34. The last leytouched
The last leytouched
F elix stood pressed into the crevice between carved stone pillars, his arm around Isolde’s waist, drawing her in close enough for both of them to be hidden from view.
Two mercenaries sat beside a low-burning brazier ahead, talking in quiet voices.
They were blocking the way up to the next tier of the structure, the way that led to the eerily glowing arch.
Both guards were armed and armoured, but looked sleepy.
One kept rubbing his eyes; the other yawned in exaggerated fashion.
Night watches had not been required until Isolde arrived at the Nexus, Felix guessed.
These men were used to a decent night’s sleep.
He could approach them from the side; it would be quiet enough.
“Wait here,” Felix murmured into Isolde’s ear as he unsheathed his dagger. “I’ll go deal with them.”
“What? No!” she hissed, grabbing onto his arm.
He smiled, touched by her concern. “I’ll be quick. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m not worried about you!”
“Oh? What then?” He tilted his head at her questioningly.
“They have done nothing to us,” she whispered. “What if they have families? ”
“What if they’re evil bastards, Isa? Who cares? They’re in our way.”
“You can’t just kill people because they’re in your way!”
“Of course I can. Do you want to go up those stairs or not?”
She pressed her lips together and glared, then considered the unsuspecting guards up ahead. “Let me try one thing. If it doesn’t work, you can kill them, I suppose.”
Felix grinned. Then the power coiled around her, shifting the air, like something very large taking a deep breath.
She made a subtle pushing motion with her hand, and a mighty gust of wind swept across the plaza.
Small objects scattered, a stack of wooden crates fell over, and the brazier toppled and conveniently spilled hot coals all over a flapping piece of canvas.
“What the –” one guard yelled, startled out of his reverie. “What was that?”
“Shit,” the other said. “The canvas! Quick!”
As the two men scrambled to deal with the fire, Felix grabbed Isolde’s arm and tugged her along with him. They darted across the open space behind the distracted guards, keeping to the shadows, then hurried up the stairs.
“Nice one,” Felix remarked with a chuckle once they were out of sight and earshot. “You would make a fantastic thief.”
“Tempting,” she replied primly, “but no.”
They dashed through the second level of the complex.
Some structures they passed were very grand, with elaborately carved friezes and endless rows of columns.
Despite having been abandoned for so long, the stonework was pristine.
A ghost town of beautiful buildings, as if the inhabitants had left only yesterday.
Finally, the base of the last staircase loomed before them.
The massive archway leading into the Nexus’s inner sanctum towered above it, the eerie blue light pulsing faintly.
The air was heavy, with an overwhelming pressure surrounding them like a dense fog. It smelled like the sky before a storm, heady and powerful.
Isolde halted, staring up at the passage. Her ley markings were glowing vividly in the darkness. Felix squeezed her hand. Before he could say anything, she turned, wild-eyed, and threw her arms around his neck .
She kissed him as if her life depended on it. Maybe at that moment, it did. When she pulled back, her fingers traced the line of his jaw. “Felix, if I…”
It reared its ugly head with a vengeance, the terror, the suffocating fear that he had been working so hard to keep at bay. “Don’t, Isa.”
“But –”
“We’re going to walk in there together, and out of there together. No ifs, no buts.”
She looked like she wanted to argue. He knew she did, because he did, too.
There were a hundred, a thousand things he wanted to say, just in case, but saying them would make it real.
So he did not say any of them, and neither did she.
Instead, Isolde squared her shoulders, lifted her chin in that fierce, determined way that made his heart clench, and let go of him.
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
He grinned at her. “No promises.”
Then she took a deep, slow breath and started up the steps.
***
The archway led to a long hallway that led straight into the mountain.
Ahead of them, the floor was smooth as polished marble.
The walls were rough stone but had sculptures rising out of the textured rock.
Figures frozen in time; dancers in elegant, fluid poses; entwined lovers; warriors brandishing strange weapons.
All were carved in incredible detail. The light continued to pulse faintly, as if beckoning them onward.
Not halfway down the passage, Isolde stopped. Despite the chill, there were tiny beads of sweat on her forehead. “It is so loud,” she whispered, “I can’t hear myself think.”
