Chapter 7
Empress Lorna VII, long may she reign, has led the charge on spreading the Empire’s interest across the five continents.
Of particular wealth to the Empire has been the extensive fae (often known colloquially in Astola as the peri or peris) artifacts discovered in vaults throughout the human world, with a large portion of them found in Astola.
Currently, Empress Lorna has the most substantial selection of ancient fae artifacts across the Empire held in her private museum.
—The History of Astola by Henry Wiltshire
Yaseema
My feet scrambled underneath me, hitting nothing but open air. There was a gap between the corridor and the golden steps of the vault, one you couldn’t see with the naked eye because it blended into the darkness, and now I had tumbled into the abyss.
My arms pinwheeled, my hands grabbing for any purchase I could, knocking against the rough, sheer stone.
I hooked onto an outcropping of rock and my body lurched, catching up with my arms and stopping its endless free fall.
My scream resounded through the cavern as the abrupt stop wrenched my shoulders, a sickening pop joining it.
A wave of pain nearly overtook me, and I took a steadying breath. My spectacles were perched on the end of my nose and I shoved them back up, thankful they hadn’t fallen off my face. It was possible I could climb up this pit with one shoulder injured, but not without my ability to see anything.
Hesitantly, I peered down at what waited below me.
By the River.
I was dangling above a pit of more spikes, designed to catch anyone who made it beyond the death corridor so they could fall into the equally damaging death pit.
And the only way I was getting out of here was through sheer force of will.
If only I had magic that gave me the power of flight instead of unlocking rusty doors and finding lost things.
I grunted as I pulled myself up on the small ledge I’d managed to grab, my shoulder burning with pain and fire.
The overhang was so slight that I barely had room to sit down, but I knew I needed to get my shoulder back into place before I could climb out .
It still amazed me how many rudimentary traps the ancient fae used in their temples when they’d had untold magic at their disposal.
But perhaps they knew their magic wasn’t infallible. That it could dry up, or be taken away, as it had in Astola.
Propping myself against the rock behind me, I counted down through gritted teeth.
Three.
Two.
One.
With a low grunt, I shoved my shoulder against the immovable rock behind me, gripping my elbow tightly to angle it into place. The snap of the bone clicking back into place echoed through the pit.
A low moan of pain escaped me, as I brushed away my tears with the back of my hand.
“Well, I don’t have time to cry about it now,” I muttered, sounding like my nani telling me off after burning the chai. “There’s bigger things to deal with.”
Yeah, there was.
Like the sheer mountain of rock looking down at me, separating me from the vault and the fae artifact I’d come to take.
I still had my satchel, thank the River, and I ripped open the top, digging around for what I hoped I’d remembered to bring.
The lantern hooked on to my satchel still flickered, providing what little light I had, but enough that I could see the glint of the sharp spikes below and know what they would do to my body if I failed.
“Don’t think about that.” My nani’s voice again, but it became comforting to think of her as my stern relic-hunting guide.
Another moment of digging and I found them—two climbing claws, and heel spikes, neatly packed in a canvas bag I’d originally stolen from the Citadel.
A relief-filled whoosh of air released from my body, but I tried not to get ahead of myself with hope.
I still had to climb up half of a cavern wall with just some foot spikes and a hook in each hand.
The wall was sheer, but I hadn’t fallen too far down.
If the spikes in my boots sank into the cave wall, I could do it. If they didn’t, then I’d get nowhere except the death pit below me. The golden spikes glimmered in the darkness, as if calling to me, and for the first time I noticed the chalk white bones among them. Someone had already died here.
My heart pounded so hard it felt as though it was going to leap out of my chest and choke me. But I couldn’t afford to lose my head over a dead body, not when the Citadel excavators were already blasting a hole through the mountain to get to this place.
I clipped on the climbing equipment, slung my satchel over my shoulder, and slowly rose to my feet, pressing my back against the stone. It wasn’t a big climb, and I had done more, but it depended on whether I could even get purchase with my climbing gear.
Finally, I took a deep breath and swung my hook hard into the wall.
It stuck.
My heart lifted, but it still wasn’t enough. I hoisted myself up, then slammed the crampons from my boot into the rock with all the force I could muster.
Then again.
My shoulder screamed with each swing and pull, but I just needed to reach the top and then I could cry all I wanted.
I carried on like that for a few minutes—lifting, hooking, stabbing, and climbing. My arms shook, sweat dripping off them.
It was methodical, and the only thing I could focus on was the rhythmic act of what I was doing, detaching myself from the pain and the creeping panic of what waited below, and fixating on the cave wall in front of me, like an ancient fae scroll I was absorbed with in the archives.
I was so close to the top I could almost taste the relief.
But my hands were slick from my exertion and the handle of the hook slipped from my grip and clattered to the ground below me.
For a moment I was suspended in midair, before I started sprawling backward, forgetting that my feet were wedged into the stone, and I was trapped.
Instead, I flung my body forward with all my strength and as much momentum as I could.
And my fingers caught the edge of the cliff.
A sob escaped me, as I freed my feet, pulling them from the stone and hoisting myself up over the ledge.
My back hit the stone hard, but I didn’t care, not when I’d been seconds away from being impaled on a bed of golden stakes.
