Heir of Pendel (A Pandoran Novel, #4)

by Barbara Kloss

  I looked up at him. His forehead was wrinkled, his gaze intense and full of concern. "I will, Myez. I promise."

  I left early the next morning. We said our goodbyes, and I threw up a silent prayer to Gaia to keep him safe. I had the strange feeling he was doing the same for me.

  I walked east, toward Campagna. At least I assumed it was east, judging by the motion of the sun. The brooch wasn't any help. It was resolute in its coldness. Actually, it seemed as if it was growing colder the farther I walked. The fog was thick today, but not so thick I couldn't see my surroundings. Still, there wasn't a whole lot to see, anyway, other than tall grass and shrubbery.

  Dew clung to my pants and boots as I trudged on, my footsteps silent as they padded on damp earth. I hadn't heard any crows this morning, though the cicadas were in full force. It was almost peaceful, if I forgot the circumstances.

  I'd been walking for about an hour when I stopped to adjust my boot. One of the laces had gotten loose. I crouched, tied it down, and then I popped a few berries in my mouth.

  The cicadas had stopped.

  I stopped chewing. My gaze slid through the fog, and I stood, remembering Myez's warnings. The fog had grown thicker, darker. So dark, I could no longer see the bushes up ahead. I bit my bottom lip and glanced behind me. It'd be too easy to get lost here, in this fog, where everything looked the same. I grabbed a few pumice stones from my bag and stacked them on top of a rock a few paces away. And then I took a deep breath and kept walking.

  The fog thickened. It swelled and swirled like some living creature, and before I knew it, it'd grown so thick I couldn't see more than ten feet in front of me. I stopped walking, put my hands on my hips and glanced around, careful not to actually turn around.

  Everywhere, in all directions, a blanket of thick, grey haze spread out. I couldn’t even see the sky anymore. I checked the brooch in my pocket. No, still cold.

  I took another deep breath. I had to keep going.

  Air whipped over my head and I jumped, startled. It was a crow—the first crow I'd seen since I'd left Myez. Stupid, stupid crow. My heart pounded, I steadied my breath, and I kept walking, leaving mini-cairns in my wake. It wasn't like I'd be able to see them from far away, but leaving the physical trail made me feel better.

  A sound tick-tick-ticked off to my right—some creature I'd never heard before. I walked faster. The ticking sounded again, this time from my other side. I stole a glance at the undulating shadows but saw nothing substantial. The fog moved and coiled, rising and falling like a sea, and I had the sensation I was drowning in it.

  Something grazed my hair and I screamed. My heart pounded and my chest heaved. I glanced back but saw nothing there. Just fog and shadows. Air whipped in front of me, and I jumped again, spinning to face…nothing. A scream—some cross between a human and a cat—echoed from the fog, somewhere up ahead.

  I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to calm myself. People lost themselves in this vale—I knew that. Myez had warned me sufficiently before I'd left. He'd warned me it would mess with my mind, too, and he had not been overexaggerating.

  Steeling myself, I gripped my cloak closer and kept walking. The fog was quiet, and still too thick to see anything, and then I noticed a little cairn on the rock at my feet. My cairn.

  I cursed and stopped beside it. I'd gotten turned around. How had I gotten turned around? I hadn't even turned around! A branch snapped to my left.

  I jumped and whipped around, my heart thundering in my chest. Nothing was there. My breath sounded too loud in the stillness, in the quiet. I flexed my fingers around my makeshift daggers, my fear making my arm tremble. Something was out here with me. Something I couldn't see, but could sense—not with my Pandoran senses. No, those were still neutralized here. It was that other sense—the sixth sense all people possess: The sense that tells you you're being watched.

  I swallowed, my gaze darting through the mist. Shadows swirled and twisted like ethereal beings. It seemed as if the fog were closing in around me, from all sides, curling around my boots, my hands, as if it were slowly absorbing me inside of it.

  And then I heard a cackle, inhuman and terrifying, right behind me.

