Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Ena
Ena awoke tangled up with Ty the next morning, and despite what lay ahead of them, she couldn’t help the contented hum that left her throat as she nuzzled into his warmth. This was the first time they’d gotten to sleep next to one another since everything had changed, and she relished it.
“Rise and shine, lovebirds!” Steig shouted at them from across the cave, a hint of bitterness in his voice. “The sun’s almost up.”
She felt Ty stir awake beside her, placing a chaste kiss on her forehead before extricating himself from their cozy nest of cloaks and standing up.
He reached out a hand to help her up too before heading to the cave entrance, giving Steig a look of challenge on the way out, as if daring him to say what he thought.
She didn’t even realize she was staring longingly after Ty until Turner came over, holding another piece of jerky out to her as he chuckled to himself.
“What?” she asked defensively, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
“Me? Oh, nothing,” Turner said, failing to hide his grin. “It’s just…you two are really going for it, huh?”
“Yeah…” Ena said, suddenly feeling shy about it. They hadn’t discussed what they would say to Turner and Steig, but seemed like their secret was out now.
“I’m happy for you two. Should put a stop to the crackling sexual tension we had to endure all those weeks of traveling,” Turner said, giving her a teasing shoulder bump.
Ena rolled her eyes, even though deep down she was enjoying Turner’s playfulness, until she caught Steig staring daggers at them as he packed up one of his saddlebags.
“You got something to add, grumpy?” Ena asked him, daring him to say what he thought. If Ty wasn’t scared of him, then neither was she.
Steig just shook his head. “Nope, just… Good luck, I guess.” He said it in that usual curt way of his, but underneath, Ena could have sworn there was a hint of sincerity.
Ty strode back in a few minutes later, having fetched their horse and filled Ena’s waterskin for her. She drank greedily from it before leaving the cave to relieve herself in the woods.
She still couldn’t get over how different the landscape was here.
It was so much rockier and more barren than she was used to, and she honestly couldn’t imagine how the daemons had survived here for so long.
The soil wasn’t suited for agriculture, and there wasn’t much game.
How were they surviving under the mountains?
The morning air was crisp, and Ena wrapped her cloak tighter around her. Bless Greya for bringing Ena’s own dark-green cloak from home when she’d come for her in Occidens, so at least she was no longer forced to use the one Steig had “borrowed” for her from the small village of Tritam.
The thought of Greya brought a small flash of guilt to her mind, though. Yule was coming in a few weeks, and she wondered if she and Perse would be handfasted on it as they’d planned. The thought of missing it wrenched at Ena’s heart, as did any thought of her sister.
After relieving herself, Ena wandered back to the cave opening, where she saw Steig and Ty readying the horses. They were deep in conversation, but something about the tone of their voices made her stop where she stood, hidden by the thick trunk of a pine tree.
“Well, don’t hold your tongue on my account. Spit it out, motherfucker,” Ty was saying to Steig. His voice was low so as not to carry, but she could feel his anger.
“I’m not holding my tongue, asshole. You already know where I stand. Even if you do trust her, how can you think this is a good idea?”
“It’ll be expected of us anyway, given what she’ll be pretending to be, so it’s not like we’ll have to hide it. Why can’t you just be happy for me?” Ty asked through gritted teeth.
“I am happy for you,” Steig said, his voice hushed and angry now too. “I know what you feel for her, and that may be all well and good for right now, but what about after?”
“After what?”
“After we break the bond? What then? What kind of future will you two have? You know what’s expected of you.”
Ty ran his fingers through his hair before bringing them down to stroke his beard in that nervous way of his. “I don’t know, Steig, but I do know I feel hopeful about us for the first time in a long time, and I’m not willing to give that up. Not anymore.”
Steig sighed, an extremely exasperated, put-upon sound. “I can understand that, but Ty…just be careful. Okay?” the man said beseechingly. “I’d hate to see this end badly for you, or her.”
“It won’t,” Ty said. “I have it under control, I promise.”
Steig nodded, though Ena could still sense his reluctance.
“Now, are you with me?” Ty asked.
“I’m with you,” Steig said, his anger simmering down.
“Really?” Ty asked, sounding skeptical.
