Chapter 1 #2
“Wait…” This was usually where things got interesting. I tugged a loose stone from the cave wall and rolled it down. As soon as the stone hit the fifth step, sharp iron spikes shot from the narrow walls. They retreated as abruptly as they’d sliced through the cramped space.
“Well, that’d have hurt…” Fenris mused with a shiver.
I pulled out another stone and aimed it at the sixth step. Nothing. Another at the seventh, and the spikes returned. Another at the eighth—nothing. The spikes triggered on the ninth and tenth steps. I repeated my method until we’d mapped our descent.
“After you,” I teased Fen.
He chuckled a dark laugh. “Oh, now you’re okay with me leading?”
I smirked and nodded. “Avoid the fifth, seventh, ninth, and tenth steps. And maybe don’t touch the walls. Just… in case.”
I matched his steps into the cave’s depths, and the hairs on my neck stood as we entered the tomb. I’d never been above stealing from the dead, but something about this room’s energy prickled at my skin.
The glistening ceiling was at least fifty feet high. Phynnic passages of remembrance covered the stone walls. I recognized the looping script from the ancient tomes in Krait’s library.
At the center of the cavern, there was a bronze coffin, grand in both size and design, fit for the Phynnic Princess of twelve centuries ago.
I grimaced, spotting skeletal remains wrapped in cobwebs. The person had fallen with their torso across the coffin, arms outstretched—a peculiar position that made me think of worship or mourning. Or both.
A chill ran up my arms.
“Maybe don’t touch the tomb itself,” I mused. “Wouldn’t want to end up like him.”
“Never did I think we’d be grave robbing together,” Fen said too merrily as he stepped around the underground room, flame still lit, affording us limited visibility.
A single beam of sunlight landed on the bronze coffin, where a flat golden stone with an intricate sun symbol, had been soldered into its surface. Under the light, a quote in script adorned the tomb.
“What does it say?” I asked.
Growing up in Brennax, I’d never learned the old texts of Phynx.
Fen had traveled the realms in his hundred years spent working among the old-world courts. By the time I was born, the languages had already converged into something new.
He moved his flame above the writing. “‘May this reflect for those who need the rays of Astros’ eternal projection.’”
We both looked up to find the light source.
High above our heads, something in the far-right corner reflected down from an opening in the cave’s ceiling. Like a magpie drawn to shiny trinkets, I needed to know what it was.
“There’s a ripped page dropped here,” Fen said.
“Uh-huh,” I said, still fixated on the object.
“It seems to be about a sleeping Princess,” he mused.
I inched closer to the cave’s corner, head tilted back. “Mm-hmm.”
The buzzing sensation of having found something extraordinary overcame me.
“You’re not listening, are you?” he grumbled.
I felt in my bones that we needed to retrieve the object.
Wind lifted the hair off my shoulders.
“How is your climbing?” I asked.
Fen shrugged. “Rather shit.”
“Well, then I’m going up alone. Cover me.”
He straightened. “Elsedora.”
“Don’t Elsedora me—we have work to do.” I scanned the ceiling, catching glimpses of bronze in the corners, but all looked still.
“There are likely more traps. This seems too easy.”
Obviously.
I rubbed my palms against the worn suede of my breeches and fixated on the reflective artifact. Power sang in my veins, and my Wind urged me forward.
“I’m counting on it,” I said as I searched for the best path up. Finding a groove in the cave walls, I began my ascent.
Fen paced with fire lit in both palms now, awaiting whatever threat we both knew would come.
I hoisted myself up further. All remained quiet, save for the sound of droplets hitting puddles below, my groans of effort, and the scuff of my boots against stone.
I scaled the wall quickly, nearing my coveted item. A handheld mirror, rimmed in blackened brass, seemed charmed to hang midair and reflect the sunlight downward.
Reaching out, my fingers brushed against its frame, but it was just out of reach.
“Create wind,” Fenris instructed.
I grunted in response, one hand clutching the wall and the other compelling the stale air to move the mirror toward me.
As soon as it swung, casting the sunlight off course from the coffin, a glimmer of bronze moved in the corner of my eye.
“Watch out!” Fenris yelled as flames hit whatever approached from my right. A burning metallic spider, large as a wolf, hit the ground with a horrifying crunch.
The arachnid writhed, but returned upright with its legs still aflame. More creeping opponents descended from their glistening gilded webs in droves.
Great. Spiders.
The mirror swung toward me, and I grabbed it just before a pair of fangs snapped through the air, narrowly missing my hand.
I flung myself against the wall with a squeal and a thud, cradling the mirror before pushing it into my belt loop. Fragments of stone crumbled away beneath my fingertips, loosening my grip.
Flames skated past my head as Fenris took down the spider above me, and it fell with another horrid crunch upon impact. More nightmarish chattering surrounded me; my greatest foes had me cornered. It took both hands to clutch the decaying wall, and I didn’t have a way to reach for my daggers.
They crawled out from every crevice of the cave—filling the space with snapping and screeching. Fen wouldn’t be able to burn them all.
I needed to jump.
Cassidee had taught me how to use my Wind Source power to my advantage; we had yet to cover how to use it to break a fall. I could only hope the thrill of the chase aided me. I would not be spider food.
