Chapter 40
Chapter
Forty
-KADIAN-
“That was quite a performance,” I said to Oz as I made my way to the door of the Eternal House.
“What can I say?” Oz shrugged and smiled, “I was feeling inspired.”
“And the fiery red head that was the spark for that inspiration?”
Oz grinned shyly before gesturing behind me, “She’s walking this way now.”
“Are we ready to try this?” Iona said as she looked behind her.
“Are you worried someone followed you?” I asked her, I couldn’t see anyone.
“No. Not after the performance I just gave.”
“And what performance might that have been?” Oz’s eyebrow quirked up in question.
“I’ll tell you about it sometime.” She winked as she made her way to stand between us. “Now, what do we do to get inside?”
Oz stepped forward. The way he held himself, his muscles were taut. I could tell he was nervous. We all were. Nothing like this had ever been done before, not to my knowledge. There was a reason court lines were so divided. We weren’t welcome in another’s space.
“My hope is that the door will just… open. And that you two will be able to walk inside without anything happening to you.”
“Is that a possibility?” I wondered aloud. Gods, I hope not.
“Only one way to find out,” Iona said as she moved closer to Oz.
He turned to face her, and she offered him a small smile before placing her hand atop his and laying his palm flat on the door.
As I’d seen happen during my brief placement within the Eternal House, the door’s center split. The sound of rock and sediment coming apart, the earth settling. It was an ancient sound.
Unlike the House of Shadows, where when you entered there were plumes of smoke, the Eternal House had no such thing.
Where fiery veins fed the walls of the House of Shadows, tree roots made up the walls of the Eternal House.
Weaving and winding the trees appeared older than any I’d ever seen, no doubt older than Azmeer itself.
Oz was the first to step over the threshold and turned back to face us, “Who’s next?”
Iona’s expression grew feral. There were plenty of things you could say about Iona, much of it unfavorable, but one thing is that she never looked down from a challenge.
“See you on the other side, sandman.”
Sandman, great, a new nickname.
Iona stepped into the house, and for a moment, nothing happened. Each of us held our breath as she made her way further inside, arms stretching out to see if she could test the limits of the house. In that moment, it responded.
Roots and vines sprang from the walls, grabbing her wrists and ankles, locking her in place.
“Iona!” Oz and I both screamed. I ran inside past Oz in an attempt to get to her, but a barrier of roots blocked our path.
A chilling sound cut through the air. One that made the hair on my neck stand to attention.
“What’s that noise?” I looked back to Oz, who was frozen in place, unsure how to proceed.
It sounded like… laughter. Gods, this house is sentient too, isn’t it?
A smaller branch emerged from the wall, twisting and turning, veering slowly toward Iona’s hand. I heard mumbling as the branch transformed into a wooden dagger, slicing across Iona’s palm.
The room stilled as the vines receded from her, slowly retracting back towards the larger roots of the walls.
When she was released, Iona fell to the floor on all fours before gasping for breath.
“That fucking bitch.” She murmured as I made my way beside her, lowering myself down, placing a hand on her back.
“You’re burning up,” I said. She was unreasonably hot. Court of Shadows members run warm but this was different, like she was the magma in the volcano of Mount Kaiver, Iona felt ready to explode.
“Just give me a minute.”
I looked back at Oz, whose expression was crestfallen. “I’m so sorry, I…I had no idea that would happen.”
Iona rose back to her full height, locked eyes with Oz, and—without a hint of hesitation—turned and marched straight back down the corridor.
She didn’t slow. Didn’t pause. Just grabbed the lapels of his jacket and yanked him down to her, her mouth crashing into his like she had something to prove.
Before I could even blink, Oz was already responding, like he’d been waiting—impatiently—for her to make the first move. His hands found her immediately, pulling her in as if there had never been an alternative.
The kiss was anything but gentle. No softness, no testing—just the complete and utter collapse of whatever fragile restraint they’d been pretending to have for the past month.
Iona’s arms looped around his neck, holding him there, while Oz’s hands slid along her back before he lifted her off the ground.
And then it just… kept going.
They kissed like it was a competition. Like there was a prize at the end of it. Neither of them backing down, neither of them willing to give an inch, like this was less about affection and more about proving a point I wasn’t privy to.
