Chapter 71
Chapter seventy-one
Seraphina
Falling and falling and falling.
She screamed out as the stone walls widened. There was light at her feet, and she gripped the straps of her pack so tight her knuckles burned. Snik howled from above.
Oh, how she wished it’d been a normal doorway with stairs.
The shaft opened to a cavern. The floor was still a long way down.
“Barijara,” she said, and prayed it would protect her from breaking anything. Sera hit the ground hard on her side, striking a mound of sand that had evidently collected from above.
“Fuck,” she choked. Each inhale brought with it a stabbing pain along her right side. A second later, Snik landed directly on top of her.
Gulping for breath, she tossed Snik off her and rolled onto her hands and knees. Through bleary eyes, she took in her surroundings.
Torches affixed to the carved stone walls lit the space. A well-worn footpath wound between stalagmites as thick as trees. The fact she hadn’t been impaled was nothing short of a miracle.
“Why…” she called out. “Why did it have to be him?” If Sera could have chosen a single person in this world to be honest with her, it would have been him.
Maybe it was the distance between them, maybe it was the overwhelming desire to kill him, but the panic was lessening. Sera leaned against one of the damp stalagmites and fought to catch her breath, to bury the pain in her side.
He’d lied. The wall he’d slowly torn down, the one that had encased her heart, was now reinforced with stone. Sera wiped her nose on her sleeve.
Shadows danced in the torchlight along the walls.
“Do you know the way?” she asked Snik.
He nodded.
With a croak, Raven landed on her shoulder. “Glad you could join us.”
Sera slipped out of her uniform, not raising her arm any more than she needed to.
She slipped on the leather armor Vasso had made her, though she wished she could bring herself to burn it, and pulled the strings tight to support her maybe broken, definitely bruised ribs.
Next she slipped on the leather pants and sheathed the daggers Al had given her at her hips.
And lastly, cursing much too loudly, she raised her hands above her head and braided her hair.
Snik led her down the worn path into a tunnel. His massive ears were constantly flicking, picking up movement she couldn’t hear. Raven stayed perched on her shoulder.
“All right, you two, let’s go get Nora.”
She walked and walked. Drips of water sang against stone, and if she wasn’t so scared, she would have found the sound divine.
Do not be scared.
“Easy for you to say.”
We are home now. Where we belong.
With every breath, her side throbbed, and for the first time since he left, she wished Alistair were with her. If only for his healing power. She couldn’t imagine the warlock underground. The very air would probably give him welts.
Sera kept her hands ready at her sides as she followed the narrow path. Her eyes darted to the shadows. They moved unnaturally—toward the light instead of away—like something solid would. But every time she turned her head, they disappeared.
Sera stopped short and leaned against the stone.
Her heart thrashed, and a cold sweat beaded on her palms. Terror flooded through her. Vasso was still frantic.
“Eeeech?”
“Keep going, I’m fine.”
They’d been going for hours without encountering a single demon, creature, or anything else. It was odd, considering what Vasso had described to her.
Her steps bounced off the stone walls. The slightest touch to her ribs, even through her armor, had her doubling in pain.
Snik growled.
“What is it?” She listened as a faint rumble went through the ground.
Raven glided through the cavern directly toward the sound of stomping ahead of them.
“Come back, you stupid bird.”
The bird ignored her, making an eerie knocking noise. There was a fork up ahead. A light was moving toward them from the right tunnel, but Raven had gone left.
“I hope you don’t get us killed,” she whispered. Each breath was a blade in her side as she ran toward her familiar.
The rumbles were footsteps that shook the caves.
“Pronaki jadna,” a voice as deep as the sea grumbled. Two trolls rounded the corner. Snik clung to her legs.
Their bodies swayed on warty feet. Sera glanced at the one holding the torch high above its head. Its eyes were milky white. These were cave trolls, adapted to live only underground. They didn’t need torchlight to see. They could hunt her in the dark if they wanted to.
Sweat rolled down the sides of her face.
They were almost out of sight when one stopped. Her heart was pounding, her vatra thrashing, and the troll lifted its bulbous nose to the air and sniffed. Her chin trembled. It felt like an invisible hand was gripping her throat as she held her breath.
Please don’t turn. Please don’t turn.
The troll with the torch turned. Light danced along the wall mere feet from her.
Closer.
Closer.
The beast roared.
“Run!” she screamed to Snik.
Sera reached for her barrier magic. The power wound its way up her arm out of the enhancer. “Barijara.” A blue bubble of protection surrounded her and Snik.
They dashed into the darkness. Her side was splitting, and her legs burned as she ran, but she kept going. The blue bubble around them flickered as the club crashed into it.
She pushed faster, Snik galloping ahead. The cave walls expanded. She expected they were in another chamber.
Sera skidded to a stop before slamming into a wall of black stone.
A fierce burn ripped through her, and her barrier magic was sucked from her veins, through bone, and muscle, and skin. Then it was gone.
Sera shook out her shoulders and opened her well of vatra. Her darkness roiled under the surface, lying in wait. Snik whimpered.
“Hide,” she yelled to Snik.
The trolls were almost on them. Their milky eyes and snarling fangs looked harsh in the shadows of the torch. The darkness stirred and snapped through her veins, enveloping her.
Show them.
