But she’d worry about the Wylie and Maruca problem later. If her lecture from Bronte and Oralie had taught her anything that morning, it was that she had to keep her mind focused on the most pressing worry in each moment. And given that they were currently making a rather disgusting journey to have a meeting she definitely didn’t feel prepared for, she needed to concentrate on figuring out what she was going to say to King Enki.
“I gotta admit,” she said as the sludgy brown goop reached her chest, covering the silver moonlight clasp pinning her golden sunlight cape. “I don’t really get why you made us wear all of our fancy Regent accessories if you knew we’d be mud monsters by the time we got there.”
“The mud completes the ensemble,” Grady teased, winking at her from near the center of the swampy pool, where he stood shoulder-deep, waiting for everyone to catch up to him.
“Or maybe I’ll lose the stupid circlet when I get sucked under,” Sophie muttered under her breath.
That might make the slimy experience worth it.
She’d made her team wear the glowing starlight crowns again, since it seemed like the most fitting choice for a visit to an underground city. But she’d felt a whole lot more like a silly little girl playing dress-up once she’d slipped it on.
“Feel free to hurry it up, guys!” Dex called from where he now stood beside Grady, the mud up to his chin—and creeping higher.
“Ah, but we can’t,” Bronte told him. “Because your intrepid leader is allowing one of your teammates to fall behind.”
Sophie glanced over her shoulder, scowling when she found Stina still where they’d left her—and she really wished she’d noticed before Bronte had to point it out.
“It’s just mud, Stina!” Sophie said, rolling her eyes as she turned around to face her. “You can shower it off later.”
“Yeah, well maybe I don’t want to shower it off later,” Stina argued, backing farther away from the sludge. “I think I’ll just wait here with Sandor.”
“Not an option,” Sophie told her, trying to think like a leader.
The Council had put Stina in Team Valiant for a reason. She was also their only Empath. And she knew lots about magsidian and shadowflux thanks to meeting with Lady Zillah.
“You have two choices,” Sophie decided, placing her hands on her hips—even though most of her torso was under the mud, so the effect was somewhat muted. “You can wade in now on your own. Or I can have Sandor pick you up and toss you in.”
“Everyone votes for option B, right?” Dex asked.
The chorus of “yes” was definitely unanimous.
“I hate all of you,” Stina informed them as Sandor stalked toward her with a smile that looked downright gleeful. “Fine. I’ll do it on my own—back off!”
She moved to the edge of the mud again.
And then she just stood there.
“Ten seconds,” Sophie warned. “Then it’s Sandor dunk time! Ten… nine… eight…”
Biana, Dex, and Wylie joined in the countdown as Stina made a noise that was part growl, part moaning whale.
“Four… three…”
Stina muttered a string of words that would’ve made Ro proud.
Then she shuffled into the mud, trying to move slowly and carefully. But two steps in, she lost her footing and…
SPLASH!
“For the record,” Dex said as Stina burst back to the surface looking like a sludge beast and screaming like a banshee, “this might be the greatest moment of my life.”
“Oh yeah?” Stina asked, scraping her muddy curls off her face and running toward Dex with pretty impressive speed, despite the resistance caused by the muck.
“Better?” Sophie asked Bronte as Dex received a thorough Stina-dunking and Biana scrambled over and tackled her.
“Not quite what I’d imagined,” Bronte noted, dodging several splats of flying mud. “But I suppose the method was still effective.”
“It was,” Sophie agreed.
“I have no doubt that you can be an excellent leader, Miss Foster,” Bronte told her, his voice a bit quieter. “You just need to believe that and truly commit.”
It wasn’t much of a compliment—but coming from Bronte, it was pretty huge.
“I’m trying,” she promised, not sure if he could hear her over all the squealing and slopping and squishing sounds.
Stina, Biana, and Dex had dunked each other so many times, it was now impossible to tell their muddy forms apart.
“Is there a certain place where we’re supposed to let the force drag us under?” Sophie asked Bronte. She’d been assuming it would happen naturally once their heads were covered. But Dex, Biana, and Stina were now muddy from head to toe and were still at the surface.
“Once you reach the exact middle of the pool,” Nubiti explained, popping out of the sand again, “you’ll want to close your mouth and eyes and surrender to gravity. We will do the rest.”
The “we” in that statement felt strangely ominous.…
“I’m assuming there’s a trick for how we breathe once we have to stay under?” Wylie asked Nubiti.
“No secret,” Bronte told him. “Just hold your breath. And trust the trap.”
Sophie winced at the familiar words.
She’d been given the same instructions the day that she and Alden sank into Exile—and considering how horribly that trip went, she had to remind herself that this time would be different.
This time they weren’t going to the planet’s most secure prison to meet with a murderous Pyrokinetic.
And she wouldn’t be performing any horrible memory breaks—nor would there be any surprise mental breakdowns or shattering consciousnesses.
Her abilities were also working properly this time.
Well… mostly.
“Do you not want to do this?” Grady asked, probably misunderstanding why her lips had dipped into a frown. “You don’t have to.”
