6. Aldrin
I am under attack from all sides. The dim gloom of the cavern flickers as Nightmare beasts charge at me.
I pummel one with a blast of air and it flies away from me, slamming against a stony wall, its huge branching antlers snapping.
The low fae from the Starlight Court has an exposed skull for a face and hands that are nothing but bony claws the length of my forearm, with spikes jutting out of his elbows.
I’m pretty sure his name is Nico.
He falls in a heap of limbs, one foot bent the wrong way.
I almost feel bad. The poor guy is just doing his job.
Then inky tendrils form around all the broken parts of him and I know it won’t be good news for me.
I don’t have a moment to spare to watch the parts of him click back into place, or to examine the way his body will change with his dark magic to keep me on my feet.
I turn just in time to meet a clawed attack from above.
My sword slices across the scaled flesh of the Nightmare’s underbelly as her leathery wings take her in a sharp dive right at my throat.
I shudder as hot blood pours down over me.
Her barbed tail wraps around my legs and pulls them out from under me.
I hit the ground hard and she is on me in seconds, not caring that her entrails are slipping out of the gash I cut in her.
“That. Fucking. Hurt,” Ada lisps out of a reptilian mouth, digging her claws into my shoulders. “Don’t think we are going to spare you because you have a pretty face, king. We will not allow weaklings in our order.”
I bring my legs up and kick her hard in the abdomen, right in the mess of the wound.
She flies off me but I don’t turn toward the crunch of her wings.
A four-legged beast made entirely of twisting obsidian prowls before me, snarling.
To its side, Nico rises from the ground with more spikes littering his body and a second set of clawed arms. Ada pulls herself up with one wing hanging limp and dragging across the floor.
Clawed feet click on the ground as all three converge on me.
I swing my sword in my hand. I can take all three low fae in their Nightmare forms on my own, right? Even if they are famed Assassins of Belladonna. The order seems to attract these Starlight fae the most, even though they take members from all over the realm.
They attack as one. I spin in a clash of steel against claws, deflecting each swipe in a shower of sparks.
My enchanted blade absorbs magic with every impact.
I fall to my knees as the obsidian hound leaps for my throat, then roll out of the way as two of Nico’s taloned hands attempt to catch me.
I slash as I go, and one of his hands falls to the ground with a sickening thump.
My blood races through me. I laugh as I jump to my feet outside their little killing circle.
These big, bad assassins are no match for me.
They turn in unison, the hound the first to lunge at me.
I shoot the creature away with a blast of air that has its body arcing through the void of the cavern.
Then I thrust my sword straight into Ada’s chest right before her tail can wrap around me again.
She lets out a strangled cry as I maneuver the sword still embedded in her to crash her into Nico’s path.
The sound of more flapping wings and bounding paws echoes from one of the side passages. My heart sinks as nervous sweat drips down my spine. By the gods, I will not survive more of them. I know what I have to do, but it will consume all of the magic I have been collecting in my enchanted sword.
The memory of Dante’s voice crashes through my mind.
“Nightmares cannot die. You will not be able to kill them. Not unless you know exactly how to do it. The low fae of the Starlight Court have bodies as fluid as a shadow. You can chop off as much as you want and the matter will return to them.” Then he laughed.
“You, on the other hand, can perish, and they will not hold back.”
“All creatures can die,” I replied. “I have killed Assassins of Belladonna before.”
“Have you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.“Have you really?”
I cannot kill the Nightmares unless I discover a secret truth. They will rise and rise again to attack me through these tunnels, no matter how hard I fight. But I did learn one thing during our travels between courts: they cannot tolerate direct sunlight.
Just as two more low fae charge out of one of the passages, I tear my sword from Ada’s chest and raise it high in the air. I activate the reservoir of raw magic within its enchanted depths. Light explodes out of the blade in its purest form, burning up as bright as the sun.
The enemies around me rear back from the intense radiation of the beam, covering themselves with arms and leathery wings. They screech as they try to flee. As their dark flesh peels from their bodies and turns to clouds of ash.
