Her shoulders hunched up around her ears. “Ten.”
Awkward, heavy silence followed and she kept even farther ahead of me. I realized I’d pushed too hard, but too late. My feet slapped against the stone and that was about the only sound I picked up.
Oka stopped in front of a closed door. “There will be clothes in here. They should fit you.” Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. She looked past me, over my shoulder, her body stiff. I sighed.
“Oka, you will have to get used to me, as I will to you. I meant no offense. And it doesn’t matter to me that you weren’t picked. I’m just glad to have a friend.”
She didn’t move, didn’t even look at me. “I’ll keep an eye out while you find something to wear.”
I got nothing from her, no emotions, no worry or wayward thoughts. She’d effectively blocked me out.
I put a hand on the lever of the door and pushed it open. The room inside was not dark at all. A towering stone fireplace was lit with flames of blue, green, and brilliant orange. The flickering light cascaded over the room, making it look like I was underwater with the way the shadows undulated on the walls and furniture. I let the witch light above my hand go out and stared around me.
“Oka?”
She poked her head in through the door.
I pointed at the fireplace. “Does this mean someone was here?”
She padded into the room and looked at the fire. Her ears twitched back and forth as she stared. “No, I don’t think so. It looks like it is magical. It will keep going unless it is deliberately put out. I think.” She glanced at me and I knew that her uncertainty was my fault.
With two bounding leaps she was on the bed. The four posts were all at an angle, like they’d been hit hard, and listed to the side. “This is the queen’s chamber. One of the most protected places within the Pit,” Oka said. “I figured if there was anything left after the lava flows that came through, it would be here.”
I nodded. “I don’t know anything about the queen. Was she kind?”
Oka burst out laughing, going so far as to throw herself on the bed and roll around, chasing her tail.
“Goddess, no! She was made of iron and steel and fire. Not what I’d call kind at all. Fair maybe? But hard and deadly when provoked. She went mad at the end, lost her ever-loving mind and that is why the lava started killing people again.” Oka scooted to her feet and shook her head hard. “That doesn’t really matter now. The wardrobe is over there.”
She pointed with her nose to the left of the bed. Indeed, there was a large stone armoire that went to the ceiling and had to be at least ten feet wide and four feet deep. On the front were several carvings, mostly of flames. But the closer I looked, the more I saw within the design. Like the tiny figures being swallowed by the fire and lava. The pained looks on their faces as they burned to a crisp. I grimaced and opened the armoire. Inside there were a great deal of clothes, lots of dresses though they looked as though they’d never been worn. There wasn’t a single scuff on any of the hems, not even a bit of charcoal that was bound to be around in the Pit with all the lava.
I pushed through the clothes until I found a section that looked like it might work. Black leather pants . . . not so different than what I’d seen Rylee in once or twice. She’d always said if leathers were broken in well, they were comfortable. I pulled a pair down along with a top that was made of a light, floating material. Off white and smooth as silk. I took the sword sheath off and then slipped the shirt over my head. The top hugged me, and had a built-in bra which was rather convenient. The pants slid on like they were made for me, and yet they weren’t restrictive. Maybe Rylee was onto something there.
“You’ll need shoes, too.” Oka stuck her nose into the cupboard. She disappeared into the depths of the armoire and came out dragging a boot that had to outweigh her ten to one.
I took the boot from her, also black leather. Tall, it had buckles up the sides to the knee. I slid it on and gave a gasp. “Wow.”
“What?”
“It’s like they were made for me and stuffed with the softest material.” I reached into the closet and dug around until I found the second boot. It was as comfortable as the first. I stomped my feet several times. Like walking on clouds.
Oka shrugged. “Elementals like their comfort. They probably don’t think anything of it, but I guess you would notice the high quality.”
I couldn’t resist, not with a treasure like this at my fingertips. I opened the armoire wide. “I need a cloak, too.”
“You do?”
“It’s a witch thing,” I said, which wasn’t really the truth. I just wanted another piece of clothing from this amazing cupboard. I fanned through the clothes until I found a long swath of rich purple material. Be a cloak, be a cloak, be a cloak, the words echoed through my mind.
I pulled it out and grinned at Oka as the cloak fanned out around us in a circle. “This is perfect.” I put my sword sheath back on, settling it along my spine and buckling it around my middle, then I swept the heavy, yet smooth material of the cloak around my shoulders. Like a warm embrace it settled over me. I flipped up the hood and bent to the ground. I held a hand out to Oka. “I have an idea.”
Her eyes were wary. “What?”
“Trust me.”
She let me pick her up and I once more noted just how tiny she was. Maybe only two kilos . . . I frowned and put the number into pounds. Maybe five pounds. Tiny for a full-grown cat. I snorted at myself and the conversion from kilos to pounds. Raven was right, I was trying to be more American, but I wasn’t ashamed of it.
I lifted her and tucked her onto my shoulder inside the hood. “See, this way no one will see you.”
She let out a sharp hiss. “Are you ashamed of me?”
“Goddess, no!” I shook my head, turning my face so I could look at her. “You’re like a spy, Oka. If there is someone here, they won’t see you and you can help me.”
