Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
"Wylder!"
I'm beside him before he hits the ground. He's on one knee, one hand braced against the wall, his head bowed.
That he’s not unconscious is a good sign, right?
I reach for him, and then stop. The back of his jacket is torn through and blackened at the edges. Okay, so he definitely took damage from that thing.
I shift the fabric to see how bad it is. A burn mark runs diagonally across his back, and the skin is already raised and blistering. Shades of red and angry pink radiate from the point of impact, shifting to something darker and more charred.
The smell of burned flesh singes my nostrils, and I wince. “What kind of magic hit him? What’s that smell?”
Henrik crouches on his other side, his hands hovering, reading the wound. "It's a lash of some sort.”
“What’s a lash?”
“It’s a type of attack that burns beyond thermal. It uses magic to keep an active component in the tissue that continues to attack."
Asher crouches beside me, his expression growing serious in the immediate way it does when things stop being funny. "How bad is it?"
Henrik doesn't answer immediately. He meets my gaze, and my stomach sinks.
No, no, no...
Wylder lifts his head. He's pale, really pale, the usual warmth of his complexion drained to something chalky. His green gaze is present and focused, which is the only thing keeping me from fully unraveling.
"I'm all right," he says.
"You're not." I keep my voice even.
"Relatively."
"Wylder."
"Give me a minute."
I sit back on my heels and watch Henrik tend to him, then look away because seeing his blistered and blackened flesh isn't helping either of us. My hands are in my lap. I press them flat against my thighs.
“Maybe Asher should portal him out,” Orion says.
“Portal him where?” Asher asks. “I can only go to places I can see or have been, and I’ve only been to the headquarters. Do you have a healer there?”
Freya shakes her head. “No one that could help with a wound like this. His best chance is the three of us.”
Something about the way she says that makes my adrenaline fire. “Why? What can we do?”
“I honestly don’t know, but if Henrik is right and there is magic actively assaulting his system, then those of us with spirit magic would be the most qualified to counter it.”
Okay, yeah. I can get behind that.
I study Wylder's face, the set of his jaw, the way his fists are clenched and his knuckles are white. He won’t admit it, but he’s in so much pain.
“All right, then the three of us stop whatever is happening. Orion, lie him down. Freya and Henrik, we need to fix this.”
Henrik pegs me with a look. “And do what, exactly? Do you know?”
“Nope, but I know the longer we wait to try, the worse he’s getting, so we try.”
Henrik’s brow tightens. “That’s a little Wild West, Poppy. Maybe Asher should portal us back to headquarters and we can speak to the healers there and get their thoughts.”
I consider that, but quickly discount the idea. If Asher transports me, Freya, Henrik, and Wylder away, that would leave Orion and Rowan here on their own. And I don’t think Asher can portal that many people out, anyway. “No, that doesn’t work. We stay together and handle it right now.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Not even a little, but my instincts have never failed me.” I meet Wylder’s gaze. “What do you think?”
He swallows, sweat beading on his brow. “I trust you. And maybe you and blondie could ask the Goddess Mother for a little divine guidance, too.”
I let out a shaky chuckle. “We can do that.”
You hear that, Birdie? Wylder needs me to pull something amazing out of my ass. Don’t let me kill him, please. Guide me through this and give me the strength and wisdom I need to help him.
With that said, I press my hand gently to the edge of the wound. I’m careful not to touch the burn itself, just the unharmed skin at the border.
I close my eyes and reach for my powers. The deep-current of magic lives in my cells, infused with the strength and wisdom of my ancestors.
It answers my call, and I push it outward through my palm, assessing, trying to understand what the lash of magic is doing, so I can stop it.
A moment later, I feel two unfamiliar signatures of spirit magic and give myself a moment to adjust to Freya and Henrik’s intentions.
Please, Birdie. Help us help him. The moment I feel the Goddess Mother’s power surge in me, I surrender to her intentions. I don’t have any ego when it comes to the health and well-being of the people I love.
I’m happy to be the conduit for someone better prepared to get the job done and heal him.
“Sweet Mother Mary,” Freya gasps.
I open my eyes, and she’s staring at me. Well, not so much me, but the golden glow encompassing my entire body. “Yeah, that happens sometimes.”
Asher winks at me. “Yeah, Birdie. You do your thing, girlfriend. You rock.”
I close my eyes again and focus on the only acceptable outcome. Wylder being well and whole.