“Coming down!” I warned Fen as my gruesome opponents grew too close for comfort.
“Elsie!” he yelled, clearly unhappy with my decision.
Too late.
I’d already pushed off from the wall with all my strength, and gravity had taken hold. I plummeted with outstretched arms, toward the hard ground with the chattering of fangs behind me.
Willing the Wind into my palms, I braced for broken bones.
Just before I met a painful landing, a gust kicked up below me, and spatters of mud from the puddles coated my face. The air caught my body, cradling it before I landed knees and palms first, with no injury beyond some bruising.
“Thank you, Siro,” I gasped as Fen yanked me upright by an elbow.
“You alright?”
The spiders descended from webs, and I fought every urge to scream.
“Yes. Let’s go!” We ran for the mouth of the cave. I stumbled, nearly forgetting to avoid the lethal steps. Fenris shot flames behind us to deter the chasing creatures.
My blood ran cold as we barreled up the last steps and threw ourselves out of the cave.
“Close it, close it, close it!” I yelled as Fenris stretched a palm toward the opening.
He rapidly shouted a Phynnic spell, and the rocks melded together.
One of the spider’s legs reached out toward us, caught between the closing walls of stone. The leg writhed for only a moment before falling limp.
I stumbled to my knees. “Why did it have to be spiders?” I groaned as Fenris heaved out a breath and put his hands on his hips, tipping forward.
“That was far too close. I understand why Krait gripes about you doing this alone.”
Ignoring his worry, I retrieved the mirror from my leather belt where I’d secured it. Flipping it over, I sighed with relief to find the glass unbroken.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A mirror, but I can’t see any reflection in it at all. It’s just black…”
Fenris straightened and looked at the dark pane. “Think it’s one of Isolde’s relics?”
Running my fingertips over the smooth obsidian surface, I shook my head. “I’m not sure… but we should get it back to Luz.”
A lump grew in my throat.
Luz had never been home for me. I avoided it as much as I could, though it was becoming harder now with wanting to see Larkspur, Sybilla and Krait’s daughter, grow up.
“Don’t look so excited,” he chided.
I’d let it slip over a bottle of wine that I hated staying in the palace. Telling Fen had felt like a betrayal to Sybilla and Krait, who welcomed me as family.
Facing Ryn’s bronze face at the door each time chipped away at me, but I’d never told them.
“Well, this seems as good a time as any. I have an idea to run past you about the orchard.” Fen combed a hand through his hair as he mentioned our childhood home.
I quirked a brow. “Near-death experience got you sentimental?”
He huffed a laugh. “I’d like to turn the deed over to you. Sybilla mentioned you enjoy spending time there.”
Stiffening, I tightened my grip around the mirror’s handle.
Leave it to my dear friend to be nosy about my whereabouts.
Since my Source power emerged, I’d gotten better at shielding myself from her prying mind, but she must have seen that the Lamoreaux Estate had become my escape from matters of the courts and my duties within them.
There, among the ever-plum orchards, I found peace in memories that were often bittersweet. The grounds helped me face my darkest moments in the solitude I needed.
Unbeknownst to most, I’d renovated the quarters above the stables to stay in.
It was the only stone structure that had remained sound through the centuries.
I’d found, tucked away there, artifacts of a life I’d once lived—my father’s beloved pocket watch, an old rocking horse I’d played on as child, a few quilts that smelled dusty now but still elicited the memory of warmed plum cider tickling my nose.
“Why me? You and Asterie could build a nice life there.”
My brother and his betrothed deserved a place to call home.
“I’m unsure there will be a time when we settle anywhere outside of Luz. Asterie wants to travel. I thought you’d care for the place better.”
My chest tightened, and I admitted, “I’d like that. I’ve already refurbished the flat above the stables—it is where I stay when I don’t come back to Luz.”
Or when the warmth of someone’s bed did not help me forget. There were some things a good tryst couldn’t solve or erase.
But Fen didn’t need to know that.
He offered me a weak smile. “Well, it’s settled. Lamoreaux is yours. I’ll make the arrangements.”
Swallowing hard, I stared at my brother. His eyes crinkled at the sides with fondness.
Reconnecting with him so late in life sometimes proved awkward.
Beneath his gaze, I often felt like the flighty seventeen-year-old girl with aimless aspirations that he’d left behind.
I was growing more steadfast and committed to a direction each year.
For the first time, he faced a new version of me.
Having a place of my own as sacred to my family as Lamoreaux? That sort of gift overwhelmed me.
“You look like you’re about to hug me. So let’s go,” he said. Before he could step away, I flung my arms around his middle. He grunted in protest before embracing me. “You’re crushing me.”
Tears threatened as I released him.
He glanced down at where mud now coated his tunic, too. “Look what you’ve gone and done.”
“There will always be a room for you and Asterie there, though. It is your home, too.”
He shrugged. “I’ve got a promise to fulfill. I told my betrothed that I’d show her every crevice of this realm before we settle anywhere. You have a good century before we come knocking.”
“I don’t want to hear about the crevices you’re showing her, Fen.”
His snort cut through the sentimentality of the moment, and we made our way back to the Egress to see our royal friends in Luz.