“It’s one of several locations,” Nubiti agreed, sounding far more casual than Sophie would’ve expected, considering the fact that they were discussing a security breach on the path to her king.
“Where were the other places?” Stina wanted to know.
“I’ll show you during the tour,” Nubiti promised. “Right now, I need you to start moving. You’ll still have a few minutes before the disorientation hits if you need to ask any final questions. But keeping King Enki waiting would be a very unwise way to begin this visit.”
“It would,” Bronte agreed. “Particularly given the change of plans.”
Sophie had a feeling the quick squeeze he gave her hand had nothing to do with reassurance and everything to do with the fact that she was supposed to take the lead.
So she allowed herself one long breath to gather her courage.
Then she dragged everyone onto the dark, unsettling path.
They’d only taken three steps before Sophie’s lumenite circlet winked out—along with Dex’s, Wylie’s, Stina’s, and Biana’s—and Sophie hadn’t realized how much the white light had been helping until it was gone.
“Within the next minute, you will no longer be able to see,” Nubiti warned, sounding suddenly closer, “and when that happens, I need you to know three things. First: The Path is flat and true, so there’s no need to seek out walls for balance. You can trust your feet not to fail you—even those of you who sometimes consider yourselves to be clumsy. Second: My voice is your guide, and you will be able to follow the sound regardless of how deeply you lose yourself. And third: The longer you linger, the worse the effect gets. So if you can hold on to one truth, it’s that you must keep going, no matter what.”
“This is sounding better and better,” Stina grumbled.
“If you don’t like it,” Nubiti told her, “I suggest you move faster.”
Sophie picked up the pace for all of them.
“How much longer do we have before the hallucinations start?” Dex asked.
“It varies from person to person,” Bronte told him. “I’ve seen some lose themselves almost instantly, and others make it through a significant portion of the journey.”
“The average is about ten minutes from the moment you hit the darkness,” Grady added, “which for us should be right… about… now.”
Sophie didn’t need the verbal cue—she knew the second the light abandoned them.
The shadows shifted, turning blacker—thicker.
Erasing everything.
Up. Down. Left. Right. These no longer held any meaning.
She couldn’t even feel the breath in her chest or the ground beneath her feet.
Ten minutes until the madness, she thought, determined to last longer. She counted off the seconds, hoping the focused task would keep her head clear.
How many seconds were in fifteen minutes?
Or twenty?
Working the math made her lose count, and she started over, making it to eighty-one before the darkness changed again, slamming against her with an eerie sort of chill that sank past clothes and skin and bone.
Into the heart of every cell.
Freezing solid.
But her body didn’t shiver.
It sweated.
And the trickle down her back felt like icy fingers—tugging at her hair, her skin, her clothes—
No! Stop! Focus!
No one was touching her.
No one else was even there with her, except Nubiti and Bronte and Dex and…
There were more.
Why couldn’t she remember them?
And what if there was someone else—someone she didn’t know?
Nubiti had never said they’d be alone as they journeyed down this path.
And dwarves could pop out of the ground anytime, anywhere, their clawed hands thrashing through the sand, teeth glinting—
“What was that?”
Sophie didn’t recognize the voice who asked.
She also couldn’t see what they meant.
It was too dark. Too cold. Too empty. Too—
“Wait, what was that?”
This time the voice was hers—though it sounded shriller.
Shakier.
Broken up by heavy breaths.
But that was because she’d caught something this time.
A flicker of movement.
A darker shade of black.
Someone was there.
What was that? What was that? What was that?
So many flashes all around her, burning her eyes, making them tear up. But she must’ve made it past the darkness, because she could see again.
The hallway stretched endlessly in front of her.
And it was empty.
No one.
No one.
No one.
Her hands felt strange now.
Hadn’t she been holding on to something?
And wasn’t she supposed to be with…?
She couldn’t remember their names.
Sophie.
No—that wasn’t it.
She needed several beats to realize that was her name. And she tried to tell the voice it wasn’t being helpful, but it just kept repeating her name over and over—the sound echoing down the dark, empty hallway in front of her.
Urging her on.
Slowly she followed.
Counting her steps. Her breaths. The stones beneath her feet.
Anything.
Everything.
Millions of things.
Billions.
How long had she been there if she’d counted that high?
How many lifetimes had passed?
No—that couldn’t be right.
She shook her head, trying to clear it and…
Her ears felt strange.
Longer.
Sharper.
Ancient.
“No!” she screamed, reaching for her face, but she couldn’t feel it, couldn’t find it.
“Yes, Sophie,” a voice said behind her. “We’ve come that far. And this was always where we were heading.”
She spun around and…
There.
There in the center of the hall.
A tall figure in a hooded black cloak with white eyes glowing across the sleeves.
The sight of it made Sophie want to kick and punch and vomit all over the floor—but she couldn’t feel her body enough to do any of those things.
