Chapter Thirty-Six Zephyra
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
ZEPHYRA
Is it the entrance to Abysses?
Honestly, I don’t know what this door belongs to.
Nothing in this castle is ever as it seems. And the sorcerer—he’s been fucking with us.
For hours now. It’s as if a clock has rewound and catapulted me into six months ago.
Into being lost in the labyrinth and finally—finally—finding a way out, only for the sorcerer to appear at the end.
Only for him to offer me another deal.
I inhale deeply. Sharply. Desperate to repress the memories of my escape.
But there’s not enough air in this room—this tomb.
My heart pounds in my chest, hard and fast and healthy, even though Arion is dying.
Even though blackened veins web his light brown skin, the metallic silver-gold of his gaze has dimmed to an earthly gray.
He’s dying. I’m—I’m losing him. I don’t understand it.
Am so full of rage thinking about it. I can’t lose him.
Here. Now. Not when we are so close. So close. And—
And my blood somehow, seemingly, carved us a doorway below.
None of this makes sense. I’ve felt off-kilter since I stepped foot in this room—or perhaps the trench itself—stumbling through as if my wrists have been shackled once more. The bond has dimmed between Arion and me. The castle is breaking. Something is wrong.
Arion is dying.
We need that fucking heart. Now.
Arion rips the door open in the next second, revealing a chamber of unending black.
Somewhere inside, there is the hushed breath of water.
A lazy stream. The trickle of a river. It’s joined by more of those whispers.
The voices I heard in this castle every day for years.
None of the others seems affected by them as they peer into the abyss. None of the others seems to hear them.
“Are you sure it’s down there?” Gavriall leans over the threshold, staring down into the inky dark apprehensively. “I don’t see anything.”
His voice echoes as if whatever lies below stretches vast and hollow. But his is not the only voice. The whispers are faint as shadow, light as a baby’s breath. I can’t discern them, but the closer I am to the door the louder they become, until I can hear one phrase above all the others:
Save us.
I swallow roughly. “I’m not sure we should—”
“We don’t have time to stand here and debate what’s below.
” Arion’s gaze snaps to mine, and I try to maintain the eye contact.
I try not to look at those black veins, at the pain glinting sharp and bright in his gaze despite how he tries to hide it.
He’s dying. “I don’t see stairs. I don’t see a ladder.
There’s no other way in, aside from jumping.
Unless, Zephyra, you tell us you’ve already been inside that room, and we look elsewhere—”
I shake my head, resisting the urge to reach for him.
To keep him close beside me. There is only one way to save him now—there has only ever been just one way—and if we don’t find it soon, all this will have been for nothing.
I shake my head harder, fiercer, and will myself to concentrate.
“No. I have never been down here—have never seen that door or this chamber—in my life.”
He holds my gaze for a second longer before nodding brusquely. Without any further preamble, without listening to Amaya’s new commands to her crew or Gavriall’s hesitancy or Vesper’s curses, Arion walks forward. Two steps, and he slips into the abyss.
He’s just—gone.
Panic spikes abruptly, and I throw myself on my knees, scrambling to peer inside the blackness that swallowed him. He does not scream or shout. There is no grotesque thud. Only voices and the ice-cold chill of death skittering up my spine.
“Do you see him?” Vesper asks, kneeling beside me now. When I don’t answer, my fingers clenching white upon the threshold, she adds, “Do you really think Abysses is down there?”
“I don’t know.”
We crouch in silence for any sound from Arion—for any hint of what awaits us below—until Amaya loses patience and finally shouts, “Warlock Stone! Are you alive?” Her crew waits behind her with bated breath, and my pulse races even faster as I realize the silvered cord has vanished.
Just like Arion, it’s gone. How is that possible?
Arion doesn’t respond. Silence prickles over my flesh until I can’t take it anymore. I dangle my legs over the opening, and Vesper grabs my arm, hissing, “What are you doing, Zephyra?”
I jerk away from her, sliding my hips to the edge. “What does it look like? I’m going after him.”
Her eyes narrow incredulously. “We don’t know what’s waiting. He could be dead.”
Yes. That simple truth slides like a knife through my ribs, but I force myself to acknowledge it.
Because he could be. Arion could have fallen to his death, or been eaten by a horrible monster, or maybe the poison in his veins climbed higher still, killing him before he could land.