“Uh, yes she does!” the blobby brown creature who sounded like Stina insisted as it stalked toward Sophie—but the other two mud monsters dragged her back, even after Stina latched on to Wylie, taking him with her as the four of them became a tangle of thrashing limbs and flying mud in the center of the mud pool.
“See you on the other side!” Biana’s voice shouted from among the chaos, and Dex added, “TEAM VALIANT FOR THE WIN!” Then there were sharp intakes of breath and some strange gurgling sounds as all four teammates sank under the muck.
“They’re going to make quite the entrance into Loamnore,” Grady said—his smile fading when Sophie barely laughed. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Of course.” She waved a muddy arm at all the grossness around her. “How could I not be?” But the joke clearly wasn’t going to fly as an answer. So she admitted, “I’m just… nervous. I meant to do more research before we came here, but there’s been so much going on that this visit snuck up on me.”
She glanced at Bronte, wondering if he’d call her out for focusing too much on finding her biological parents. But he was studiously examining his muddy fingernails.
Grady waded closer to Sophie, draping a muddy arm around her shoulders. “I’ll let you in on a secret, kiddo. You could’ve spent the last week rehearsing for this visit every single day and you’d still be nervous—and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m nervous, and I’ve been to Loamnore numerous times! These kinds of assignments are intimidating. So don’t be too hard on yourself, okay? You’re doing great.” He kissed her cheek, leaving a muddy chin print on her neck as he whispered, “And remember, you have lots of backup. Your friends may be goofballs, but they’re also talented and fearless. And you know I’ll never let anything bad happen to you.”
“Thanks,” Sophie told him, spinning to pull him into a real hug. “Guess we should probably catch up with the others, huh?”
“I’m pretty sure if we don’t, they’ll find a way to destroy something,” Grady agreed.
Sophie had assumed that Bronte would go next, but he held back,
so Grady went, telling her, “Point your toes when it’s your turn—it’ll make it go faster. And keep your mouth closed—trust me on that.”
“I will,” she promised, pressing her lips together to prove it.
Then Grady was gone—sucked down the mudhole, leaving Sophie alone with Bronte, and she straightened up, bracing for another lecture.
“Remember what I told you about King Enki,” he said as she followed him to the center of the muddy pool.
Bronte and Oralie had given Sophie a lengthy lesson that morning, once she’d showered and changed, going over all kinds of tedious protocols.
When to bow.
Where to look—and where to not look.
Proper responses to various phrases the king might say.
The importance of using titles—and having good posture.
But above all, they’d emphasized two things.
Authority and confidence.
She needed to display an abundance of both if she wanted the king to take her seriously.
And Sophie had been feeling pretty daunted by all of that back when she had freshly styled hair and a ton of glittering diamonds on her tunic.
She wasn’t sure how to pull it off as Lady Mud Monster.
But… she’d find a way.
“Are you ready?” Bronte asked.
Sophie tried to mean it when she nodded. But she had to add, “I’ll try not to mess anything up.”
“A worthy goal,” Bronte told her. “But I think you should aim higher. I meant what I said earlier. I have no doubt that you’ll be an incredible leader if you stop second-guessing yourself and commit.”
Sophie looked away, not sure what to do with the compliment besides mumble a quick “thanks.”
He nodded and stepped into position. But before the mud dragged him under, he cleared his throat and added, “For the record, Miss Foster, now that it’s just you and me—or I suppose I should say you, me, and your bodyguards—I… may not be your biological father, nor have I ever wanted to involve myself in that kind of experiment. But… if you were my daughter, I’d be very proud.”
His head disappeared into the sludge as he finished the last word, leaving Sophie staring at the mucky air bubbles he’d left behind, wondering if she’d imagined what he’d said—and trying to figure out what to do with that information if she hadn’t.
The shock stayed with her as she stumbled to the center and pointed her toes, her mind barely registering the slight tug on her ankles as the muck dragged her down, down, down, much farther than she’d been expecting.
And yet, she felt nothing.
Thought nothing.
Just held her breath and sank through the darkness, waiting for solid ground to steady her again.
And when she found it, along with fresh air and just enough soft, flickering light to see, she…
Didn’t know how to describe what was happening.
There was too much shouting, and laughing.
But mostly too much splattering.
So.
Much.
Splattering.
Tiny particles of brown were flying everywhere—kind of like a dust storm, but wetter and stickier and everything was somehow falling up, not down.
And the longer Sophie stood there, the lighter and softer and steadier she felt, until the air cleared, and her eyes focused, and… she didn’t know where to look, or what to think, or how, or why, or…
Clean.
It seemed like a good word to start with.
Because she was.
Her skin was smooth. Her hair was bouncy and shiny. And her clothes were completely spotless.
There was absolutely zero trace of any mud, grime, or grossness.
And Dex, Stina, Wylie, and Biana looked just as immaculate—as did Grady and Bronte.
Which brought Sophie’s mind back to the how—and she must’ve said it out loud, because Nubiti popped out of the sandy floor, pointed to one of the prism-shaped black stones set into the room’s cavelike ceiling, and told her, “Magsidian.”
“Magsidian,” Sophie repeated, feeling goose bumps prickle her arms.