When I feel the power and intention of the Goddess Mother recede, I open my eyes and pull my hand back with a frown. The skin where I was touching him is even angrier than it was when we began.
My throat closes. “Did we make it worse?”
Henrik shakes his head. “We stopped the progression. The damage of the burn itself will take time and more healing power than we have.”
My chest aches with the failure.
Wylder is still so pale. I swipe my cheek with the back of my hand as his handsome face wavers behind a wall of tears. “I’m so sorry you’re hurting.”
"Asher can take him now," Freya says. "Cormac can have an Order healer manage the burns now that we’ve stopped the damage from increasing."
"Yes," the word comes out of me in a rush. "Asher, take him. We’ll wait right here, I swear.”
Asher frowns.
“Hey, I know what you’re going to say, and I get it. But I promise you, if you do this for me, I won’t move an inch. I’ll wait right here, I swear. Just snap him back to the headquarters and then come back. Please.”
I know he doesn’t like the idea, but he dips his chin. “Right here.” He points toward the floor.
I hold up my pinky finger. “Promise.”
He locks his finger around mine. “Promise.”
A quick shuffle moves Freya and Henrik out of the way and gives me a chance to kiss Wylder and then they’re gone.
The silence that follows hurts my heart.
Everyone is feeling the emotional drain of the past hour and the weight of Wylder’s injury.
“We're not far from the chamber now,” Freya says.
Orion nods. “We’ll see what we can learn in there and then we’ll get back to Wylder. I bet he’ll be sitting up and eating Jell-O by the time we get there.”
Man, I hope so.
“You realize Asher won’t be able to just portal back here, don’t you?” Freya says.
Orion, Rowan, and I all turn at once.
“What?”
“Why not?”
“What do you mean?”
Her brows arch. “If it were as simple as portaling to the chamber, why wouldn’t we have just done that and by-passed the dangers of the traps?”
Oh, I never thought of that.
“It was still the best call, though. Wylder has the best chance at recovery the sooner he’s in the hands of qualified healers.”
All right, so now I’m thoroughly conflicted. I’m glad Wylder is where he needs to be, but Asher will be panicked and freaked out when he can’t get back to me.
“So, are we going?” Freya asks.
I shake my head. “No. I can’t. I pinky swore and gave Asher my word. I have to stay right here until he gets back.”
“Are you serious? There’s a major demon breaking lockstones to unleash something even more horrible, and you’re going to waste time sitting a hundred feet from the chamber because you pinky swore that you wouldn’t move?”
I nod. “Yep. That pretty much covers it.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
I shrug. “Maybe to you. But from where I come from and from where I’ve been, giving your word to someone you love trumps everything else. You don’t go back on that. Ever.”
Asher returns quicker than I expect. Apparently, when he couldn't portal straight back, he materialized at the mouth of the cave and made his way back to us in a few dozen mini-portals through the corridors we had already passed through.
When he sees us sitting in the corridor waiting for him, the relief in his gaze is all the reward I need to know I made the right call.
I'm Asher's anchor. If I let him down, it will crack his foundation. I would never do that to him.
"Can't breathe," I gasp, patting his back.
He releases me from the crushing hug and lets out a long breath. "Thank you."
"Thank you, right back. Did you get Wylder help?"
"Yeah, Cormac is taking care of everything back at headquarters."
Good. That's good.
"Can we go now?" Freya pegs us with a look that says quite clearly that we've used up the last of her patience.
I step back from the hug and give Asher's hand a squeeze. "Yeah, let's do this."
Despite all the drama, Freya was right. The chamber is just around the next corridor—a corridor that has been thoroughly mapped out and is deemed safe. So, in a matter of another minute, we're standing at the entrance to the lockstone chamber.
I follow Freya inside, ducking beneath a cluster of root growth to step through the narrow arch. The chamber opens around us and, wow, it's bigger than I expected.
The cave breathes stale, musty air, making it feel all the more ancient. Until two days ago, I would bet this space hadn’t been stirred for centuries.
A wave of Freya's hand lights a trough that runs along the ceiling line. Flames catch fire around the edge of the chamber in a whoosh, the wildfire spreading until the entire space is lit.
The sudden burst of illumination catches the walls, mineral deposits glittering across the face of the stone like fairy lights. The floor isn't the same stone and grit of the tunnel corridors. It's packed earth, flat and smooth in a way that suggests it is intentional.