Sera summoned her scourge. Black mist poured from her feet, blanketing the cave floor in a thick fog. The troll holding the torch took two steps before igniting into a black flame and disintegrating into a pile of ash.
Her hands shook, the flames in them trembling. She hadn’t done that.
The other troll looked at her and roared.
“Te klek pred vas, Dama,” a deep voice drawled.
The massive troll shivered and sank to the ground, lowering its head to the cavern floor. Its fallen torch played with the shadows as the man walked forward. With each step, a building rage rose within Sera.
“You should have waited for me.” Vasso’s face was granite.
He floated a mage light above his head, illuminating the chamber, and snapped out an order in the old tongue.
His voice was stern, but this close, she could feel his true emotions.
Panic, anger, relief, and… no, she wouldn’t name that one. Not after what he’d done.
The troll whimpered and exited the tunnel.
“Nula—”
She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want him near her. Sera swung her whip through the air, and Vasso blasted his power out to keep it from striking. She wanted to hate him. She wanted to kill him for lying to her.
Snik charged at the demon lord, growling and ripping at Vasso’s leg. He snapped his fingers, and the goblin froze in midair, as if he were stone.
“You asshole!” Unsheathing her daggers, she charged. She was rage, undiluted rage, every ounce of her body hummed with it, and the carved floral inlays of the daggers sat true in her hands.
Vasso leaned out of the way, spinning to face her. “Looks like I should have been teaching you more than magic.”
Sera screamed and went after him. He didn’t understand what his betrayal had done to her.
Vasso ducked away from her swings, deflected her jabs, and stopped her at every move. Her side was screaming at her to stop; the stretch of her ribs with every inhale was searing.
“You’ve hurt yourself.”
“Why would you care?” Her inky mist fell from her, its tendrils reaching, ready to snatch at him with her command. What she couldn’t figure out was why he wasn’t deflecting her.
“If you’re done trying to play assassin, I’d like to talk.”
Twisting in a circle, she rotated her dagger before he could move out of the way and made contact with his forearm as he blocked.
He hissed. “That hurt.”
“Good,” she snarled. She wanted him to bleed. She wanted him to feel every ounce of agony he had caused her after hearing what he’d said on the dunes. Her rage fueled her, hot and deep. Sera swung again, but Vasso gripped her forearm. A sharp pain bit through her wrist as he bent it back.
“Ahhh,” she cried. Then he spun her. His arms were unyielding, no matter how hard she tried to break free of him. His chest rose and fell in rapid breaths as he ripped the other dagger from her hand. Her ribs screamed in pain.
“Enough.” His tone was dangerous, low, and guttural.
“No.” She slammed her head back, hoping to make a connection with his nose, but he tilted out of the way. He was too damned fast, and she was no fighter. Especially since she could barely breathe.
“What did I do?” The anguish in his voice gave her pause. He had to have known she’d heard him, heard his lie for what it was. He had to have felt her pain when she heard what that demon said. How do you think she’s going to take it when she finds out you’re the reason her sister is captive?
“I heard you,” she spat. “You could have gotten her out of here! Brought her to me!”
He let her go, and she twisted to face him. His eyes were bloodred as they bore into her. “I ordered her to be released! As soon as I heard. I swear it.”
“Well, maybe you should have come in person,” she spat and picked up her daggers. It was no use. She’d never win against him. They both knew it. “What were you supposed to tell me?”
His eyes snapped to hers. “What?”
“I heard you. By the dunes, whoever you were with asked if you would tell me something. What is it? That you were too much of a coward to help me? That you would rather watch me suffer than help?”
It shouldn’t matter to her. Not really, but she wanted to know. She was desperate for hope that maybe, just maybe, something was preventing him from doing the right thing. That there was redemption.
“Us. I was going to tell you about us.” His body was rigid.
“There is no us,” she gritted.
There was the slightest twitch to his brow.
“You betrayed me. There could never be an us.” The moment she said it, she wished she hadn’t. She wished she’d gobbled the words back without him hearing. That she could turn back time.
“Oh, that’s rich. You know it’s not going to be that easy, not anymore. Not when I’ve tasted you. Not when I’ve listened to those beautiful breathy pleas, or the way you scream my name.”
Her body acted in treason as heat pooled between her thighs. “I can still kill you,” she sneered.
“Not with those moves you can’t.”
“Maybe I’m choosing demise, then.” She understood why her hatred could burn so hot for him. She could end him if she wanted to, was fated to do so, according to his words and Ophelia’s. “Put Snik back.”
Vasso snapped his fingers, and the goblin rushed to her side, whimpering. She lowered herself to hug him, no matter how much her side protested. “I won’t let him hurt you again.”
Vasso rolled his eyes. “I didn’t hurt him.”
Her body tensed as she marched past him. Conjuring her magic, she raised the giant torch next to the ashes that had once been a troll.
“Where are you going?” Vasso asked. The muscle in his cheek twitched. A menacing look crossed his face despite the cool mask he was wearing to cover it. Good. He was pissed too.
“I’m going to save my sister since you won’t.” As much as she hated him in that moment, a bit of her was relieved by his looming, broody presence behind her. Sera stomped toward her pack, the contents of which had been scattered across the cave when she dropped it.
There was nothing left to save, so she continued without it.