The brightness of the light burns my eyes and causes tears to roll down my face, but I force them open. I cannot afford to look away.
Many fall in their attempt to run and are unable to get back up as they disintegrate. There is blind fear within their eyes, turned milky white, as they come completely undone. I grimace at the pain I have inflicted. Bile rises up my throat, but I do not stop.
I asked Dante during that conversation if the light of day killed the Nightmares, and he shrugged and said some fates are worse than death.
Looking at the low fae writhing and kicking on the floor, it is clear this is like being burned alive without the relief of death.
I am not proud of inducing such torment, but this is survival.
I will not die here and leave Keira to her fate.
I am prepared to do horrendous things to save my queen.
I extinguish the power radiating from my blade. Such a trick doesn’t work on the high fae of the Starlight Court. It doesn’t make the Nightmares any weaker than them. In many cases the opposite is true.
I turn and race down the path at my back. This is my second trial, and it has a single goal: navigate through this underground tunnel system without dying and steal the relic at its center.
I bring to mind the blueprints Dante brought me to memorize, easily taking turn after turn. The darkness is thick here, and I am forced to light fire orbs to illuminate my way. It puts me at a disadvantage, as the glow announces my approach.
The way opens out to an immense cavern and the sound of rushing water is amplified by a ceiling so high it is lost to inky darkness.
Thousands of tiny waterfalls trickle down the stone walls before meeting a crashing river below.
A gentle light is emitted from each one, as the water itself glows, along with the population of buzzing sprites.
It is beautiful, in an ominous way. I am all too aware of the assassins that could be hiding in the many shadows between the rocky ridges.
I stand upon a wide platform that leads to a narrow stone bridge without rails that spans over the void. Its thin support beams are anchored into the riverbed below, white froth forming around their bases as the rapids crash around them.
I hope to the gods that the bridge is more stable than it looks.
At its end is a single, tall limestone stack with an altar holding a wooden chest. This is where I will find the relic and complete my second trial.
Then my eye catches the movements in the shadows.
Dark forms leap between the inky pockets of the cavern’s jagged rock walls. My blood turns to ice, because they don’t charge and attack. No, they prepare for the kind of ambush I have encountered from them before, when they chased me out of my own court.
I count three assassins, but there could be more.
I do not know how far they will take this trial. If these assassins will do everything in their power to kill me, or if they will merely make the challenge difficult enough to weed out weaklings.
My grip tightens on my sword and I absorb every last drop of raw power left within its reservoir, until my body is overcharged and crackling with magic.
I smile with violent delight as I squat and place a hand on the stone ground, reaching my magic and awareness through each deposit of organic matter until I touch the muddy floor of the river.
I find thick roots of ghost mangroves thriving in the shallow banks.
I pump my earth magic into every single tree I can touch, rapidly thickening their roots and branches.
Growing their trunks and bending them unnaturally until hundreds of woody tentacles climb up the support beams of the bridge, sprouting white leaves as they go.
I curl my fingers and the ghost mangroves interweave over the bridge, forming a thick, woody cage around the entire runway.
This is my protection for what I know will come next.
It is imperfect, but this is the best I can do.
I run out into the mouth of the cavern with only a half-baked plan and a hope that I don’t fucking die.
The hidden high fae assassins leap into action.
A localized rain of pure starlight falls upon me in the form of thousands of tiny needles.
Each one is a miniature bolt of lightning.
Their electricity crackles as they hit the dome of hardened air that I wield as a shield above me.
I throw all of my magic into that single lifeline, building up the layers and repairing cracks as the needles are embedded in it.
Sweat drips down my face from the heat all that electricity creates.
I reach my canopy of mangroves and close up my doorway between branches behind me.
A booming crack resounds as assassins land on its roof, then the entire structure creaks and shakes as they hack at it with swords.
Sparse needles penetrate through the small gaps between the woody network, and the assassins manage to open a couple of small holes.
