26. A Way Up
Chapter twenty-six
A Way Up
Ione
"Delilah says there is an electrical power source in the bottom of the fortress." Luciara states. "Rose and Chronomir?"
"Of course," The Primordial sighs. "Come, my darling." His cane turns into a sword, and Chronomir moves his hair away from the wizened side of his face. "Don't take long." He and Rose are dash across the snow towards the back of the fortress.
"Delilah and I will take 2 wolves and make our way towards the top." Luciara continues. "There are 10 floors."
"He's at the top." Athanasius shifts me in his arms. "He won't keep the staff far from him." Looking down at Caspian, Athanasius nods at him. "Keep up."
"You don't have to tell me anything, boss man." Caspian winks at Moireth. "Stay safe until I get back?"
"Please," Moireth turns to the four wolves beside her. "Shall we?" She takes off like a blur with the wolves fast behind her.
"What about us?" I ask, the mage has left the top of the fortress, and the wind is starting to pick up again.
"I'll get us in as far as I can." Athanasius sighs. "Stay close to me, both of you."
One moment, I was in Athanasius’s arms, the cold comfort of his presence anchoring me to something real.
The next—he dissolved. He could have given me a warning or something, but nope, snatched into darkness.
Like smoke in wind, he unraveled beneath me, his body thinning into shadow, until I was falling into nothingness.
Darkness swallowed me whole. No sound. No ground. No breath.
The silence was absolute. The cold, total.
Remind me, when this is over, to kick his ass for all this shit he sprung on me.
He made it seem so simple, so easy. No. I couldn't hear my own heartbeat.
Couldn't feel my fingers, or limbs, or anything but the suffocating void that clamped over me like a shroud.
I screamed—I think I did—but nothing came out.
I was unmade. A thought without form. A woman without flesh.
Just when I thought the black would crush me entirely, the world exploded.
Light. Sound. Color. Motion. Blazing, alive chaos.
I gasped in air like it was fire. My vision spun.
Wolves—massive and snarling—tore through figures with skin like marble fractured by ink, black and white in mottled patches, like something that didn’t belong to this time or any other.
Their armor clashed—Victorian buttons, modern boots, medieval steel. Soldiers from nightmares.
And in the heart of it all, Moireth danced. Her twin daggers sang as they carved, slicing through flesh and bone with feral grace. One blade caught the edge of a soldier's throat; the other slashed his thigh, and he fell twitching as the wolves lunged, dragging him away.
Athanasius reformed at my side, solid and cold again. He set me gently to the ground. “We’re on the sixth floor,” he said, as if we’d just stepped off an elevator.
I didn’t have time to ask what that meant.
One of the black-and-white horrors lunged toward Caspian.
He barely flinched—bow already drawn. The arrow shot straight into the creature’s mouth.
The thing flew backward, crashing into another soldier before both burst into a cascade of shimmering shadow.
“Call me Legolas.” Caspian quipped, grinning as he pulled another arrow from the quiver.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything they were doing.
I was useless. Oh right, I was the only one who could touch the staff.
But I wasn't the person who could turn on a time and stab, or shoot an arrow into an open mouth.
It was like the scene on LOTR when the fellowship entered the mines of Moria.
Athanasius dissolved again, but this time his shadows wrapped around me—familiar, cold tendrils coiling over my skin. “We need to move up the stairs.” We ran—if I could call it that. More like stumbling forward, barely catching myself as the building shook.
More soldiers. Blocking our path. Athanasius surged forward, his shadows exploding outward like a living storm.
He looked like a wave crashing on them. It was then that I see the torment that those before me have witnessed.
Where once those tendrils had gently brushed my face, now they were weapons.
They ripped through flesh like paper. One soldier’s head twisted in a sickening crunch, flung aside like a doll’s.
Another’s spine snapped as Athanasius’s shadow slammed him against the ceiling before dragging him down through the floorboards, screaming.
I pressed myself to the wall, every nerve in my body screaming run, but I followed. He left me for seconds at a time—long enough to eviscerate, decapitate, dismember. His rage was art, his shadows a bladed symphony.
A soldier broke through the chaos, his eyes empty, his blade raised—shock rolled through my system as I realized it was looking at me and headed for me.
Then Caspian was there. He drove his dagger into the thing’s belly.
Usually, on movies people are all in shock when they get stabbed the stomach, they grab the blade and try to force it out.
No, this thing screamed, and the smell. It was like hot ass, a garbage can in New York summer with sewage water, mixed with the smell of a two-dollar hooker.
Hot entrails spilled out, slick and steaming at my feet.
The smell hit me like a punch and no, I couldn't contain it. I doubled over, retching on the stone.
“Just imagine spaghetti,” Caspian said cheerfully, shoving a dagger into my trembling hands. “Slash first. Aim for somewhere squishy.”
I stared at the blade, my stomach twisting again.
He winked. “And hey—try not to die. It’s way less fun that way.”
Athanasius snorted, moving me away from the entrails. Using the back of his hand, he wiped my mouth. "Rabbit, please, that's disgusting."
My stomach rolls again as he drags me away. "Athy, I'm going to faint, I swear it." My legs wobble under me.
I want to be dramatic at this moment, but there's too much commotion going on and I can't concentrate on my theatrics. Athanasius hoists me up, quickly running up a flight of stairs. "Well don't do it right now, woman, there are pressing matters around us."