“Really. If you’re all in, then I’ll try to be too,” he said, reaching out to grip Ty on the shoulder.
Ty nodded at him, and gripped him back, and Ena felt the tension dissipate between them as she emerged from behind the tree, walking again towards Ty.
His face lit up as he saw her, a smile breaking apart the harshness of his features. “Are you ready to go?” he asked her.
“Yep,” she said, giving him a warm smile in return. She was glad that Ty seemed to have worked things out with Steig—it would be much nicer for them if he was supportive—but some of the things he had said, some of the difficulties he’d hinted at, left her feeling a bit apprehensive.
She chose to push those from her mind as Ty helped her mount up and settled in behind her.
Turner, who had finally made his way out of the cave, and Steig followed suit on their own horses.
Ena was pleased to see that Turner’s horse, Mahnin, was healthy and well cared for.
She’d developed a soft spot for the beautiful creature when they’d met in Attax after Ty had traded one of his best daggers to purchase her.
For some reason, Ena felt a strong affinity for the black, glossy mare, and she was secretly jealous that she didn’t get to ride her herself.
The four of them rode for most of the morning, weaving back and forth across the elevating landscape, nestling themselves deeper into the foothills.
They rode at a good pace, stopping just once for a brief break, but everyone seemed in good spirits as they joked and shared about their recent experiences.
Ty finally had a chance to share in detail what it had been like with the Occidens Coven, and Turner had been thoroughly impressed hearing the details about their escape.
But sometime around noon, Ena felt the air around her companions shift.
They fell silent, almost as if they were under a spell, as they entered a shadowed pass between two of the peaks.
Ena had never been this deep into the Chasm Mountain range before.
She’d been to the edge of them south of here where they neared the Auster Coven, but the witches never ventured beyond the edge of the foothills. There was never any reason to.
The four of them moved deeper into the pass as it got narrower and colder, the only sound the clip-clop of their horses’ hooves on the rocky soil.
Ena wanted to ask how close they were, but she didn’t dare speak.
Something about their eerie silence told her not to—like they were concentrating, and she shouldn’t disturb them.
After about an hour, they turned the corner and stopped as Ena found herself facing a huge, gaping hole in the side of the mountain—the entrance to the Underworld.
It was clearly not natural. It was jagged and uneven, and looked like it had been made by hand, whether by pickax or…
something else. Wide enough to fit at least two horses side by side, and tall enough for someone twice her height, it was pitch black and intimidating in and of itself, but that wasn’t even the strangest part.
Etched all around the edges of the opening were symbols—they looked like complex markings made of lines and angles, kind of like the letters she knew, but different.
There was no doubt that they were significant, but what they meant, Ena had no idea.
“What are those?” Ena asked in a whisper as the men dismounted.
“Runes,” Ty answered, as he wrapped his hands around her waist to help her off the horse.
“What are runes?” she asked, realizing that she probably sounded like a child with her constant questions, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Runes are a form of magic used by daemons to infuse their Powers into objects. We call it Imbuing. These ones, for example, are Imbued with a daemon’s Power of ambago, meant to confuse mortals if they were ever to stumble upon the entrance.”
“What would happen if they did?”
“They wouldn’t know what they were looking at, and they’d feel confused enough to think they were lost and turn around.”
“That’s fascinating,” Ena said, contemplating this form of magic that was entirely novel to her. “And does it impact daemons too?”
“Not if you already know where the entrance is,” Ty said. “That’s why we were all concentrating so hard as we entered the pass. It takes focus to overcome the magic.”
“Huh,” Ena said, feeling grateful that daemonic magic had no impact on her. Though Ty had said that had been an unintended consequence of the witches’ spell binding daemons to Iblis, and suddenly she wondered…would that change when they broke it?
Gripping her hand, Ty guided her and their horse towards the entrance and stepped inside.
It was pure darkness. She couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her, and her heart pounded as they entered it.
After taking several steps into the dark, her eyes began to adjust, and she saw why.
The entrance immediately lowered into a wide set of stairs carved into the cave floor.
Now that she was directly above it, she could see lanterns placed strategically along it, illuminating the staircase, but as they moved to walk down them, their horse balked.