She blinked several times but I could see I hadn’t convinced her. She lay on my shoulder and would look at me no longer. I sighed. “I’m really making a mess of this.”
Oka didn’t answer and her emotions were cut from me without a whisper of what she was feeling.
Dressed, I headed out the door and Oka softly gave me directions. Left here, straight, another left, dead end, backtrack now to the right, up these stairs, blocked, backtrack. Time held no meaning in the darkness as we walked and walked, but I knew it was passing. “An hour was all I had with protection against the lava.”
“We have used up perhaps half of it now,” Oka said.
Half an hour, plus the ten minutes I spent above ground on the old lava flows. That left twenty minutes to find the book and get out. Sweat beaded on my forehead despite the cool air of the tunnels.
“We have to hurry.” I picked up the pace and Oka said nothing.
The walls in many places were crumbled, and the caverns we encountered were often full of bubbling lava which gave us both a shudder. While I knew I might not die, I was not prepared to just leap back into the red death.
I started to count the time, ticking it off in my mind. “Six hundred.”
“What?”
We stood in front of yet another collapsed wall and a dead end I was not sure we could find our way around. Twice we’d been to this wall, and I stared at it as though looking would move it. “Ten minutes have passed,” I put a hand to the wall. “Oka, I think I should try and blast our way through.”
“And if the mountain collapses further?” Her tone was sharp. In fact, the further in we got, the sharper her tone had become with me. I put a hand to my eyes and rubbed at the bridge of my nose.
“Do you think there is a way around to the library?”
A laugh erupted around us, as sudden and unexpected as if lightning had danced down at my feet. I spun but there was no one behind us. “Oka, that . . . that didn’t sound good.”
“No, it didn’t.” She shuddered on my shoulder.
“What should I do?”
Her claws tightened on my shoulder, hooking in tightly to the leather strap of the sword sheath. “If it was me, I’d run.”
“Then we run,” I said.
CHAPTER 8
I KEPT A BALL of witch light hovering in front of my face while I ran through tunnel after tunnel of the destroyed Pit from the laughter that grew around us. Laughter that according to Oka . . .
“That sounds like the queen,” she said, her words tickling my ear.
I slowed and she squeaked. “No, don’t slow down. She lost her mind in the end. She is the reason I was burnt, remember?”
“Shit.” I put on a burst of speed, grateful that Rylee had so insisted that I train my body and mind. Running for hours wasn’t a problem, but we were almost out of time. Or at least my immunity to the lava was. I took a corner and slammed my hands into yet another pile of rubble.
Oka leaned forward and sniffed. “I can smell water on the other side.”
“And that’s important why?” I kept my hands on the stones.
“Because there was a fountain in front of the library.” Oka jumped off my shoulder and landed halfway up the pile of rocks and dirt. She pawed at a bit and it pulled away. With a glance over her shoulder she nodded. “I think this will be your best shot to get through.”
I felt the presence behind me, that whisper of knowing someone was about to sneak up behind you, a split second before my arm was grabbed.
The hands that clawed at me spun me around with a strength I’d have never guessed from the skeletal creature behind me. She looked frail even though she was anything but.
Brilliant blue eyes blazed like the fire in the queen’s chamber. The body was barely bones covered in blackened and charred flesh. Here and there I could even see bits and pieces of organs peeking through, the pulse of the heart, the shiver of the lungs as they fought to expand against the drum-tight skin. The few strands of hair were brilliant red, even in the dim light.
I jerked my arm and the clawed fingers tightened. The mouth opened and laughter, high and feminine, spilled out of the skeleton’s mouth. I lifted my other hand and opened the palm. Power raced along my skin and off me in a rush that slammed into the skeletal queen. Hot, acrid fear pulsed up my throat as I was flung with the queen down the corridor. My push had taken us both because of her grip on me. We tumbled over each other, but her hand never released me and all I could think was one could not kill the dead. The dead were already dead, so how did you end their lives? But I was not alone.
“Oka!”
“Coming!” she hollered back and I shook my head.
“No, get that rock pile open.”
A wash of disappointment swept over her and through to me, but I didn’t have time to sooth her feelings. The queen’s other hand swept toward my face, and I threw myself back as I kicked out with both feet. Maybe power wouldn’t stop her, but how about a boot to the face?
The heels of my boots slammed into her over and over as I fought to get away, but her hold on me didn’t waver. No pain maybe? Which meant I would have to remove her arm.
I reached back for the sword, grabbed the handle and yanked it free. The queen’s eyes slid to the weapon.
“You think to take me with a simple sword? Fool, I will devour you and take your youth and I will rise from the ashes.”
That didn’t sound like an outcome that would bode well for me. “Lark made this sword,” I said, and she released me so fast I was hard pressed to see it actually happen.
I scrambled back, keeping the sword between us. She stood in the shadows, swaying from side to side. “Larkspur?”
I nodded. “Lark made it.”
Apparently she knew Lark, or maybe she knew the sword?
The queen lifted a hand, the fingers crooked. “Give it to me.”
Now it was my turn to laugh and it spilled out of me. “Bollocks. I wouldn’t give it to you for all the money in the world.”
“But for your life?”