The last thing I need is for even one of those high fae to drop down onto the bridge and to have to fend off that rain with my air shield. Just a few of those poisoned barbs entering my body could be enough to stop my heart.
I desperately regrow any damage to the fortification as I rush beneath it.
I whip up a dozen woody limbs to swipe at the assassins above and try to catch them in my grasp.
To toss them from the bridge. I work blindly, only able to feel for the vibrations in the mangroves to calculate their position, without a line of sight.
The bastards keep leaping out of my reach.
I run as fast as I can across the long stretch of the bridge. The altar with my prize teases me from the far side and my vision narrows on it. I am ten feet from the limestone pillar when an assassin materializes within the shadows and blocks my path, her indigo robe billowing on a phantom breeze.
I forgot to account for that damned ability.
A dagger flies from her hand. The same one made of pure starlight and poison that turned Drake’s veins black and almost killed him with its toxins.
I fall to my knees and slide across the last stone blocks of the bridge, throwing my back flush against the hard surface.
The blade passes a hand’s span from the tip of my nose.
In the same moment, I crush the walls of tree trunks together to destroy the woman in my path.
They come together in a loud boom, shaking the foundations of the bridge, but when the dust clears, the only part of her that remains is the curling shadows she used to transport herself elsewhere.
I walk through the wall of ghost mangroves, the branches parting just enough to allow me through, and step out onto the limestone pillar.
The moment my hand touches the small chest on the altar, the cavern falls still.
The bright rain of silvery needles stops falling.
The assassins disappear into the shadows.
Not even the growls or clicks of claws from the Nightmares in the dark are discernible.
This sudden ceasefire is the only thing that saves my life. There is no doubt I would not be able to fight them for much longer.
My second trial is complete.
I slowly lift the lid, with no idea of what to expect. This prize is mine to keep. To use to my advantage as an Assassin of Belladonna if I survive all the trials.
There is no magic-imbued weapon inside the velvet-lined interior. No gem powered by the gods to give extraordinary abilities to the wearer. Instead, there are rows upon rows of glass vials packed in neatly together.
I lift one to the dim glow of the many waterfalls and examine the glittery black liquid within; it rolls sluggishly across the glass as I turn it.
Another contains a vibrant yellow powder.
I recognize the contents of the third: dried belladonna seeds.
The next has stacked sheets of flaky orange mushroom preserved in oil.
Poisons.
All of these are poisons.
A horrible realization dawns on me. These vials do not contain enough to fight an enemy.
They aren’t even the potent concentrates for making the tips of blades extra deadly.
No. These poisons are for me to ingest, bit by bit, to increase my tolerance to what they expect will become my deadliest weapon in the future, when they allow me access to such technology.
I place the mushroom vial back into the chest, but before I can grab another, a blue-tinged hand slams the lid shut, narrowly missing my fingers. I glance up at Dante. He stands on the other side of the altar with a smug expression on his face.
“Don’t eat them all at once, Aldrin.”
“Where the fuck did you come from?” I grumble.
He places an arm over my shoulders and leads me back down the bridge, like we are old friends and he hasn’t been setting up trials that attempt to kill me.
“The real question is, how do you like your poison?” he asks. “Baked into a sweet cake? A garnish in a shot of the strongest liquor? Or maybe you’d like it boiled into a tea? I personally chew mine straight. It gives an extra kick to my rotted brain.”
I run a hand down my sweaty face, most likely smearing dust into muddy streaks. Of all today’s challenges, purposely poisoning myself and trusting these people with the dosage might be the hardest one yet. “I don’t know. Do you have a menu?”
Dante’s rich laugh booms through the cavern. “Come. Decide at dinner in the mess hall. You might see a few familiar faces there from your trial.”
I curse under my breath, visualizing the way Nico and Ada’s skin peeled away in strips of ash when I lit up my sword. “They’re not going to try to kill me over the roast vegetables, are they?”
Dante shrugged, letting me go. “It would be considered bad manners, but there is nothing stopping them.”
“Bad manners,” I mutter bitterly as I follow after him.