Chapter Twenty-Six
Adrian
“It is not blasphemy to question the will of the Geist when the only source for that will are the mouths of the Upper Ringers claiming it.”
— As Spoken by Wisteria Sallow, Leader of the Origin of Divine Cult
Our pace had increased. Despite Gryfon’s proclamation to Rainier that we would make it to Archí when we made it, he seemed to be driving us on quicker than he had before.
Whether that was an order from the three rarely seen leaders of the procession or Gryfon himself, it was unclear.
But he'd become gruffer with his own men and more impatient with the caravan as we moved through the hot sands.
His temper was noticeable but didn’t seem to discourage any of his warriors who merely grinned back at him and shook their heads at one another as if such a constant state of irritation was more attuned to their commander’s personality than anything before had been.
I walked with the others as we traveled, helped set up the tents and fire pits at every stop, and then wandered off to the flattest rock I could find on the outskirts of the camp.
I sat upon it until my skin burned in the hot desert sun, until my throat was so dry it became raw and my lips stuck together when I tried to pull them apart.
Only then would I return to camp, having failed once more in my effort to call the darkness I'd found within me only twice before.
My failure was making me irritable and the discomfort of life in a roving camp of strangers was setting me on edge.
Zya noticed and was wise enough to give me my space.
She only dared speak to me while we traversed the endless sands and even then she spoke mostly of Gryfon’s visits to our tent at night, when everyone else in the camp was sleeping, and his continued lessons with our little group.
I would nod at the report, pleased he was continuing their training despite my failure, but say nothing more on the subject.
Truthfully, I hadn’t spoken a word to the commander of the procession since he'd refused to train me alongside my friends. I wasn’t avoiding him.
I just saw no reason to interact if he wasn’t going to assist me in any way, no reason to remain within the tent, watching everyone else learn to wield the weapons he brought with him for the training, but unable to participate myself.
So I sat upon the rock and tried to call the dark instead. Even though I always failed.
Eight days after Rainier’s visit, I stood near the metalworker’s tent on the edge of camp, drinking heavily from the canteen I'd stored in its shade before my visit to the rock.
Night was falling which meant dinner would be available soon.
I would eat with the others before returning to the rock and my failed meditation.
“Anything?” a familiar voice asked.
I glanced up to see Roxy walking my way, grinning broadly with a freshly hammered axe swung over her shoulders.
“No,” I grumbled, splashing some of the water on my heated face.
“You’ll get it, Adrian,” she assured me, her voice softening.
I frowned. I didn’t want her pity.
“I sincerely doubt I will,” I replied. “Or that it even matters.”
Roxy’s smile faltered but she got it back a moment later, even if it did appear to be slightly more forced than before.
“You should come to training tonight,” she said. “It might help to get your mind off things for a while.”
I hesitated. I hadn’t told any of them about the deal I’d struck with Gryfon to get him to train them.
They knew I was attempting to call the dark.
They knew what a massive failure the endeavor had been.
But they didn’t know the warrior refused to train me in any real weaponry until I'd mastered the magic. I didn’t want them to.
I had a suspicion they would become far more involved in my attempts if they did and that wasn’t something I wanted.
If this power within me could blow through ancient wards and shatter apart protections that had stood for thousands of years, I didn’t want my friends anywhere near me when I attempted to call it.
“We’ll see,” I muttered, shrugging as I put the cap back on my canteen.
At that moment, Gryfon passed by on his way to speak with a few of the warriors standing on the opposite side of the metalworkers’ tent. I couldn’t help but glare after him. Roxy watched as well but hers was more an expression of wonder than fury.
“I’m with Darius but I’m not blind,” Roxy said, blowing out a puff of air as she grinned conspiratorially over at me. “That man is hot.”
“He’s an asshole,” I debated.
“The hot ones always are.”
Then she shot me a wink and returned to the metalworkers. Even I couldn’t help but snort as I shook my head, slung the canteen in the loop at my waist, and headed off to where dinner was being prepared.
That evening, I sat myself back on the rock, night having fallen all around me, and closed my eyes.
I always got closer at night, as though the darkness inside me was calling out to the darkness of the world beyond.
But it was still as if there was some sort of wall between my consciousness and the power I knew rested somewhere inside.
It was locked away from me, unattainable.
If I was being honest, I wasn’t sure I truly cared to reach it.
Perhaps that uncertainty was what kept me from the power.
Maybe my lack of conviction led to efforts which were more half-assed than I realized. I didn’t really care.
I felt a shift in the wind an hour into my meditation and heard the unmistakable scrape of stone as someone settled in next to me. I tensed. It was the first time anyone had dared to join me out here.
“Why aren’t you training?” I asked into the silence of the night.
“I overheard one of the cooks speaking today,”Zya answered from beside me, her voice low even though we were the only ones around. “They were talking about the hole you blew in the side of the Underground. They said you could be the way back.”
“Back?”
Zya took a deep breath. The air grew heavy between us as she considered whether or not to tell me whatever it was she'd come out here to say.
“To Sanctuary, Adrian,” she whispered a moment later.
My eyes snapped open as I turned to face her.
“To Sanctuary,” I repeated, stunned. “Why should any of these people want to get into Sanctuary?”