Maybe that’s why he isn’t answering. Logic wars against the onslaught of emotion in my chest. It roots me to the floor.
Because if he’s dead, I’m next. And I should run. I should run away.
I grind my teeth.
I should run away, but I can’t. I won’t.
“We are here for a reason. There is no other way out.” I peer up at Vesper, hoping she understands my meaning when I say, “I’m not running this time.”
Her gaze flashes in realization. Emotions pool in her dark blue irises. I wait for her to recoil, or curse me, or perhaps even push me into the darkness, but instead she simply… grins. It’s a hard grin. A resolute one. She isn’t running either. “After you, then, Zephyra.”
And though my bones shake with fear and my tongue has swollen to a lump in my throat, I throw myself into the abyss. I follow those voices. I follow Arion.
Down. Down.
Down.
And then—sideways.
Falling doesn’t feel quite the same as it usually does.
It doesn’t suck the wind from my lungs or make my head spin or beat terrified fists in my chest. Instead, I float.
Gently and gracefully on an easy breeze as the wall behind me morphs.
Transforms in the blink of an eye and shifts—ticking like the minute hand of a grandfather clock as it replaces the floor.
As the previous floor snaps into place as a wall.
The entire chamber seems to rotate around me until I land soft on my feet in a mess of damp earth.
Right in front of Arion.
Warm relief floods my system, and my pulse eases at the sight of him.
Wings splayed wide and proud behind him, his black tunic open and damp with sweat.
“Zephyra.” His eyes glitter as I straighten on unsteady feet, and he seizes my wrist, instantly pulling me into his chest. He holds me like that.
For seconds. Minutes. I can no longer hear Vesper’s or Amaya’s voices above us, can no longer hear anything except the faint beat of Arion’s heart.
His shallow breaths. His lips brush against my forehead.
It doesn’t feel like hello though.
It feels like goodbye.
I push away from him before he can admit as much. “Let’s find this fucking heart.” I lift my chin, daring him to argue otherwise. This will not be the end of us. We still have time. We must have time. To fix this. To save him.
He nods, though he doesn’t appear convinced. “Okay, mermaid.”
“Okay, warlock.”
A strange, ethereal blue light settles over us, from nowhere in particular, illuminating the ancient walls of a long, narrow bank and the single river running through it.
The ground squelches like mud beneath my slippers, and our breaths frost in the air as tiny snowflakes dart and dance across a winter’s breeze.
In the unnatural calm, my bones stop screaming.
For just an instant, my panic ebbs with the river.
“This doesn’t feel like the castle anymore,” I whisper to Arion.
“No,” he agrees. “It doesn’t.”
This—it has to be it. If not Abysses, then an entrance. If not an entrance, then a clue. The ground contracts under our feet as if breathing, as if alive. In and out and in and out. I shiver in the cold.
Amaya drops next, landing like a cat on her feet beside us. Then Vesper. Gavriall. The crew. Even that damned cursed skull hits the riverbank with a gleeful, “She will die. He will die. We must all die, die, die, die.”
Vesper brushes the mud from her skirt as the others catch their breaths and take in the glimmering chamber.
“Where are we?” Gavriall’s eyes dart to the river, then to the glowing blue moss etched into the walls. “Is this Abysses?”
“How can it be?” Vesper turns in a slow circle, blade still drawn, her voice more muted than usual. “There’s nothing here.”
“I don’t see a path either,” Amaya says, stomping forward and slinging mud on the rest of us.
“And that river could go on for miles.” She stops short, craning her head to peer around us in every direction.
She needn’t bother. There is only water here—water and that eerie blue light.
Her eyes narrow as she reaches the same conclusion.
“Where is—anything? How are we supposed to know where to go?”
Arion takes my hand. “Only one way to find out.”
The cursed skull cackles again, louder now. “Mind your step! Follow the death!”
“She is on my last nerve,” Gavriall snarls. “Either shut your grandmother up, or I’m going to punt her straight into that gods-damned river.”
Amaya glowers at him, baring her teeth on a snarl and flexing her hands. But—she hesitates again, glancing at her fingers and shaking her head. “My magic. It’s not…” She tilts her head, scowl deepening. “It’s not working here.” Her gaze snaps to Arion. “What the fuck is happening?”
“Does it look like I know?” he growls.