Nubiti nodded. “These particular shards are cut to draw the earth to them. It’s how we clean up our visitors—and how we reinforce the cavern after someone’s arrival.”
Sophie squinted harder at the curved ceiling, and sure enough, it did seem to have a fresh layer of packed earth coating it. “That’s…”
She knew she probably should say “amazing”—but now that she knew what magsidian was made of, she found herself saying “weird.”
And what she really wanted to say was… “kinda scary.”
“So where are we?” she asked, studying the rest of the bubble-shaped room, which didn’t have much to see, honestly. The floor was made of packed, shimmering sand, and the ceiling was made of smooth, dark mud, and the walls were carved from a gray, marbled stone that had been polished to a perfect gleam. Every few feet there were arched nooks carved into the rock—lower than Sophie was used to, thanks to the dwarves’ shorter stature—where delicate glass jars flickered with tongues of pale orange fire, providing just enough light to reveal two hallways ahead.
One was narrow, but bright enough to tell that it curved to the left.
The other was a wide, black void of nothingness.
“We call this our Visitor Center,” Nubiti explained. “Those with permission to enter the city go that way”—she pointed to the path that Sophie very much hoped they were taking—“and those here for King Enki go this way.”
“I thought we were starting with a tour of the city,” Grady cut in when Nubiti turned to lead them toward the darker path.
“King Enki told me this morning that I must bring you to see him first,” Nubiti explained—and Sophie definitely didn’t miss the look that passed between Bronte and Grady.
Dex must’ve caught it too, because he asked, “Is that a bad thing?”
“No,” Bronte said in a tone that wasn’t convincing. “But it’s rare for the king to change plans.”
“It is,” Nubiti agreed, not bothering to expand on that statement as she gestured for them to follow her into the shadows.
Grady sighed and reached for Sophie’s hand—which didn’t feel that strange until Bronte grabbed her other hand.
“It’s best to keep contact,” Bronte explained. “The King’s Path is… unsettling.”
“More unsettling than sinking through a gross bog?” Stina asked, reaching for Biana, who was already clinging to Dex.
Wylie completed their chain as Grady told them, “Unfortunately, yes.”
Dex sighed. “Why?”
A curl of white in the shadows caught Sophie’s eye, and it took her a second to realize it was Nubiti’s smile as the tiny dwarf told them, “We had to make sure the path to our king is a journey no intruder wants to make.”
“What about guests?” Sophie asked.
Nubiti’s smile faded. “To King Enki you are one and the same.”
TWENTY-FOUR
OKAY, SO BACK TO THAT lovely ‘unsettling’ description you gave us,” Biana said to Bronte as their group stared at the dark path ahead, none of them seeming eager to make the first step. “What exactly does that mean we’re in for? Steep drops? Eerie noises? Creepy-crawly things?”
“Really hope it’s not that last one,” Wylie mumbled.
Sophie definitely agreed.
“If it helps,” Nubiti called from somewhere in the shadows—and the whole disembodied-voice thing did not make her next words very reassuring—“everything you’re about to experience will live entirely in your minds. None of it will be real.”
“None of what?” Dex asked.
“It’s different for everyone,” Grady told him, tightening his grip on Sophie’s hand. “I don’t fully understand the phenomenon, but something about the sensory deprivation makes us see things, and hear things, and sometimes even feel things that aren’t actually there.”
“And I’m assuming
it won’t be, like, pretty flowers and flying alicorns and rainbow glitter showers?” Biana asked.
“It is for some,” Bronte admitted. “And those kinds of hallucinations pose their own challenges. But the majority of us will find that the total absence of any light leaves us facing our worst nightmares.”
“Wonderful,” Dex muttered.
“Wait—total absence of light?” Wylie clarified.
Sophie frowned when Bronte nodded.
“I thought there was always some light,” she argued, “and that we just had to find a way to make our mind concentrate on it in order to see it.”
That was what she’d been taught during her skill lessons, when she was trying to improve her darkness vision.
“Not on the King’s Path,” Grady corrected. “Once we move far enough away from this room, there won’t be any light until we reach the Grand Hall.”
“How is that possible?” Wylie wondered.
Sophie could’ve guessed Nubiti’s answer.
“Magsidian. The stones set along the King’s Path have been cut to absorb every particle of light that comes near them, which makes those in my species lose their bearings unless they’ve been given something specific to guide them. But you elves have a much stronger reaction. The effect won’t set in immediately, and when it does, I’ll be here to keep you moving. But you must all count on becoming very disoriented. And those of you who’ve journeyed down the King’s Path before should know that our security has changed in recent months. The magsidian has been altered, and that, in turn, has altered the Path’s effect. There’s no consensus on whether the experience is better or worse, but all agree that it’s wholly different, and many have struggled because they thought they knew what to expect. So try to go in with the mind-set that what you’re about to endure will be unlike anything you’ve survived before.”
Sophie wasn’t a fan of the word “endure” in all of that.
Or “survived.”
But she tried to be a good leader and focus on what was most important.
“Does that mean the King’s Path is where the dwarves who joined the Neverseen sabotaged the magsidian before they left?” she asked.
Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 8) Page 37