“Do you need a moment?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Let’s continue. ”
The hallway finally opened up onto an enormous vaulted cavern. Ley lines spiralled outward from its centre, where a raised dais sat. A dozen crude stone slabs circled it.
Suspended in the air above it all was the Arcaenum.
Felix knew that’s what it was, even though it did not look like anything except a shimmering, pulsing mass of light and force.
It dominated the space, demanding undivided attention.
No matter its current state, they were in the presence of divinity.
He had never believed in the gods. But standing here, Felix felt small for the first time in his adult life.
Magic filled the air, sparks clinging to the rock walls and floating around like motes of dust.
“This is the place,” Isolde whispered. “I saw it through the ley line.”
As Felix stood and stared slack-jawed at what was essentially the god of magic, Isolde wandered over to one of the stone slabs. There was some kind of bundle laying upon it.
Felix took a few steps in Isolde’s direction. A thread of silver light, almost imperceptible, ran through the air between the bundle on the slab and the Arcaenum itself. It thickened and thinned in a slow but steady rhythm, like an eerie pulse.
Felix took a closer look at the thread. An incredible wrongness came over him, sending a shudder down his spine.
Isolde shrieked. She leapt backwards, her hands pressed to her mouth. Felix rushed to her side, weapon in hand.
“What? What happened?” He peered at the thing on the slab, but it looked like nothing but a pile of rags. Even so, he could not shake the sense of dread it evoked in him.
Isolde’s face was ashen, visible even in the eerie light. Her expression was one of sheer terror, her eyes glued to the slab.
“What is that?” Felix asked, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
He inched closer, positioning himself between Isolde and the thing.
Whatever it was, something about it was not right.
A few more steps and he was next to it, tentatively reaching forward.
Up close, the surrounding air all but vibrated with tension.
The pulsing of the silvery thread picked up speed .
Then Felix spotted it. A foot sticking out of the rags. An emaciated, filthy foot. Running across it, unmistakably, was a ley marking. He reached out and pulled the fabric aside.
“It’s a person,” Isolde whispered from behind him, her voice hoarse. Her fingers dug clawlike into Felix’s arm. “A leytouched.”
She was right. It was a person, or what was left of them.
A wasted, pathetic shell of a human, lying on the slab in a foetal position.
The figure was hairless, and so thin their face seemed to droop off their skull like washing hung out to dry.
Around their neck was a metal chain set with Aetherglass crystals, grotesquely large and heavy on someone so frail.
The skin under the chain was a ruin of flesh, showing layer upon layer of old burn scars and fresh welts.
Only the ley lines on their body looked unmarred, glowing faintly.
“What the fuck is this?” Felix blurted out. “Who is this? Who killed him? What the hell happened?”
Isolde still clutched his arm. Her lips pressed together in a thin line, and with narrowed eyes she studied the silver thread of light that pulsed between the leytouched on the slab and the suspended Arcaenum.
“I don’t think he is dead.”
Her voice shook, but when Felix glanced at her, he realised it was anger that caused it, not fear.
“This is how they did it. This is what binds the Arcaenum. The life force of a leytouched.” She swallowed hard. “This is what they plan to do to me.”
Felix reeled, staggering under the weight of the realisation. They weren’t just going to kill her. They were going to use her. To chain her to this place, to bind her to a god and drain her of everything she was. Until she was nothing but a husk, a breathing corpse.
Never. He would rather cut her throat himself.
If it comes to that… If there is no other way…
Had her father known? No. It was a coincidence. It had to be.
Isolde swept her gaze around the chamber. “All these slabs… Once there must have been many. But he is the last. The last leytouched to maintain this binding. Th at is why they need me, why Kaeloth made all this effort. They’re running out of time…” Her voice trailed off.
A tiny sound, like the skittering of a mouse, broke the silence. Both of them jerked toward the slab. The leytouched stirred. A tremor ran through the frail body, fingers twitching against the stone.
The eyes snapped open. They were glowing blue, entirely consumed by magic. They no longer had pupils or irises, yet there was no doubt they were looking straight at Isolde. One skeletal hand slowly extended outward, reaching for her.
“Isa, don’t –”
Isolde ignored him. She took a step forward. Felix grabbed her arm. She startled, then tried to pull free.
“But you don’t know –”
She gritted her teeth and threw him her fiercest look.