Chapter Thirty Seven
Tomb Of The Four Mothers
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Precise location unknown, Loros.
Kyra.
To put it bluntly, saliring was fucking awful.
Every single fibre of Kyra’s being had been squished and moulded to an incomprehensible size as Kawai dragged her through the very folds of the world.
Stupidly, and in her haste to find the damned Eye, Kyra also hadn’t anticipated the crushing weight of the ocean above them when they appeared, treading water, right outside the Four Mother’s tomb.
Though thankfully, it wasn’t so deep that it was a pit of complete blackness; the moon’s silvery beams still managed to penetrate the thick water, casting some sort of light onto the monument before her.
It was far bigger witnessed with her own eyes than through Kano’s memory. But there was no time to marvel in its magnificence.
Kyra’s lungs could withstand the lack of air and pressure. Kawai’s could not.
She shot him a panicked glance and reached for him. Through a blurred, watery lens, she saw him turn to look at her, his hand squeezing hers. A confirmation that he was alright. For now.
Kyra ran a hand over the outline of the tomb’s stone doors, feeling for something, anything. There was no handle. She pushed at the doors with the palms of her hands, but to no avail.
Kawai grasped her shoulder. Alarmed, she whirled around, but he was pointing to something glowing above the door.
Four runes had been etched onto a thick lip of stone in a diamond formation.
The rune on the bottom instantly snatched her attention.
It was jagged in shape, like the rise and fall of mountains, its uneven edges glowing with a soft, silvery starlight hue.
As Kyra swam toward it to gain a better view, it glowed even brighter.
It called to her, not in visuals or voice, but in the very depths of her soul.
The other three remained unimpressively, and perhaps unsurprisingly, dull and dormant.
As though a higher power were guiding her hand, Kyra whipped her dagger from the sheath at her hip and sliced diagonally across her palm. Pain lanced and blood welled instantly, tainting the water red around them, but she quickly pressed her bleeding palm to the glowing rune, and waited.
Nothing happened.
This had to be it, surely? Her lungs were beginning to ache now. She’d felt so sure her blood, the blood of the Earth Warden, would open the tomb.
Another squeeze of her shoulder had panic shooting through her. Kawai motioned to the surface above, then to his chest. He needed to breathe. And very soon.
Just when she was about to abandon the attempt, light surged from beneath her palm, so bright she was forced to squint against it.
Ancient magic flared, firing through Kyra’s hand. The outline of the great doors began to glow, as luminescent as the earth rune before them. The stone gave a roaring grunt and the doors began to open inward, moving at a slow pace that matched their aged appearance.
The effect of it, however, was not.
The opening doors inhaled Kyra and Kawai on a steely current of rushing water.
Kyra flailed in the pitch black, her feet desperately trying to find a surface.
An almighty crash sounded as the tomb’s doors closed tightly shut, and in an instant the water completely drained away, leaving her spluttering for breath on a cold, wet, stony floor.
Salty water dripped from Kyra’s nose. She sucked in quick breaths in the absolute darkness. ‘Kawai!’ she hissed in a panic. ‘Kawai!’
‘I’m here!’ his voice sounded breathlessly from somewhere to her right. She reached for him, hands feeling the ground for his warmth.
Just as her fingers clasped around what she thought might be his ankle, blue light flared all around them.
Still blinking salty seawater from her eyes, Kyra took in her surroundings.
Flames licked the brackets of ornate silver torches latched to a circular wall, a fiery magic put in place so long ago, yet still strong against the test of time.
They were in what seemed to be an entrance hall.
The stone walls were perfectly carved with rows and rows of lettering that Kyra did not understand.
It was godly, almost, as though no mortal was meant to discern its meaning.
A staircase began from the centre of the hall and spiralled down deep below the sea bed, its wet walls reflecting that same blueish fire.
Kyra marvelled at the flames for a moment. Conjured, she was undoubtedly sure, by the first Fire Warden to have the power of Eraura bestowed upon him. Kyra didn’t know his name; Win’s teachings of the rest of the world outside of Vrethian had been regrettably thin.
It dawned on Kyra then that the tomb was far bigger than just the structure that could be seen from the outside. How long would they tunnel down below the earth’s surface before they found what they were looking for?
Kawai stood, tipped back his head and laughed. ‘They didn’t want to make it easy, did they?’
Light headed, Kyra stood too, tracing a hand on the door that was now firmly shut.