I shrugged as I backed away. “You can’t kill me as long as I hold it.”
My words seemed to stymie her and it was all I needed to buy time for Oka to get us a way through. It had looked soft enough that she could have dug even a small hole for the two of us.
“Cat, you got that opening?”
Silence.
I wanted to look back, but didn’t dare take my eyes off the skeleton queen in front of me. “Oka?”
I got nothing, not even a whisper of emotion. Had she abandoned me? The pain that sliced through me with that possibility was unexpected and hurt far more than I would have thought. But if she’d left, there was nothing I could do about it now. I had to get my ass through to the library. If indeed, it was on the other side.
I backed up until I could reach behind and touch the pile of rocks and earth that blocked me from the place I needed to go.
Splitting my focus was not smart when it came to magic but I had no choice. The charred skeleton that had been queen of the Pit followed step by step, as I tapped into my magic and beckoned the earth to move, to hold itself up so I could pass through. The rumble of rocks and stones, the trickle of dirt as it slid down the sides was all I could hear. I couldn’t even look back to see if the path was clear enough, or that I wasn’t going to fall into some hole in the ground.
I kept moving, pausing only when I was on the other side of the blockage. The sound of water was clear now, though it was pitiful at best, a bare trickle.
“You will not come out of this alive.” The skeleton queen pointed her finger at me. For a moment, I thought she would shoot fire out of it, but there was nothing but the threat of a pointed finger.
I nodded. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll keep my eyes out for your bony ass.” I dropped my hands as a streak of orange raced toward the opening. I went to my knees and shot my hand out, barely stopping the earth from falling and crushing Oka as she sped through to me.
I caught her in my arms as the rocks tumbled and clashed against one another.
“Where were you?”
She pressed her nose into my neck. “I thought I could find a way around. I didn’t think I could dig through.”
I rubbed her ears. “But did you try?”
She dropped her head. “I am afraid, Pamela. I . . . am full of fear and panic and it is why I was never chosen as a familiar. There are many that can’t shift, that’s actually normal. But I . . . I want to run from danger. A familiar is supposed to throw themselves in front of their charge, not run the other way.”
I hugged her tightly to me and tried to find the right words. I couldn’t blame her for being afraid; hell, I was shaking too. “Just keep trying. I’ll never ask you to do something that you tell me you can’t. Just try.”
She sniffed and looked up at me. “You don’t want to get rid of me?”
I shook my head. “Nope. You’re stuck with me. And wait till you see all the familiars back home. There’s a jackal, and dragons, Harpies, and maybe Peta will come and visit with Lark.”
Tears filled her eyes, making them glitter like jewels. “And if I can’t protect you?”
I shrugged. “Then I’ll protect you. That’s what friends do.”
She pulled away from me and shook her head. “That’s not what familiars are for.”
“Well, if you belong to me then we can make new rules. Besides, I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you,” I pointed out. We turned together to look at the fountain that was slowly leaking water from the mouth of the stone tiger. I put Rylee’s sword back into the sheath on my back. It had come in handy but I hoped I would not have to use it again.
Oka put her paws on the edge of the pool and peered up. “I always wanted to be a tiger.”
I touched the top of her head. “You’ve got the stripes for it.”
She glanced up at me. “The way into the library has to do with this fountain. I saw Peta tell Lark to put her hand in and push something. But I think it burnt her.”
I touched the water. It was warm,
but not hot enough to burn. “I think whatever magic held that together is gone. Or maybe whatever was keeping it hot was diverted when the mountain fell.” Or maybe it was because I was still under the mother goddess’ protection. I peered over the edge and saw a handle. Leaning over the water, I swept my cloak back so it wouldn’t get wet, then reached in.
The water warmed more the further in I went but it still didn’t burn. I grasped the handle and the screech of stone on stone made me let go.
The wall across from the fountain slowly slid sideways, opening into yet another dark space. I held one hand up and snapped my fingers. Light flared over my hands, not witch light but just a flame of orange and yellow. A spinning ball that I kept right over my palm.
“Why the change in light?” Oka padded beside me as we approached the opening.
“It’s a library with lots of paper, I assume. Witch light is even more likely to light something on fire than just plain old flame.” I kept the ball of light close to me until we were inside the tiny room. On the wall was a sconce and I set my flame to it.
“There’s another here.” Oka trotted to the far side of the room, which really was only ten paces for me, and I followed her.
With the two sconces burning brightly I looked around the room. “Okay, the book I need is called Breaking the Veil. And we have to hurry.”
Oka sucked in a sharp breath. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“I know. But I have to if I’m going to save lives.” I started searching the room. From left to right, I went along the spines of the books as fast as I could, feeling the seconds tick by. How many did I have left? I took the top four shelves and Oka took the bottom two. Of course, that didn’t account for the piles and piles of books scattered with no organizational thought whatsoever.
The words blurred after time and my belly rumbled. I was starving, and now that the acute danger had passed my body was making its needs known. I was sure the time had passed, my hour was up. I stopped hurrying. If we hit lava again, I was done for.
“Oka, do you think there would be food down here I can eat while we search?”
Pamela (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 3) Page 7