“Isn’t it time to stop fighting?” the figure asked, raising its arms—but not to strike.
To embrace.
“This was always the endgame,” it told her, no longer in a single voice.
A voice with four layers.
Gethen.
Vespera.
Lady Gisela.
The fourth she couldn’t—wouldn’t—let herself recognize.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
And it was the only tone she could hear when the figure told her, “This is our legacy.”
“NEVER!”
She screamed the word so loud that her throat tore, pain arcing through her as she turned to run and run and run—but there were cloaked figures everywhere.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
A lifetime of enemies.
Closing in.
Welcoming her home.
“Sophie. Sophie. Sophie.”
NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!
“Never is a very long time—but not long enough,” all the figures told her, and it was in that same voice again.
The one she hated but didn’t hate.
“Go away go away go away,” she begged, curling in on herself as the figures closed in—black fabric all around, flowing and fluttering and flapping.
“This is my legacy,” they told her. “Our legacy. Your legacy.”
No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Panic and fury flooded her mind—thicker and blacker than the darkness.
Like poison.
Like a we
apon.
“I can stop you,” Sophie told them.
“We’d like to see you try!” they challenged.
And she would show them.
She’d show everyone.
“Sophie!”
The voice was new and not new.
Familiar but strange.
And much, much too far away.
But it called for her anyway, repeating her name over and over and over.
Growing more desperate.
“Don’t listen!” her enemies shouted. “Listen to us! We’re your endgame! And you will never be able to stop us!”
“YOU’RE WRONG!” Sophie screamed. “I’M THE MOONLARK!”
She dived into her consciousness, letting the poisonous darkness boil and bubble and burn around her.
But it wouldn’t be enough.
She needed to be so much stronger.
So she reached deeper.
Sank farther.
Past the walls around her heart.
To the reserves within.
Emotions so pure, so potent that there was no longer good or bad.
Only unending power.
Sophie. Sophie. Sophie.
No—she wasn’t Sophie anymore.
She was hate.
And love.
And victory.
And defeat.
And she was finishing this—once and for all.
Red rimmed the edges of her consciousness, and the darkness rose higher and higher, pressing against her mind, clawing out like a monster and—
“SOPHIE, STOP IT!”
The voice felt like a slap.
Or maybe she really had been slapped.
Her cheek stung and her breath was heaving and…
“Wait—where am I?” Sophie asked, feeling like she’d been dropped into a strange new body, and only parts of it were working.
She couldn’t see.
And her ears were ringing.
And her legs were so, so shaky.
And her head…
Her head was much too heavy.
She let it fall forward, and then every part of her followed—falling, falling, falling—until something squeezed her arms and dragged her back upright.
“We’re still on the King’s Path,” the voice told her, “so I need you to get it together.”
The sharpness of the tone gave Sophie the piece her brain had been missing.
Stina.
She was talking to Stina.
And this…
This was reality.
Everything else…
“What’s happening?” Sophie asked, shoving the lingering wisps of her nightmare to the back of her mind and trying to spot something—anything—to give her brain some focus.
But there was only the thick, endless black, and the more she stared into it, the more it stared back.
Looming over her.
Ready to devour.
“None of that!” Stina snapped as something squeezed Sophie’s arms again.
Hands, she realized.
Hands that were shaking her.
“Stop it!” she whined.
“Then stay awake!” Stina ordered. “I don’t think I can stop you from inflicting again.”
“Inflicting?” The word was a kick to the heart. “Did I—”
“Almost,” Stina corrected. “The pain knocked me out of the weird dream I’d been having. Something about unicorns and kelpies… and… I don’t really know. They were chasing me, and… it doesn’t matter.” There was a rustling sound like Stina was shaking her head. “Then I realized what was happening, and somehow I got my legs moving, following the feeling until I found you and tried to snap you out of it. I pulled your gloves off, but you still had those gadget things on, and I didn’t know how to work them. So I tried smacking you—”
“I knew it,” Sophie murmured, reaching up to feel her cheek—marveling that her arm and hand were willing to do that. It still felt like she was inhabiting someone else’s body—a puppet with ten million strings, and she didn’t know how to use any of them. “But… you stopped me in time?”
“I think so. I can’t see anything, but I don’t feel anyone in pain or anything.”
Sophie sank with a sigh, and Stina had to steady her again.
“Seriously, Sophie, I’m having a hard enough time—”
“You two shouldn’t be conscious,” another voice interrupted from somewhere beside them, and Sophie wondered if her heart was going to be permanently stuck in her throat from the shock of it.
But the jolt brought a new level of clarity to her brain.
“Nubiti?” she whispered.
“Who else?” the voice—Nubiti—asked.
And she was close enough now that Sophie could feel Nubiti’s breath on her cheeks as if her dwarven bodyguard was leaning in, studying her through the nothingness.