Seconds passed.
“Ahem,” I coughed.
Nothing.
“Ahem,” I tried again, louder. “I’m sorry to interrupt whatever this is,” I gestured vaguely between them, “but we have a job to do.”
That finally did it.
Barely.
Iona was the one to hear me as she placed her hand on Oz’s chest, slowly pulling back her face. Oz appeared awestruck when he finally opened his eyes, like a fawn taking its first steps. He would never be the same again. Dazed, he ran a hand over his head, stumbling before regaining his footing.
“What was that about?” I asked her as Oz made his way ahead of us, leading us to the binding.
“Stone can absorb heat and retain it; did you know that?”
I was sure I did, somewhere in the recesses of my mind. Nodding, I encouraged her to continue. “Sometimes, depending on the rock or the mineral, it can lead to an explosion… There was only one way to find out.”
“And?” I questioned her as we turned down a corridor that led us to the stairs, “Which was it?”
“Boom.”
After a few moments of silence as we descended the stairs, I asked, “Why do you think it didn’t do the same thing to me?” Was it that Iona had been the first to enter? She was used as a warning?
“I think that’s what we’re here to find out.”
“We’re here,” Oz said as we arrived at an ancient-looking door. It blended into the wall, easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. Embedded with roots, branches, twigs. It looked like a forest was growing out of it.
The space was vacuous as we crossed through the doorway, spiraling downward, it looked like the inside of a hive. Compartments cut into the wood, each containing papers, documents, books.
“Where does one even begin to look in here?” Iona asked as we followed Oz.
“I tried to ask a few questions without seeming too interested. I didn't want to give anything away.” He winked back at Iona as I scoffed. “It’s called the binding because what you seek is bound to you in some way. The house just senses what it is you need to know and… finds you? I guess.”
“That’s ominous,” I murmured as I narrowly avoided tripping over a root. It was lighter here than I would have imagined. Even though we’d entered at what some would consider the midway point, the height of The Bind appeared endless.
“It looks to go on forever. Perhaps this is what they mean by the Eternities.” Iona said as she dragged her hand along a passing shelf as we continued our descent.
I wondered. Each court had its own ideas and beliefs as to what happened to their court members after they died.
The Eternal House taught that the soul enters the Eternities, the Court of Shadows believed in the Abyss of Shadows.
Whether or not these places were true or these ideas had truth within them was not for us to say.
We reached the base of the stairs, where there stood a stone podium. “Should we each approach it and see what we’re offered?” Iona gestured to it, and we nodded in kind.
I’ll be lucky if I discover anything here. This wasn’t my house, nor Iona’s. And whatever it was that I wanted, no, needed to know, the House didn’t owe an allegiance to me to provide me with anything.
“I can go first, but it’s unlikely I’ll receive anything. I have… no affiliations to this court. Nor the bitch who’s in charge.” She mumbled, making her way to the center of the room.
It was damp, like the pit of a cellar, its smell of water so unlike the rest of the Eternal House, and what I expected the Eternal Court to be like.
Hidden in the mountains of Hadash, the court was in one of the driest places in Eldara.
Of course, it had not always been that way.
It was rumored to have been plush once, as lush as the areas that surrounded it in the Northern Ridge.
Why everything had disappeared almost overnight, according to some historians, was unknown to us.
Did I know that?
I looked around as I rubbed a hand over my face. No part of me recalled learning that bit of information, but I suppose I had. The Eternal House and its value of history was perhaps toying with me. These houses can be alive. I know that all too well from the House of Shadows.
Iona placed each of her palms down on the stone and waited. A faint sound, a low wind, the shuffling of papers, it echoed down hundreds of feet, but nothing happened.
“Told you,” she shrugged as she made her way to the side. “Your turn.” She said to Oz as he took a step forward.
“Let’s hope for something.” He too placed his palms on the stone; there was no direct reason for it, other than the hope that the magic of the binding would perhaps connect to the magic within us.
Except what magic did any of us wield thus far.
Oz has a gift with words, and I, a lacking ability to utilize broken magic.
Iona was an entirely different conversation.
She’d been coy each time I’d asked her, moving on to different topics.
The noises grew louder now, like a storm brewing a few floors higher. The ground beneath us began to tremble and shake.