or take? ”
I feel my knees turn to water. “Three thousand? You killed three thousand people? You’re a monster!”
“I prefer ‘man on a mission,’” he says, and I realize the gleam in his eyes isn’t intelligence or magic. It’s fanaticism. “I didn’t kill them. The key killed them when they tried to touch it. Your goddess is to blame.”
I whirl to scowl at him. “Don’t—”
But he cuts me off with an upraised hand, and a slow, monstrous smile spreads across his face.
“Now it’s your turn.”