Chapter 5 #2
A shifting sound behind me makes me freeze. I swing the torch, hand shaking so badly that sparks fly. For the briefest heartbeat, I swear I see two faintly glowing eyes, pale and watchful in the dark. But when I blink, they’re gone.
My heart beats wildly in my chest. With no choice but to move forward, I continue walking slowly.
Every corridor is the same, with fractured archways, leaning walls, and crumbling statues of long-dead fae warriors. Moss slicks the floor, making my boots skid more than once, sending a jolt through my shaking legs. The air reeks of mildew and something fouler, like old smoke and rotting flesh.
I reach a narrow staircase. My hand drags along the clammy wall for balance as I climb, each breath sawing in and out too loud in the silence.
At the top, a corridor stretches, long and dark. I take one step forward. Fire erupts, making me jump back. My elbow scrapes raw against the stone, barely clearing the blast.
The fire abruptly stops, but I don’t dare to move yet. I crouch low, gasping, waiting, and counting. Another blast of fire. One breath. Two. Three. The fire cuts off.
Without thinking, I just run.
I sprint, boots hammering against the stone, lungs burning as the flame erupts again behind me.
Heat licks at my back, searing. I stumble and roll, shoulder screaming as it grinds against jagged stone.
My dagger falls from my hand. I scramble after it with shaking fingers, just barely closing around the hilt.
Another turn. Another blast. This one catches my side, heat biting deep into skin. I choke back a cry. I make a silent vow that when I get out of this, I’m kicking both Calder and Alistair’s asses. Twice.
The only way forward is a ladder that juts from the ceiling at the end of the corridor. My hands slip on the rungs, slick with blood and sweat. My arms scream with every pull.
I drag myself onto the ledge above. Something lunges at me, causing the torchlight to die out as it hits the ground.
A fanged gloomstalker slams into me, shrieking, teeth flashing. Its weight drives me back. I barely get the dagger up in time. Sparks hiss as its teeth snap against steel.
Its hunched, scaly body is small—less than half my size. It has bat-like, leathery wings, pointed ears, and sharp teeth.
My boots skid against stone. I kick wildly. One connects, making the gloomstalker skid back. I don’t even get time to breathe before it springs again.
This time, its teeth sink into my side. White-hot pain explodes as a strangled cry tears out of me. I slam my fist into its head, kicking again harder. It stumbles, screeches, and lunges yet again. I don’t think . I don’t breathe. I just rush forward, driving the dagger straight into its chest.
The shriek it makes rips through my ears like glass. Then, it collapses, limp and twitching.
I stand frozen, chest heaving, blood running warm down my ribs. My legs buckle, and I drop against the wall. With shaking hands, I tear strips of my shirt off. Wrapping the wound is clumsy, every tug sending spikes of pain through me.
Not good enough. I doubt it will hold, but it’s all I have.
I lean my head back against the wall, my breaths coming in uneven gasps. I turn my head, scanning the chamber I’ve stumbled into. It’s lined with coffins, cracked open, with glowing white flowers curling around the stone lids like fingers. The air here feels wrong. Colder.
A lever juts from the floor. It feels too obvious, but what else can I do?
I stand slowly, a wave of dizziness crashing over me.
My hand shoots out to steady myself against the wall.
I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths.
When the dizziness subsides, I take a few steps toward the lever and pull it.
I spin in a slow circle. Nothing. Just silence.
Maybe it opened something below? Or…maybe it just woke something worse.
Gods, please don’t let it be the latter.
I retrace my steps, each movement agony, dread clawing tighter with every breath.
When I reach the fire corridor again, bile rises in my throat.
I wait, but the fire doesn’t come. Instead, the ceiling ahead gives a low groan, then a chunk of stone crashes down.
Dust clouds erupt, choking and blinding me. I stumble, coughing, blinking tears.
A hidden door appears, cracking open. I shove it open the rest of the way, wary, and step into a chamber with a sunken floor.
Above, an opening shows the open sky. I freeze, staring upward, imagining what it would be like to climb out that way, to be free.
But the walls curve smooth and sheer, impossible to scale.
A pedestal stands at the center, silent and ominous.
My magic stirs, jagged golden lines racing up my arms and neck, shining brightly in a way it never has before.
Panic claws at my chest, rising too fast, too thick.
I stagger back. Light blooms from my fingertips, curling outward across the stone like liquid, tendrils of light racing ahead toward the pedestal as though it knows the way.
My breath hitches, and my eyes widen in disbelief.
The pedestal responds instantly. Cracks spread across its surface, glowing. The stone splits, revealing spiral stairs descending into shadow. My heart slams against my ribs as I stare at my shaking hands, the faint glow still clinging to them.
Magic. My magic. Alive and moving without my command, like it remembers something I cannot.
Without warning, a memory flickers of a field of violet flowers. I hear a woman’s laugh, warm and strangely familiar. It's gone as quickly as it came.
I grit my teeth. With no time to question it, I descend the stairs.
At the bottom, a vast chamber yawns open, lined with towering pillars. Winged statues with grotesque faces twisted in frozen snarls stand on each side, clutching stone blades. Gloomstalkers, maybe. But not like the fanged one. These are bigger. Worse.
I move past them slowly and carefully. The silence weighs down on me.
Scratch.
I freeze. Holding my breath, I spin.
When I don’t see anything, I take another step.
Scratch.
Spinning around again, I see a statue’s head twist, just slightly, before it stills.
My stomach drops.
“Nope,” I whisper hoarsely, backing away.
I turn and run.
The corridor twists, becoming narrow and suffocating. My chest tightens with every step until I crash straight into a skeleton draped in tattered robes, a staff clutched in its bony hands. Its empty eye sockets flare green.
I don’t get a warning before lightning explodes from the staff, slamming into the wall beside me. Shards of stone explode outward, slicing into my arm.
I stumble in searing pain, heart thundering. The skeleton moves fast, staff raised again.
I swing my dagger wildly, but the skeleton catches the blade, yanking me forward.
—CRACK—
Another blast slams into the ceiling above. I dive, skidding hard across stone. My lungs burn; my side screams. I don’t know how much more I can take before my body gives out completely.
Another skeleton shuffles into the chamber. Then another.
Too many. Too fast.
Desperation takes over. My hands fly up.
Gold lines shine on my skin again, running up the length of my arms and neck.
A burst of golden light lashes out, striking one skeleton square in the chest. Bone shatters, smoke curling up.
Another moves in, but I’m too slow. I take the hit, agony burning through my ribs, but I use the pain to force the magic out harder.
The light lashes like a whip, snapping more bone to dust.
They keep coming. Unrelenting.
Every breath I drag in feels like shards of glass in my lungs. My body is failing, becoming heavy and slow. But my magic is wild, alive, tearing through me like it knows what to do, even if I don’t.
The last skeleton charges, staff raised. I roar, dragging everything left in me into one burst.
Light explodes, wrapping me in a cocoon before bursting outward.
Bones shatter. Ash falls. Then a silence follows.
I stand swaying, scorched and bleeding, vision swimming.
A doorway creaks open ahead.
I stagger forward, body half-dead, but alive.
Barely. Not heroic. Definitely not graceful.
But alive, at least. That’s when I hear it.
The scraping sound of the gloomstalker statues dragging themselves across the ground behind me.
I glance over my shoulder, heart hammering.
The statues are perfectly still. Watching and waiting.
I keep moving. When I turn my eyes forward, the scraping begins again.