Chapter 29 #2
A shiver crawled its way up my body and locked around my throat, but I shook it off, reminding myself that Ashkade and Reiven might need my help at that very moment.
There was no room for hesitation. I steeled myself and set foot on the bridge, starting across it as carefully as a tightrope walker in one of those cruel circuses in Kirdiak.
“Why are you here, Siren? What is a sister of the Abyssal Deep doing in Hell?” the voices asked, their words resonating off the walls and the false water.
“My dear friends and I have come to reclaim the Voidtome for the Sirens,” I said, keeping my gaze set on the next stretch of the rock beam in front of me. “And when that wound is healed, maybe we can work towards peace for the rest of the world.”
The voices mocked me, and out of the illusory water on either side of the bridge in front of me, arose phantasms of Sirens, Druinns, Mourners, and Humans. They were mostly transparent, but I could absolutely make out their furious expressions.
I was halfway across now, but the other end felt somehow years away. To make matters worse, out of nowhere in the stagnant tunnel, a rush of wind buffeted me on the beam I balanced on, tossing my hair in front of my eyes as I took my next step.
“You think the cruelties the peoples of the world have subjected each other to over the years could be smoothed over so easily? The dead do not want your peace.”
The wind gusted harder, and I had to drop to a knee and grip the bridge with my hands to keep from falling off.
“Of course it won’t be easy!” I shouted, directing my ire at the images of the long dead.
“I’m not a fool. We have engaged in wars off and on for hundreds of years, and for what?
Pride? Revenge? To inflict pain before we can be hurt?
We won’t forget the ways we suffered, and we won’t forget what you went through.
But…wouldn’t a less hateful world lead to a better future for all of us? ”
When did I become such a starry-eyed idealist, and why do I feel this is Ash’s fault?
I couldn’t fend off a smile, imagining Mourners, Humans, Druinns, and Sirens living harmoniously together. One world, not separated, angry factions.
Wind flooded my ears with a roar that mingled with the voices of the dead, then it ceased.
The apparitions on either side of me liquefied.
I kept still for a moment, worrying it might come back when I tried to stand, but even when I got back to my feet, the tunnel remained eerily quiet.
Odd, I thought, for the furious dead to give up so easily.
I continued forward, one foot in front of the other, arms stretched out at my sides to steady myself.
My footsteps echoed across the cave, the only sound that cut through the thick silence.
Until a new group of ghostly people flanked me again, but this time, they were prepared for war.
Armored, weapons clutched in their translucent hands, glaring with all the hatred of our pasts.
Sirens and Druinns on one side, Mourners and Humans on the other.
Both sides gave a battle cry and charged—right at me in between them.
I ducked and wobbled and prayed to the Water Spirit to help keep my feet beneath me, but the apparitions merely phased through me as they engaged in battle. They were nothing but a distraction as I edged closer to the other side of the bridge.
Almost there.
A strange blue glow off to my left gave me pause. A symbol etched itself into the stone of the far wall.
I had no time to dodge the powerful stream of water that exploded towards me. It nearly toppled me, strong enough that it should have.
But at the last moment, I took hold of the will of the water and diverted most of it around me.
Mist formed droplets on my eyelashes and coated my body, but my Siren skin was always thirsty, so if anything, the exposure to water gave me more energy.
Heat radiated into my back, and off the illusion of water below me, I caught a glimpse of an orange glow that lit me up from behind.
Fire blasted out of another symbol on the wall opposite the water glyph.
I cursed and willed the water that still flowed around me to merge together on the opposite side, forming a shield that extinguished the flames before they could incinerate me.
Heat tried to push through the cold wall of liquid that kept it at bay, with such fury that my hold over the water protecting me actually began to slip.
I side-stepped on the beam an inch, then another.
So close.
I sprang for the safety of the other side of the illusory pool, just as my water shield fell apart and the stream of fire pushed straight through it. Gravel scraped into my elbows from the way I caught myself on the ground in a cloud of rising dust.
Voices echoed across the tunnel.
“The dead do not want your peace.”
I curled my lip and considered what the dead actually wanted. For all of us to continue the cycle of hatred, on and on forever, until we inevitably destroyed each other.
I picked myself up, dusted away the sharp rocks embedded in my skin, and gave the bridge and the illusion of water around it an exaggerated curtsy. “It’s a good thing you’re dead, then.”
Outraged screams followed as I whirled away to continue through the tunnel.
The glowing crystals lit the way forward.
I walked in a straight line for what felt like hours, without even coming across a secondary passage or a sharp curve to the tunnel.
It was better than walking through darkness, at least. I shook off the exhaustion creeping behind me like a shadow the moment I spotted something new up ahead and picked up my pace into a jog.
The claustrophobic tunnel system opened up into an expansive chamber, and I couldn’t help but take a relieved gulp of stale air. As impressive as it was, it was empty save for a pool of water in the center, with a wooden dock leading out to the middle of it, as if for someone to fish off of.
But what broke me into a run was the figure who stood on the dock, staring down into the pool. A familiar head of golden hair, a teenage boy who supported himself with a crutch as he turned to face me.
“Ash! Oh, thank the Spirits. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said with a grin.
One day, I’ll tell him how much I love his accent. Fahn.
“Just lookin’ at the water. Kinda strange to find a pond in Hell, don’tcha think?”
“I bet it isn’t real. I came across an illusion of water earlier, and it was actually lava. Don’t touch it.”
He cocked his head innocently. “But…I think the Voidtome is down there. Can’t you see it?”
For a moment, I thought he was merely indicating his reflection, but I looked past that and could just make out the movement of shadows far beneath the surface.
It was impossible to tell how deep the water was, but something about it unsettled me: the murkiness and the movement.
It looked almost like hands grasping, clawing desperately towards us.
The melody of the pool felt off-pitch, definitely different from the ocean, or even a lake or a man-made fountain.
Something sinister, ancient, deep, and dark about it I couldn't put my finger on.
Still, the water listened to me. A twitch of my fingers made the surface tremble, breaking the even, dark blue glass with ripples of energy. So, it was actual water, at least.
Ash seized my hand and yanked me closer to the edge. “Look closer. Come on!” Something was wrong. His grip was firm, too strong as he forced me to bend to peer into the water.
I struggled, but he kept pushing me. “Ash, stop! What are you doing? We don’t know what’s in there!”
A crack of sound sliced through the air, magnified by the sheer emptiness of the massive chamber. Ashkade’s grip on me weakened.
A bullet had torn straight through the back of his head and out one of his pretty green eyes, leaving nothing but a gushing, gaping hole.
A scream caught in the tight cords of my throat.
“That’s not me.”