Chapter 63
Chapter Sixty-Three
Ellowyn
The eerie stillness of the Valley sent a chill down my spine and raised the hairs on my arm. There was something . . . off about this place; something not quite right that I couldn’t put into words. I shivered despite the heat of the morning sun.
“So this is where Alois . . .” I asked, my voice cutting through the quiet as Faylinn and I stood atop a small berm that overlooked the previous home of the Keepers.
Faylinn hummed, her attention drawn below.
Despite the obvious ruination of the Valley, there was a barely perceptible undercurrent of life. It called to my Creation Magic, begging me to innervate the ground and bring peace to this place once more.
I flexed my fingers.
That’s not what we’re here for, I silently admonished. It felt like the wind heard my thoughts, and a sudden gust pushed at my back and whipped Faylinn’s curls around her face.
Just as quickly as the breeze appeared, it died, the oppressive heat of the Valley returning once more.
“That was . . . unexpected,” Faylinn muttered with slightly raised eyebrows.
I stood mutely as Faylinn shrugged off the oddness before taking a step down the berm.
There was a clear demarcation of where the Valley stopped and the rest of the Borderlands began; blackened earth gave way to greener pastures along a crisp line, and the oddness of its existence had me scampering after Faylinn, nearly falling over my feet.
“Wait!” I gasped, reaching out to grab her arm just before her right foot crossed the line. Faylinn stopped, settling back on the green grass, eyes expectant. The apparent sentience of the land had me second-guessing this mission completely.
“You’re sure there’s an artifact down there?” I nodded toward the blackened soil, my fingers trembling on Faylinn’s arm.
She sighed, her shoulders moving as she closed her eyes.
“No,” she admitted with a slight shake of her head. Faylinn opened her eyes and fixed me with a searching stare. “But the ancient knowledge that is buried here should at least give us some sort of direction. My mother could confirm that much, at least.”
I didn’t release my hand even after her statement.
“Ellowyn,” Faylinn probed. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s . . . something about this place. Can you feel it?” I whispered and felt like my words echoed throughout the entirety of the Valley.
Faylinn cocked her head as she listened.
“There is strong magic here. Blood magic,” she admitted. “I can feel it in the air, maybe that’s what you’re sensing.”
“Maybe,” I hedged, completely unconvinced. “Or maybe there’s some magical monster waiting in the depths of the tombs below to swallow us whole.”
Faylinn barked a laugh before slapping her palm to her mouth, even as her eyes danced with mirth. I felt the corners of my mouth twitching in response to her outburst and relaxed my hand on her forearm.
“Where on earth did you even conjure that? Monsters don’t exist in Elyria, not anymore.”
I rolled my eyes at Faylinn before huffing a dry laugh. “That you know of.”
We paused for another moment, waiting for the other to finally cross the line.
“Are you ready?” Faylinn finally asked, reaching out to clasp my sweaty palm with her cool, dry one.
I intertwined my fingers with hers, gathering strength from my unflappable and steadfast friend. Squeezing her hand once, I shot her a wane smile.
“I suppose we should go see if those monsters really do exist.” I attempted for levity, but my voice trembled.
“If they do, you’ll have to kill them. Don’t you know that’s why I brought a godling with me? Gods know I can’t do magic—who better to protect me than one of their inadvertent offspring?” Faylinn said wryly before tugging on my hand.
“Come on, Ellowyn. Answers await.”
I took a deep breath before I crossed the threshold into the Valley, barely an arm’s span behind Faylinn. As soon as my foot crested that invisible line, the hair on the back of my neck slowly rose to attention with a prickle of awareness.
Our boots crunched across the dead ground, the only sound in the completely silent valley. The ruination was complete; whatever was left, a standing tomb for the dead.
My heart kicked erratically as Faylinn and I wove between charred remains of buildings, occasionally hopping to avoid crunching errant bones.
I kept my head down to watch my feet, not wanting to anger or desecrate the dead. Despite my best intentions, the growing unease never abated; it was more than clear that as Faylinn and I carefully picked our way through this graveyard that we weren’t alone.
Not everything here was dead.
We were being watched.