“You should’ve heard me guiding you,” she told Sophie quietly. “But you didn’t. No matter what I tried.”
Stina snorted. “Big surprise, something about Sophie doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to.”
“I guess I should’ve expected her reaction might be atypical,” Nubiti conceded. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re functioning so clearly.” Nubiti’s voice shifted, like she was moving to examine Stina. “How are you awake?”
“No idea,” Stina admitted. “I’m guessing it’s an Empath thing. I felt Sophie’s emotions spiking out everywhere, and they dragged me back—and be glad they did, because you’d be writhing in pain on the floor right now if I hadn’t. We all would. I’m sure your king would love that. And, wait a minute, why is it so much easier to think all of a sudden? I had to fight so hard at first.”
“So did I,” Sophie added, and the thought felt like stretching her mind, waking up muscles she hadn’t been using.
“I’m wearing a piece of magsidian that keeps my head clear so I can guide you down the Path,” Nubiti explained. “You must be benefitting from the proximity to it.”
“So wait… is everyone else still hallucinating right now?” Sophie asked, whipping around when Nubiti told her, “Yes.”
She had to find them—help them.
But it was too dark.
And her body was so tired.
And she didn’t know how to pull all the strings and make everything work yet.
“They’re fine,” Nubiti assured her. “It’s all in their minds.”
“That doesn’t make it any less traumatic,” Sophie snapped back, squeezing her eyes, trying to block any flashbacks of her creepy visions.
She’d have to face them someday—analyze what the hallucinations said about her deepest fears.
But she’d had more than enough of them for the moment.
“This is a horrible thing to do to people!” she told Nubiti. “How can you just stand by, letting them suffer?”
“Because this is how we protect our king! My people are small. And few. Who would ever fear us if we didn’t give them a reason to?”
“I’m pretty sure all you’d have to do is show them that trick you guys do with the stomping-and-opening-up-huge-cracks-in-the-ground thing,” Sophie reminded her.
“That is no trick,” Nubiti huffed, “and it takes far more energy than you think. This is better. And safer. No enemy poses any real danger if they cannot even find King Enki, and if they’re too frightened and weary to resist capture. Besides—the only weapon we’re using is darkness. How is that cruel?”
Sophie wished she had a good answer, because Nubiti’s points were valid.
But the Path was still so incredibly awful.
Nubiti let out a sigh. “Every moment we stand here arguing is another moment the rest of your group must endure their delusions. So why don’t you take my hands and let me lead us out of the maze?”
“So the King’s Path is also a maze?” Stina asked.
“Of course. Between the darkness and the endless twisting corridors, no one can get through unless we want them to. No one,” she
emphasized. “That’s the point. To keep our Grand Hall as a safe haven. I know you doubt our security—”
“Don’t you?” Sophie interrupted. “Isn’t that why you told us about the magsidian?”
“I worry about certain places,” Nubiti admitted. “But not about the King’s Path. That’s why I planned your visit to start with the tour of the city, so you would feel the difference. The Path is our masterpiece. Even you, with all your moonlark gifts, couldn’t begin to brave it.”
“Stina kinda did,” Sophie noted.
“Not really,” Stina admitted. “I mean, I did way better than you. You were a disaster. But… if your inflicting hadn’t snapped me out of it, I’d still be thinking I was being chased by kelpies and unicorns. There might’ve been a talking murcat, too, and maybe a flock of boobries? I don’t know—it was super weird and really overwhelming.”
“Exactly,” Nubiti said. “And we need to keep moving. I’m sure King Enki is growing frustrated with our tardiness—and you must not tell him about your strange reactions to the darkness. He will consider it an insult.”
“How is it an insult?” Stina wondered.
“Because he says it is,” Nubiti said, as if that was all that mattered.
And Sophie was ready to argue, but… maybe that’s how it worked for kings.
They weren’t just above the law.
They made the law.
“Time to hurry,” Nubiti said, hooking an arm around Sophie’s and dragging her forward as Stina flailed to keep her grip on Sophie’s other arm.
“What about the rest of our group?” Sophie asked, wishing she could spot some trace of them in the darkness.
But no.
Nubiti’s pendant might’ve cleared her head, but it didn’t lighten the endless, overwhelming black.
“They will follow my voice,” Nubiti assured her, calling out, “THIS WAY!” and Sophie thought she might’ve heard the sound of feet shuffling after them.
The steps were listless.
Loping.
Like zombies hunting flesh.
She shook her head to fight the fresh wave of panic. “This is a bad place to have a vivid imagination.”
“Yes” was all Nubiti told her, then shouted, “KEEP UP!” and increased their pace even more.
Sophie counted their steps, glad her mind could stay focused on the numbers.
One hundred.
Two hundred.
Three.
Four.
Five.
On the five hundred and twenty-third step, there was light.
Blissful, glorious light.
Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 8) Page 38