Chapter Eleven
Quickly, I duck behind the line of souls and weave my way outside the throne room, but a glance over my shoulder reveals four guard-beings moving my way.
Panicked, I run.
I race down another corridor, fly down a set of nearby stairs. Stars spray across my vision, my pulse a stampede. I trip over the gown I still wear. Slam against corners. Another glance over my shoulder reveals two, three—
Four of them are still after me.
Frantic, I aim toward the corridor in the distance, scattered with souls.
It splits in three directions. I veer left, yanking open the first door I can find.
Jerking it closed behind me, I find myself in a stairwell that leads down a single floor.
I skip several steps as I descend, slowing only once I realize they must not have seen where I went. A relief.
It’s a quiet floor, with tall stone walls and several doors. A few stairwells curving up and down.
I take a moment to catch my breath, leaning against a pillar.
Anton knows I’m in Morta’s Lair. I squeeze my eyes shut, rummaging for excuses, anything I might say in the chance that I’m caught. Perhaps he’ll think I’m dead…
“I see you found your way to the palace after all.”
The voice snakes down my spine. I shudder as I turn, finding Illian there, tattered clothes and all. His smile inches up a degree when I set my eyes upon his face.
He comes toward me.
I step back.
He tilts his head. “I am only here to fulfill my duty to service the palace, you will be pleased to hear.”
“You’re a Shadow,” I say, understanding.
“And you,” he says, “are not an Exalted.”
“No, but I’m not a soul, either.”
It occurs to me then that I don’t know whether a soul can hurt a mortal. Instinctively, I take another step back.
Again he smiles, as if reading my thoughts. “Why would I harm you? With your list of sins, the blood on your hands—mine included—you will end up here with me soon enough.”
My stomach plummets. He isn’t wrong; two men died at my hands. But I can’t let him distract me. “Moranya. How can I find her?”
A shrug. “You cannot.”
“Why?”
“Because none of us knows where she is.”
“The Abyssal, then. Where is it?”
“And why do you want to know?”
I roll my eyes and straighten, poised to walk away, when he says, “There are multiple entrances, all underneath the palace. Doubtful, though, that you will be able to enter.”
“Was this your plan? To lure me here and watch me fail to save him?” He surely knew I wouldn’t be able to find Moranya. “We both know you wouldn’t have brought me here if you thought I had a chance. You want revenge.”
“Since you did the honors of ending my life?” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his loose, tattered pants. “Perhaps. Or maybe I simply missed you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I do wonder how you will get back home, though,” he continues. “And how long you might survive here, for that matter.”
This time, he turns his back on me. But I can’t resist landing a last jab—“I find it amusing that here, you once again have reason to fear him.”
His head whips back, his smile gone.
With that, I leave him behind, shoving the truth of his words in the very back of my mind.
Underneath the palace. That’s where Illian said the Abyssal was, so I do the only logical thing I can think of.
I descend.
The nearest stairwell is a dead end, but blessedly, after passing the kitchens two floors down, followed by many locked doors, I find yet another stairwell, this one nondescript.
I follow it down several stories, dreading the return journey, until finally the steps end before a large, unlabeled archway, the threshold glowing a vibrant, iridescent blue.
It takes me a moment to orient myself, to understand what I’m seeing. It’s almost as if it’s made from the aurora itself—as if I might leap into it and emerge somewhere…else. Then I spot the symbol carved into the arch: an open tome, its pages fluttering with a swirl of flame.
The Abyssal. It must be.
Souls are locked out of this place entirely. And while I have a soul, I am also mortal. Like Anton.
Anton, who can enter.
Warily, I lift a finger to the swirling mass, ready to leap back if it rejects my touch.
Light dissipates in a radius around my hand. Even as I wave it about, strands of cobalt and cerulean twist and vanish.
Perhaps it senses my mortal flesh and thinks I am Anton because of it.
Emboldened now, I step through.
I emerge into an enormous expanse.
The Abyssal is overwhelming—the length of the palace, or beyond even that, tunneling down into the mountain itself.
It feels like another dominion. Another dimension, even.
Stalactites drip from the cavernous ceiling far above, beneath which is a winding, multi-tiered library.
Baubles of blue lights drift about, weightless, bobbing between crystalline trees with branches that twist and curl into and across the many, many codex-lined shelves—tiers of them, some branching into more, others rising into walkways that stretch as far as I can see.
I count ten stories at least, perhaps more.
And the space is split into several sections by a river, bridges arcing over it in crescents.
The whole of the Abyssal looks as though it’s underwater, with its dark atmosphere and wavering lights.
I wait a few breaths to make sure I wasn’t followed before venturing out. I have to move quickly.
But I don’t know how I’m ever going to find anything down here.
Approaching a nearby shelf, I graze my fingers down a line of codices of varying size and textures—some silk and velvet, others leathery, even slimy, though nothing rubs off on my skin.
A shiver pulses through me regardless. And like the ones in the study I hid in, none are labeled, the spines void of words.
Stepping back, I examine the shelf itself, looking for any indication as to how these are organized. Nothing.
With a growl, I grab a few codices, each from a different spot on the shelves, then arrange them in a line on the floor. The birthdates inside are all different, as are the dates of death. To my relief, though, some of the surnames match.
By lineage, then.
Except…that can’t be right. Because while some seem to be gathered into families, crowded along with those are more codices with mismatching surnames, and the farther away, the more they vary. Worse, it isn’t chronological, nor is it arranged alphabetically in any sense.
My head spins. I split another one down the middle, then flip to the end, where the thicker parchment inks sins in red. The very last page has the designated echelon—along with the soul’s lodgings. Dimly, I note that if I find Emilia’s codex, it would be easy to locate her here.
But none of these codices seem to match up when I examine more. Not by status or designated echelon, either, which is also listed plainly.
Then I find a thin, silky codex with only two listed sins. Flipping back to the front, I notice that this codicil has no date of death.
A codex of someone who is still alive.
Frowning, I turn back to the sins, noticing that as I sit here, red is being inked onto the page.
A sin, current and in the making.
Carefully, I tuck the codex back into its spot, gazing wearily at the rest of the Abyssal. There has to be some kind of organization to this place.
To my distress, however, not even the shelves are labeled, and upon selecting another few codices down the row—each varying in color, size, texture, and appearance—I find them much the same.
A gathering of matching surnames, only for those to taper off.
Perhaps it’s still by family somehow—ones that have married into one another.
I push to my knees, only for a rush of dizziness to swirl my line of sight and send me tottering. I wait for it to clear, then drift back into the aisle, but I’m interrupted by a heap of striped fur. The nuzzle of a giant nose, there against my hip. Before I can register it, I hear a voice.
“You know, visitors here tend to lack a pulse.”
I swivel, recognition as swift as the swing of a gavel.
And there Anton is, that emerald gaze pinning me to the spot.