The dark roof of the cave was illuminated by the flickering lantern at my side and I blinked up at it, clearing the tears from my eyes.
After a moment’s respite, I rolled over, took my climbing gear off, and forced myself to stand.
My muscles burned, my shoulders felt like they were going to fall off, and I didn’t know how much longer my legs could support me.
But the second I stood and saw what was waiting for me, all my physical ailments seemed to dull, like I’d taken a potion brewed by a churail that had softened everything to a glimmering, golden mist.
Gold pillars held up an enormous entranceway, carved with creatures I’d only ever seen in the few fae texts we had in the archives—giant wolves, horses with metallic legs, nihang water dragons with intricate scales and large illuminated manes.
The floor was gold tiles etched with geometric floral motifs, each one depicting the different stage of the growth of a jasmine flower.
I had found it.
The Golden Vault.
The Citadel had been searching for this place for years, with only small mentions of it in various texts and the songs collected by my mother.
If she could see me here now, I could only imagine the grin spreading across her face.
The arched ceilings of gold had been melded to the cavern overhead, and it even looked as though there were diamonds and pearls and emeralds embedded into walls.
Just raiding the vault would have made someone wealthy.
But I wasn’t after golden water dragons and hand-sized emeralds.
My magic was already waiting for me to call on it, gathering at my fingertips like a rising river in a monsoon.
I let it unleash, and the threads of my power pooled out of my hands like an extension of myself, another sense I had.
The coils of my golden light poured through the air, and I followed them as they guided me through the vault, my boots slapping against the gilded jasmine tiles as I sprinted through the entrance.
There were relics here I was itching to get my hands on, wondering what power they possessed, what we could learn from them before the Citadel shipped them off to the Empire.
But I walked by them all—golden goblets that were bigger than human hands should hold, ornate plates decorated with more fae beasts that I longed to study closer.
Instead, I was led by my mother’s words in the journal I’d found not long after she’d left.
The one that had spoke of the fae relic which could actually change everything.
I hoped my her journal was right. Because if it was, the relic was the one thing that could get me across the River and through the wall into fae territory.
My magic guided me through the halls, until I found myself in a small antechamber. Here, the ceiling was not crusted with jewels and there was barely any gold in sight, with the exception of my bright threads hanging in the air of the small room.
The antechamber was carved out of stone, with rose-colored terracotta tiles lining the walls, looking dull in comparison to the rest of the vault. It was so unassuming anyone else might run right past it.
But my magic wouldn’t have allowed me to.
A small hollow was carved into the far wall, and a statue of a quqnoz sat inside, the phoenix’s gleaming eyes looking right at me. Elation rushed through me.
It was here. The phoenix statue was here, and the Astolan folksongs my mother had catalogued had all been correct.
But I stopped midstride before I reached the statue. This had all been too easy.
The fae hadn’t wanted this object to be taken.
My magic still threaded through the air, and my eyelids fluttered closed as I gave it direction.
“Show me the way,” I whispered, before opening my eyes.
They began to collect around the statue, except for one single strand. It crawled down the pedestal like a gleaming vine, alighting on five carved stone symbols at the front of the statue. Each one was a jasmine in a different state of bloom.
My magic curled around each one in order, showing me the correct tiles to press. From the full-blown flower to the curled bud. This represented the magic of reversal, of creation.
Because the power of Queen Azari, the ancient fae queen, was to create something new.
I pressed the tiles where my golden threads alighted and waited.
A click sounded, and the statue rose into the air from the pedestal, floating with the force of whatever remnants of magic there was.
I grabbed the phoenix statue from the air and flipped it over.
Underneath was a catch that I couldn’t get to unless I had something sharp.
I flicked a dagger out of my satchel and dug it into the catch, all the breath trapped in my lungs as the statue cracked open.
And there it was.
The ancient fae Queen’s haath phool.
It was what the Citadel was looking for too—the only thing they wanted. The fae magic infused piece of Queen Azari’s jewelry that would allow you to cross the wall between the fae world and ours.
The golden bracelet was connected by a delicate hand chain to three lotus flower rings, which curled over the fingers like petals. I held the jewelry up, my lantern flickering off the cool metal, making the intricate gold webbing look like a lace glove.
I thought of my mother in that moment, and all the ways she had led me here. With her journal and all the stories, letters, songs and thoughts contained there, but also when she’d left me to cross the River all those years ago.
Amma, I’m going to finish what you started.
I moved to put the haath phool into my satchel but my fingers froze as a thought occurred to me.
If I was searched by Citadel Patrols, they’d go after my bag first.
Instead, I flicked my knife open and made a small incision in the waistband of my canvas skirt. I tucked the bracelet into the gap I had made, and replaced the statue on the pedestal, hearing an answering click as the trap reset itself.
A sigh of relief flooded through me, but before I could take a single step, a blast shook the ground.
My lantern rattled, the gas from the lamp dipping in and out as the walls of the vault seemed to tremble.
A crack resounded somewhere overhead, and beams of sunlight poured through the ceiling above.
They had finally managed to blast through the ceiling of the Golden Vault.
The Citadel had made it here, and I was trapped.