  A squeak escaped my lips as I spun around again, my chest heaving with quick breath. A shape moved in the fog, dark and unsubstantial, but it wasn't vanishing like the other shadows had. It floated closer and closer, growing more substantial with every second. A voice in my head screamed to run. I couldn't move. My feet were frozen in terror and my entire body shook. Another shadow appeared beside the first. And another. Goose bumps ran up and down my arms, and my hair stood on end. A thread of black stretched from the foremost shadow, like a tendril, coming toward me. Closer and closer, snaking its way effortlessly through the fog. And I sprinted.

  I ran in the other direction, as fast as I could, racing to get away from whatever it was. I glanced back; the three shadows were still behind me. That cackle sounded again, closer this time.

  I ran and ran and ran, swinging my arms to gain speed. Trying to get away. I had no idea where I was running, but I had to get away. Far away. I did not know what was back there, but a voice deep down inside warned it was a foe far beyond my ability. I glanced back again and cursed.

  The shadows were still following me, and they were closing in.

  My boot caught on something. Sharp pain knifed through my ankle, and I pitched forward. I tossed my daggers aside so as not to skewer myself on impact. My palms hit the ground hard, but I didn't stop falling. I rolled and tumbled, hair pulled, cloak snagging. Over and over again, sliding and tumbling down a steep embankment. The embankment ended, I lost momentum and finally rolled to a halt.

  I lay there for a moment, my head still whirling. My body ached everywhere, and my left ankle pulsed. I rolled to my stomach, trying to hoist myself back up, and I caught sight of a shadow before me. My gaze trailed up slowly, right as the face of a fanged demon bore down on me.

  The brooch blazed against my hip. Blinding white light flashed, I heard a boom of sound, and then the shadows—and fog—were gone.

  Heaving, I propped myself up on my elbows while glancing around frantically, not trusting my vision. The fog wasn't gone completely, but it was thin—more like it'd been when Myez and I had first arrived. And those things were nowhere in sight.

  I started to stand. Searing pain shot through my left ankle, and I collapsed with a curse. I sat up and untied the lacings on my boot, wincing with every touch, every pull. Oh, this wasn't good. I tugged at my boot and cried out. Tears stung my eyes. I'd suffered from some pretty bad sprains in my life, but I'd never felt anything like this. It would've been better if I'd broken it.

  It'd only been, what—two hours since I'd left Myez? And I'd managed to get lost and sprain my ankle. I staggered to my feet, putting all my weight on my right foot. It felt as if my heart were beating inside my left ankle. I took a few steadying breaths and half stumbled, half hopped forward. I bit my bottom lip, growling against the pain, and then I tripped again.

  I fell back on the ground, and I yelled. At the vale. At the fog. At this world. I couldn't cross a mountain pass like this. I couldn't do anything like this. I picked up a rock and chucked it, screaming after it. And then I fell down in a heap and cried.

  The little brooch pulsed in my hip.

  Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I pushed myself to a seated position and wriggled the brooch out of my pocket. It pulsed again, just like before, when it'd led Myez and me to the cave.

  I sniffled. "Sure, now you're awake." Stupid piece of dragonscale.

  It pulsed again, a little warmer this time. It seemed as if it was telling me to get a move on. I snorted, wiping my eyes. I wouldn't be moving anywhere for a while.

  Apparently, the brooch didn't agree with me. It pulsed hot and insistent.

  Or maybe…maybe it was warning me something else was on its way.

  Motivated by my desire to not face those demonic shadows again, I glanced about me for a stick�
�anything large enough I could lean on for support. There. A few yards away. That one would work.

  I crawled over to the stick, wincing and cursing as my ankle throbbed, and I used the stick to climb to a stand, grunting and hissing all the way. The stick wasn't much, but it would do. It would have to. I held on to the brooch and let it guide me through the vale.

  The sun was setting by the time the brooch led me to the familiar granite wall. I hobbled along until I found the trench. By then, my foot felt like a brick of lead that might fall off any moment, and I was pretty sure my armpit would be permanently bruised from supporting my weight on it for hours.

  Myez was dressing his wound as I crunched along the shore of the lake. He glanced up, dropped whatever was in his hands, and came running toward me.

  "What happened?" he asked, wrapping his arm around me and helping me walk.

  "My ankle…" I winced.

  "Broken?"

  I wished. I shook my head. I just wanted to lie down and sleep, and maybe never wake up again.