‘Can you blame them? I’m not sure I’d want strangers snooping on my dead body either.
’ She glanced at him. ‘I’m surprised you were even able to get in here with me.
I thought there might have been a barrier against non-Wardens. ’
He flicked his soaking hair from his eyes and said with an arrogant grin, ‘Yeah, well, I’m the brother of a Warden. That’s got to count for something.’ His gaze caught her hand. ‘Are you alright?’
She showed him her palm. No longer bleeding. Barely even a scar.
Kawai shook his head. ‘You fae don’t know how lucky you are.’
‘Come on,’ Kyra murmured, then led the way down the spiralling staircase, palming her dagger for good measure.
The staircase tunnelled down for what felt like an hour, at least. She barely spoke a word to Kawai beyond responding with an ‘mmm’ when he marvelled at the depth of the tomb.
Finally, an orange hue appeared at Kyra’s feet, completely annihilating the silvery blue, and the corridor opened into a hall of such majesty, that the sight had Kyra halting in her tracks.
Four pillars stretched high to the domed ceiling, the centre of each one carved into lifesize depictions of the Four Mothers, all as different as the sister beside them.
Kyra stared with wonder, her watering eyes grazing over every miniscule detail of each Goddess.
The distinctive rounding of Eraura and Corla’s ears; the gentleness of the latter’s face; the harsh, strong and masculine edges of Gallena’s body; the shorter stature and grace of Roheia the Earth Mother.
Her pointed ears.
How was it that Kyra had never known that Roheia had been fae? Or rather, that all four of them hadn’t been?
Had that been a catalyst for the humans of Vrethian’s hatred towards her kin? Had they despised the fact that the all-mighty Earth Mother had been fae, and not human?
There were no vaults beneath with Their bodies resting within. And Kyra knew, somehow, that the carved depictions on the pillars were more than just decorative tributes to the mortals who had given up everything to bring balance to Droria.
‘This is unbelievable,’ Kawai muttered behind her.
She wanted to agree. But in Their presence, the words caught in her throat.
Moving as though tranced, Kyra approached the pillars. The Earth Mother was wrapped lovingly in vines reminiscent of the ones that had snaked like veins in Kyra’s own arms in that alleyway all those months ago.
She suddenly wished that Kawai wasn’t there. That she could experience this alone.
‘So,’ Kawai said, his voice echoing around the cavernous hall. The Hall of Mothers, Kyra would call it. ‘What are we looking for, exactly?’
A familiar power was in the air around them, but she couldn’t place it. Perhaps it was Roheia’s spirit guiding her. Finding her voice but keeping it subdued, Kyra said, ‘The Eye is a black stone, but I doubt it will be out on display. It might be in a box, or in a small vault of its own.’
‘That’s ambiguous,’ Kawai sighed.
‘You wanted to help,’ she said through gritted teeth, unable to curb her irritation. ‘So, help.’
He didn’t reply, but she was glad of that as they each peeled off in different directions, combing the walls for any sign of another opening, for any box, or even a feeling of something more sinister.
Of something alive, coiled and imprisoned in this place of rest.
As Kyra closed in on the four pillars, emotion rose up expeditiously within her. She had never been particularly pious, but her eyes stung as she stared up at Roheia’s strong face. The face of the being who had trusted her with all the power of the Earth.
She was glad Kawai was not by her side at that moment.
Had she been alone, she might have spoken to the Earth Mother aloud. She might have asked her why it was her who had been chosen, when so many others could have been more suited. Better, so much better, than she was proving to be.
Shame gripped her then, unyielding and cruel. That she could not be the Earth Warden Roheia had expected her to be.
A mark on the ground between Roheia and Gallena’s pillars snatched her attention, a rune that did not match the other four, exuding a wrongness that she couldn’t begin to explain. It was perfectly round with its insides carved out and void of anything in its centre.
Void…
The rune of the fifth element.
‘Kawai,’ Kyra said quietly, heart leaping as she crouched to survey it closer. ‘I think I’ve found it.’
He was by her side in an instant, tracing his hand across what Kyra originally thought was the outline of a stone slab. But it looked to be another door, like the one at the tomb’s entrance.
Kawai said, ‘Can you feel anything?’
Silently, Kyra shook her head. The only power she could feel was that of the Mothers, and she wasn’t even sure if it was Their power, or her own wonderment of Them.
‘Do you think this door will work the same as the other one?’ Kawai asked.