Rude. I'm not going to faint, but he could at least show some consideration. "Seventh floor?" I ask, as he sets me down again.
"Yes," Athanasius scans the area as Caspian brings up the rear. "Hide here." He pushes me next to a tall cabinet. "Do not move." The cold press of his hand brushes my cheek. “No matter what.”
He was gone before I could protest, melting into darkness.
I crouched there, my heart hammering, barely daring to breathe as the battle continued to erupt in the room beyond.
Now, Caspian is a handsome man. I can't remember what movie it was, some Spartan or Roman movie, and the main character was fighting.
He was hot as hell and moved like poetry—fluid, precise, deadly.
That was Caspian right now. A smug little smile on his face the entire time.
His bow sang, each arrow finding its mark with a brutal elegance: throat, eye socket, sternum.
When they got too close, he danced backward, flipped his dagger with a flourish, and drove it home with a wink and a grin like he was enjoying a particularly competitive board game.
Athanasius was something else entirely. A force.
A storm. His shadows lashed through the enemy like whips, carving through flesh with terrifying grace.
He was both everywhere and nowhere, slipping between form and shadow, ripping them apart with such cold, efficient violence that I almost felt sorry for the soldiers.
Almost. From my hiding place, I watched them fight—and taunt each other.
"Five," Caspian called, notching another arrow. "Six if you count the one that tripped on his own sword."
Athanasius appeared behind a soldier and casually bisected him. “I count only worthy kills, archer.”
“Oh please,” Caspian scoffed. “You practically seduced that one to death.”
Athanasius turned, dark tendrils catching a third by the ankles and slamming him into a wall. “Jealousy doesn't suit you.”
“Neither does humility,” Caspian muttered, loosing another arrow. "Seven."
They were laughing. In the middle of this chaos—laughing.
Then Athanasius returned to me, eyes cold but gentle as he helped me up. “Ninth floor,” he said.
We ascended.
I barely had time to find my footing before the next wave hit.
Screams. Steel. Bone cracking under pressure.
I ducked behind a fractured pillar, trying to stay small, invisible, useful, when the air...
changed. It started as a hum, then bloomed into a blinding, all-consuming white light that drowned out everything—the noise, the violence, the world. Time slowed. And he stepped forward.
The mage.
He emerged like a dream, tall and statuesque, all lithe muscle and effortless poise.
His skin gleamed, flawless. His shoulders were broad, swimmer-cut.
His black shirt billowed dramatically with every step, tucked into perfectly fitted slacks that should’ve been illegal.
His boots clicked softly on the floor, deliberate and unhurried.
The man was sex on legs, a model of the finest proportions, and nothing of what I thought he supposed to look like. This felt wrong.
His hair—deep purple, shaggy in the back, short on top—framed a face that felt like it had been painted by the gods on a good day. Green and lavender eyes shimmered beneath sculpted brows. He smiled.
Squidward screamed in my head, speaking for me. Oh no. He's hot.
Ok, I have to think of something else. Where's Athanasius and Caspian? Concentrate, Ione. Think of him naked—Even worse!
He didn’t speak. Not aloud. His voice reverberated in my skull, making me feel dizzy. “Do you really think he’s telling you the truth?”
His voice flooded my mind like warm honey and velvet. Deep. Melodic. Too smooth to be real. Everything around him slowed to a crawl—Caspian’s arrows hanging mid-air, Athanasius mid-strike, like someone had hit pause on the world.
“He’s a primordial,” the mage purred. “With a human. How much could he possibly need you? Aside from fucking you when he gets the chance?”
I flinched. “You’re trying to trick me.”
His mouth curled into a sneer. "Am I?” he whispered, stepping closer. “You probably offer yourself to him whenever you can." He holds up his hands. " I’m trying not to judge.”
My face burned with fury and shame. “Shut up—”
“I can explain. Even better—” he extended a hand toward me, those long fingers so deceptively gentle, so inviting. “I can show you why they belong bound. Why he’s the lie.”
My feet moved without permission.
Something in me wanted to believe him. To hear the rest. To follow. He could prove it. Prove he was innocent. That Athanasius had twisted the truth. That I had been the fool.
His voice whispered directly into my bones. “Come with me, Ione.”
I stepped forward. Something was pulling me towards him. He was right. I could trust him.
Then Caspian tackled me. We hit the ground hard, and I barely noticed the pain because I was gasping, reeling from how close I’d come to stepping off into nothing.
Caspian holds me tight. “You were going to walk off the edge, what the hell was that?”
“A mage,” I stammer, my vision still swimming. “He—he spoke to me. He said he could show me—he said Athanasius was lying.”
Athanasius appears beside us in a blur, pulling me to him, scanning me for damage. “I told you to stay put.”
His hands feel familiar. My heart starts to calm down, as I lean into him. “I did! He found me!”
Caspian is already drawing another arrow. “He’s lying. Whatever that was, it’s not real. It’s bait.”
My fingers curl around the dagger Caspian gave me, still slick with someone else’s blood. My stomach turns again.
“We have to go,” Athanasius says. His voice is clipped now, harder than before. “The last floor waits.”
And as we began to climb, I couldn’t stop thinking about what that mage said, how he said he could show me. How? A sliver of doubt crept into my heart. Why did his voice feel so true?