  He helped me all the way back to the cave, lowering me carefully on the floor. I leaned back against the cavern wall. My mind was already starting to fade away, and then he tugged at my boot. I cried out, the pain making my eyes burn.

  "I have to take it off," he said.

  I chewed on my bottom lip as he completely unlaced my boot. Fuzzy spots marked my vision, and with one last tug, he had my boot off. My foot was very, very swollen. He peeled off my sock, and I swallowed. The entire outside of my ankle was black and blue.

  He looked up at me from beneath his brow. "This is bad, Daria."

  I grunted.

  "No, I mean it. You need to keep off this for at least a week."

  I wanted to argue with him, but I knew he was right. I'd known this would be the case ever since it'd happened. I sagged back against the cave wall and shut my eyes as a tear spilled down my cheek.

  "How'd this happen?"

  I told him, and when I mentioned the shadows in the vale, his lips pinched together.

  "Do you know what they were?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "There are many things in this vale that should not be." He hesitated. "Let's just be thankful the brooch led you back here."

  If it'd led me to the mountain pass, as I'd wanted, I probably wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place. But there was no point in saying that. Obviously, the brooch didn't want me taking the mountain pass. It wanted me here, in this God-forsaken vale, for some God-forsaken reason.

  "What are you doing?" I asked Myez, who was dragging some larger rocks into our small cave.

  "You need to elevate that foot," he said.

  I didn't even have the energy to argue. I was so tired of everything. The loss, the struggle, the pain. The constant disappointment—at myself. I was the daughter of a Regius and a Pandor, supposed descendent of the Draconi, and within twenty-four hours of leaving the Pontefracts, I was stuck in a cave, trapped in the middle of the Shadowvale, too weak to even nurse my own sprain. And Alex and Thad and Vera and Fleck were out there somewhere, fighting a war—a war I should be fighting—but I couldn't do anything about it. How would I even get to them now? And what good was I to them like this? What good was I to anyone like this? And here I'd thought I could help. Here I'd thought I had the power to stop my uncle. No, all I ever seemed to succeed at was getting the people I loved hurt or killed. Maybe it was a good thing I was stuck here with a bad ankle.

  I closed my eyes and another tear spilled over my cheek. Yes, I was tired. So tired of existing, because existing hurt too much.

  26

  ALEXANDER

  "Hey, Chains, think I could get a bucket, or something?" Thaddeus asked the guard. "My back hurts and I'd like to roll it out. I'd use my chamber pot, but seeing as how it's full…"

  I couldn't actually see Thaddeus. We'd been thrown in adjacent cells, and my only view of the world beyond was through a small and thickly barred window in my door. Being that my wrists and ankles were bound, chaining me in a seated position to the back wall of my cell, all I could see through that window was a dazzling view of a wall. I'd been given a chamber pot, too, not that I could use it, chained down as I was. Of course, this was exactly why they'd set it there, right in front of my face but just beyond reach. Luckily, we hadn't been down here long enough for it to be an issue, but from the sound of it, Thaddeus and Vera hadn't been chained to the wall as I'd been.

  Still, I wasn't sure how long we'd been down here. Time is elastic when you're confined in darkness. Minutes stretch to hours and hours stretch to days. A whole lifetime passes in the span of one evening. I would've used magic to free my wrists and ankles from their shackles, but the enchantments in this prison prohibited me from doing so. I'd tried breaking those enchantments, but they'd been expertly placed, and they had to be centuries old. I felt the ripples and frays along the surface, like thousands of tiny, fine hairs brushing against my skin, but the spell beneath was intact and solid as the slab of granite we were locked inside. Every spell had a weakness, but I couldn't find this one. Whoever the spellcaster had been, their skill was better than mine.

  I couldn't break us out of here, just like I hadn't been able to save my father and Stefan, and now they were gone. I should've been there for them. I should've been there to stop Eris instead of running on this fool's errand. I jerked against the chains, hard—clenching my teeth to stifle my yell. Pain shot through my wrists as metal cut skin, but I didn't care. I slumped against the wall, shut my eyes, and leaned my head back. I had failed my father and Stefan, and now I was failing Daria, too.

  "Hey, you got cotton in your ears, Chains?" Thaddeus continued. Mortis had to have a special place in hell for people who were this irritating.