And there, on the far wall, is the circle I saw in my dream.
My stomach drops.
It's enormous. At least fifteen feet across, carved deep into the stone, the lines clean despite their age. Runes fill the interior circle, dense and overlapping, spiraling outward from a central point.
They don't glow. They don't pulse or hum or do anything the magical artifact did when I saw it last. That’s a bad sign. The absence of light means the lockstone has been drained of the magic that fed it for the past centuries.
"Is this what you saw, Pop-Tart?" Orion asks.
I move to stand in front of the ritual circle and center myself. "Yeah, this is where Tharuzel stood. The outer ring of runes was glowing then, but this is definitely the place."
I reach forward to trace the carving of the runes, and a small weight lands on my shoulder.
"Absolutely not." S'Nark's words accompany a sharp smack to my cheek.
I blink at the sting and twist to glare at him. "What the hell, dude?"
He's in his demon form and his bat wings flick once before they settle.
"Fantastic." Asher crosses his arms and scowls. "You skipped every single trap we had to get through, didn't even have to duck once, and you show up for the safe part, to smack Poppy and shout at her."
The freaky little demon hops off my shoulder and lands on the surface of a small altar table where Asher is standing. "Champions don't have to go to qualifiers, blondie. We get advanced straight to the finals."
"Uh-huh. I'm sure that's what it is."
S'Nark turns to me and holds up a claw. "I want the record to show I came, and that I said absolutely not."
All righty, then. "Noted. But why are you here? You're supposed to be with my sisters in Arcana. Did something happen?"
"There? No. Your sisters are sleeping and, if I must remind you, I'm bound to the Hallowind family. Not just them. Not just you."
"Okay, so?"
"So, when I'm flooded with demonic energy from one of my charges, I'm not just going to continue inciting neighborhood dogs to bark at all hours of the night, now, am I?"
"Ohmygoodness, is that what you do in your spare time?"
He waves that away. "You're off point. I'm here because everything about the energy in this tomb of death is wrong. Old and hollow and wrong in a way that makes every part of my demonic, bodacious bod want to be somewhere significantly further away. Like Thailand. I'd accept Thailand."
I arch my brows. "Thailand? Okay, that's far. Are you sure you're not just overreacting a little bit because this place ebbs Tharuzel, and he's the asshole who captured and tortured you?"
"You wound me, witch. I am a demon. I get off on being tortured."
I give him a little nod, but know different. When Asher rescued him from capture, the little dude was all but ruined. That he’s facing that trauma to come and warn me is costing him a lot.
"I love you too, you little creeper."
He throws up his hands. "You're beyond saving. Fine, if you insist on spending your time meddling in the business of demons far beyond your comprehension, at least put your damned shields up first."
And with that, he flashes out.
"Ladies and gentlemen, S'Nark has left the building."
Henrik and Freya are both staring.
"What the feck was that thing?" Freya asks.
I chuckle. "That was S'Nark, my familiar."
"A demon?"
I shrug. "Apparently he's been in the family for generations. He's not much for small talk, but if he feels compelled to say something, it's usually worth a listen."
And because I genuinely believe that, I raise my personal shields before I return to the wall to continue my investigation. Now that my shields are up, I feel what S'Nark was saying. While the circle of runes is no longer glowing like it was in my dream, it’s still giving off demonic energy.
Henrik moves to stand at my shoulder, and I let the runes guy do his thing. Wylder would've thought this was interesting, too. He may not be an archeologist who specializes in runes, but he's still my go-to rune guy.
"Does this mean anything to you?" I ask him.
"Some. Reading runes isn't like an A to B to C kind of language. Sometimes they're laid as an individual thought or intention, but like this… this is an overlap of spells being cast. It'll take time to figure out what The Nine did and how they did it."
Perfect. Time is exactly what we don't have.
I take a step closer, admiring how the runes were cut into the stone of the chamber: the depth, the precision, the intention.
Some of them are damaged, and I'm not sure if the hairline fractures running through the edges of the outer ring were caused by age or by Tharuzel breaking the lockstone. Likely the latter.
There's a section near the base that has crumbled completely, the symbols there reduced to dust. That's Tharuzel's work, I'm pretty sure.
That's what the ritual did.
I reach forward and brush my fingertips across the stone. The world tilts, and the chamber disappears…