“I don’t know but they don’t have to,” Zya argued and I saw the sparkle in her eyes as she gazed at me. “We could. We could go back, Adrian. We could go home. I could see my sister again. You could see your brothers, your mom.”
My heart ached at the thought. It was all I’d ever wanted, all I'd aspired to for the long months I'd spent toiling away in the Underground.
Tiberius claimed it was impossible. Darius said it was pointless.
But I'd kept trying to get back anyway. The desire to see my family again was all-consuming. It had kept me up at night, plotting and planning and trying to find a way back. Odd, then, that I’d hardly thought about it at all since our escape.
My cheeks flared crimson with shame as I shook my head.
“Zya,” I said slowly, gently, because I could see the hope spreading in her expression and I knew what it felt like when someone tried to take that away from you, “the Geist are after me now. If we go back, if we lead them back to our home, to our families—”
“We don’t know the Geist are after us,” Zya snapped.
“We only have the word of these strangers to attest to that and you don’t trust them any more than I do.
Besides, they don’t need us to lead them back.
If they really are out there, coming after us, then they already know who you are.
They’ll already know who your family is. ”
The threat hung suspended in the air between us, one so obvious I felt foolish not to have thought of it myself.
Zya was right. We didn’t have any proof the Geist even truly existed, much less that they were hunting after us in these endless sands because of something I was supposedly capable of doing, something I hadn’t been able to do since.
All we had to go on were the promises of people who'd refused to share any more of the story with us until we reached their beloved city. But if they were right, if the Geist truly were after us, after me, then wouldn’t they attempt to use my family against me as well?
I stood up.
They could find them easily. Everyone in Sanctuary knew who I was by now, knew of the family that had been elevated to a home in the Second Ring, of the brother who'd defied the will of the Tribunal to marry a friend and save her from a fate on the Deck. They could hold them hostage against me, could threaten to hurt them if I didn’t return, could force me to turn myself in.
My hands were shaking by the time I leapt from the rock and stormed toward the camp, Zya shouting out to me from behind.
I wouldn’t be admitted to the tents of the three leaders, I knew that. But hardly anyone ever guarded Gryfon’s tent. Apparently, the warrior was fearsome enough to fend for himself should it come to it. Seemed like foolish bravado to me. Perhaps after tonight, they would rethink that policy.
I burst through the flaps of canvas before properly formulating a plan.
I was so engrossed in my own thoughts, my own fears, I hadn’t considered what I might find in striding straight into the obvious commander of this encampment’s personal quarters.
It wasn’t, however, anything I might have expected.
Gryfon wasn’t alone.
He stood, shirtless and frowning, leaning over a small, rickety table that had likely been brought in for him to conduct meetings and eat meals in peace.
My eyes trailed from the rigid muscles of his abdomen to the woman sitting opposite him.
She seemed comfortable enough, seated in his own seat, long, toned arms draped over the sides of the chair.
Her chin was raised high, defiant, as her sparkling chocolate eyes narrowed right back at the brooding commander.
Her hair was set into a braid of thick, coarse dark hair and tossed over one shoulder so that it reached to her waist. She was outfitted in smooth leather that did very little to conceal the long, lithe form beneath.
She was strapped with every manner of weapon, including some I'd never seen before, but her gaze was smooth, almost lazy, as she turned it upon me.
“What are you doing here?” Gryfon snapped at me, far less graceful than his companion.
With his arrogant tone, my fear and fury returned. Clenching my fists tightly, I stepped further into the tent, ignoring the penetrating gaze of the strange woman as I did.
“You said the Geist are after me,” I said.
His jaw tensed but he gave a curt nod of agreement.
“Is that true?” I asked.
His brows furrowed as if in surprise at my question but I kept my narrowed gaze on him as he frowned back at me.
“Of course it is,” he growled a moment later.
“Then they'll be after my family as well,” I breathed, the words tumbling out in my fear before I could stop them. “They’ll know who they are and you let me leave them there. You didn’t even say—”
“Your family will be fine,” he muttered, waving a hand in dismissal as if disappointed by my reason for this interruption. “The Geist cannot enter Sanctuary. Now, if you don't mind, Adrian—”
“So, this is Adrian,” the woman crooned, brow raising in interest as her gaze fell over me in more thorough examination.
Gryfon sighed, closing his eyes in irritation.
“I suppose your refusal to call her is a moot point now, isn’t it, Gryfon?” the woman asked with a satisfied grin.
My eyes darted from her to the warrior and back, assessing the situation I might have plunged myself into without fully understanding. Once again.
She stood then, every movement smooth and graceful, and cocked her head to the side as her gaze slid over me from head to toe.
“I hear you’re capable of wielding the corruption,” she said.
“So I’m told,” I answered, eyes snapping to Gryfon behind her in annoyance. “Not that I’ve been told much more.”
“No? Well, now that I’m here, perhaps we can rectify that.”
“And who are you?”
She smiled, lips pulling up into a grin that was likely meant to put me at ease but somehow set me more on edge as she took another step closer.
“I am Prima of House Viper,” she announced. “First of the Fallen, Mother of Archí, Godskiller. And I will tell you everything you don’t already know, Adrian Bexley.”