  "I told you to—" Chains was cut off by a splash. The air suddenly reeked of urine.

  "Sorry, Chains, but you left me no choice," Thaddeus said.

  Chains' growl was followed by a thud and a rattle, as if he'd pounded his fist against the bars of Thaddeus's cell. "I'll kill you, you smug bastard."

  "Was that supposed to be an insult?" Thaddeus continued. "You know, my parents never actually married, so the bastard part is really just a fact of life. For that matter, so is the smug part, so…"

  "Why you little—"

  "Smug bastard. I know. You said that. You really need to get a little more creative, here, Chains."

  Before the guard could say another word, a new voice yelled "Gaff!" from farther down the hall. I hated that I was chained to the wall. I was blind in here.

  "Why are you talking to the prisoners?" As the words drew nearer, I realized the voice belonged to Denn. By the scraping of boots, it sounded as if he hadn't come alone. My body flooded with heat and my fists clenched, needing to hit.

  "I'm, uh…" Chains said. "Sorry, sir."

  "Why are you wet?" Denn asked, then a pause. "Is that piss?"

  "He threw his chamber pot on me. Sir."

  "Why were you standing that close to his door?" Denn asked.

  "You really need to find a new crew, Rusty," Thaddeus interjected. "Chains, here, is about as sharp as a marble."

  "It's too bad you turned, Thaddeus," Denn said. "I was hoping the rumors weren't true. We could've used you in Astor."

  "Eh, you know me, Rusty," Thaddeus said so easily, I could picture him leaning back against the wall with that smirk. "Always like to keep people guessing."

  "His Majesty is willing to give you another chance, you know. It's the only reason he's asked for you alive. You cooperate with me here, and I'll see to it he knows you've had a change of heart."

  "I already had my change of heart, when I still had a heart to give," Thaddeus answered, his voice serious. "I won't sacrifice it now—not for him. Never again. You'd stay clear of him too, if you knew what was good for you. He's a liar, Rusty. He doesn't care about you. He's using you, and once he gets what he wants, he won't hesitate to let you rot."

  "I am truly sorry to hear you feel that way."
Denn made it sound like a threat.

  "And I'm sorry you don't."

  Keys jingled, the latch on my door clicked, and Denn stood in the threshold. Despite his short and unsuccessful conversation with Thaddeus, a triumphant smile spread across his face, pressing his fat, red cheeks back, giving them the effect of two inflated red balloons.

  "I'm not sure what you're smiling about," I said flatly.

  He took the smallest step forward. "I finally caught you."

  "And it took roughly a dozen men, four walls of stone, handcuffs, chains, and a blocking spell to hold me—a spell which, by the way, I know you didn't weave. Not exactly cause for personal triumph."

  His gaze darkened. It was nice seeing I elicited the same feelings in him that he elicited in me.

  He strode forward and paused a few feet before me. "I told His Majesty you're here."

  I glared at him. "Where's Eldar?"

  "You know," Denn sneered, "when the guard told me three wolves arrived, I knew one of them had to be you. You're the only one arrogant enough to challenge King Eris."

  "Wolves?" I snapped. "Forget where you came from, Denn?"

  "I didn't forget." He paced the small space before me. "I've just chosen to reject the aegises' objectives and beliefs." He stopped to glare down at me. "We all can't be the precious face of the Academia."

  "Seems like we all can't be its rear, either."

  Denn's fist came faster than I could register. Pain exploded in my jaw. My head whirled back against the cold stone, my chains rattling from the force. I tasted blood. I just managed to right myself, when Denn kicked me in the gut. Air punched from my lungs and I heaved, sucking on air. Denn kicked me again, directly in my ribs. Stars marked my vision, and I suddenly couldn't get a full breath. Pain seared where his boot had landed, and I knew he'd broken at least one of my ribs. I coughed then winced from the pain of it.

  "Not so untouchable now, are you, Del Conte?" He grabbed a fistful of my hair, and I clenched my teeth as he jerked my head back, forcing me to look at him. My ribs burned with each with breath. "Watch yourself," he hissed, fury contorting his features. "This isn't the Academia. I don't have to play by the rules."