Chapter Forty Six
EINAR
Einar hid beneath Mila’s cloak and took ten seconds to gather his observations. Mila, as planned, moved immediately into action. The low patter of her bare feet faded. He breathed shallowly and carefully so the moving cloak didn’t give him away.
Had he imagined another force compelling him into the Hall of the Sea? The ravages of an air-desperate mind, perhaps? Whatever happened, whether he made it himself or not, they’d arrived with no ill effects. Not even the need to clear his throat, cough, or contemplate almost dying.
The thinnest sliver of light appeared along the cloak bottom, not far from where his cheek pressed the lacquer-like ground.
He repositioned ever-so-slowly to see through it.
Reliquaries, shelves, and shadows, as expected.
Gloss coated the dark floor with swirling souls eerily mirrored in its fathomless surface.
The faster he found a reliquary shelf cluttered enough to keep Onskar’s attention off of him, the faster he could move in.
Einar low-crawled sideways along the floor from beneath the cloak until shelves and reliquaries stood between him and the center circle.
Good luck, he thought, abandoning the cloak on a bottom shelf.
He stole to his feet.
Voices stirred. Einar channeled all his attention into hearing. An oily, thick male voice spoke. “So . . . she arrives.”
As he stole along the low lights cast by souls within misshapen, gleaming reliquaries, Mila and Onskar’s voices reverberated in the background.
Flickers of color raced through the sea. The air lay thick as wool, and frigid. Einar smelled several unusual scents, strangely braided together in an impossible-to-decipher bouquet. His nose wrinkled. Apparently, an enclosed arcane structure under the waves smelled awful.
He crept around a shelf, but Onskar shifted unexpectedly, facing him. Ducking, Einar slid to the ground. A reliquary jarred, plummeted. Heart in his throat, Einar snatched it a moment before it might shatter, and the reliquary fell into his palm.
He held his breath, expecting an explosion, shouts, screams, awareness from without.
Like the moment he embraced Agnes’s reliquary, and all fell apart.
A cooling balm slipped through him instead.
Surging whispers. Unintelligible words that rippled.
Lights fell like a star shower in the vessel, and a zip of something raced through his fingers, wrist, arm, skittered across his shoulders. It faded in a sough over his heart.
Stunned, Einar replaced it. A tingling sensation departed the moment his fingers left the glass. He shook off the compounding questions and continued.
Halfway around the room, he stumbled when a wave of something—arcane? air?—slammed into him from the side. He caught himself before crashing, but still hit the floor on his hands and knees. Strangled breath rose in his chest, swept out by the undeniable pressure.
He squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his fists, and clamped his teeth.
The weight of a thousand stones hit him at once.
His fingertips dug into the glossy surface, and his head felt as if stars whirled by.
Ready to toss his stomach contents, Einar forced himself to stay utterly still. It helped. His heart gradually slowed.
Onskar and Mila’s back-and-forth continued without interruption. “How does it feel knowing that you are the one for whom the sirens risked everything?”
Focus, Einar mentally chided. Flank Mila. Feint-and-switch. Shelves. Dagger. A weak touch confirmed the diasvard at his side.
Wrenching himself together again required all his internal concentration.
Was the pressure an intentional attack from Onskar?
The Arcanist of Souls had immediately found and attached to Mila, but surely an Arcanist could attack on two fronts.
No signs pointed toward Onskar knowing Einar was present, and the reliquaries remained undisturbed throughout.
He no longer observed only the Hall of the Sea, swamped in dank night and musty air, but a trail of white sand granules led straight ahead and to the right.
An impossible tiny breeze rustled through Einar’s hair, flowing the same direction.
The path led directly behind the reliquaries and into a corridor aimed for the center.
He attuned his ear into Mila.
“Are we siblings?” she asked.
Onskar’s drawl followed. “You know . . . I don’t know.”
A silent urging forced Einar to move. He reluctantly obeyed.
It appeared less likely that Onskar set up this sand as a trap, but Einar didn’t discount the possibility.
He crouched on his bare feet and touched the sand.
Featherlight, it skimmed over the top of his hand, filling him with a crackling sensation.
Goosebumps rose on his arms. The impulse to move increased; he could not ignore it.
In motion now, Einar loped along the outer rim of shelves, following the white granules.
He worked around Onskar, angling to fully position himself behind the pacing Arcanist of Souls.
A barely-stirring breath of air bore him deeper into the reliquary stacks, along a thin space between shelves.
The glowing, white granules skittered ahead like playful dolphins, guiding him.
Einar slipped along, slowing with the sand.
“Vassi has never been less impressive before this moment,” Onskar boomed, reassuringly distracted. “She gave you nothing worthy.”
It became clear that the shelves had little consistency in size and width.
One length spanned twenty steps, another spanned only three.
Gaps in the shelves led to the next layer, allowing random access to shelves in different rings.
The only consistency was three larger corridors that cut to the center.
Einar’s heart skipped a beat when he peered around a verdant reliquary and viewed Onskar’s back.
Perfect positioning.
Now, he had to close in.
“You’re a horrifying disappointment,” Onskar stated with chilling alacrity. “What your soul will not freely reveal, your aunts have.”
Terrible thirst overcame Einar, then hunger.
He ignored each, distracted by a heat surge that brought sweat to his forearms before plunging him into icy cold.
The room tilted; he stumbled over his feet.
Pitching toward the reliquaries, Einar reached for a shelf to arrest his fall.
His hand planted on it, near a jar. Whispers surged toward him, the color lightening to palest lime.
Shite, what happened?
Had he pierced an arcane protection that prevented him from closing in on Onskar? He might have believed it, except for Onskar’s next words, spoken from so nearby Einar heard every tonal range.
“Interesting that the worm Einar didn’t come with you. He had a soul I could sense fathoms away, the vermin. Not that he could survive that swim, even though he was strong enough to climb.”
The illuminated sand wheeled ahead once again, skittering in the same steady wind. Was he hallucinating? Why didn’t Mila and Onskar notice him? Smell him? After that thought, the sand granules darkened, the wind changed texture, and Einar became a shadow.
His entire body seemed to disappear and reappear on the other side of the shelves. As quickly as it happened, it ceased. Caught in the crossfire between terror and shock, Einar attempted to look at his hands, but the room spun too much. He swallowed hot vomit.
At that moment, Onskar shouted. “Himmel! Jordaire! The time for your glorious debut has dawned.”