by Lily Archer
I look up, the lightening sky giving me a view that steals my breath. “Is that … That’s the …”
“Abyss.” Chastain rides up beside us and stares out at … nothing. A hole in the ground that stretches as far as I can see. There are no other sides to it, no respite from the vast emptiness of this crater that seems to fall away to the core of Arin. We are standing on the precipice, a sheer cliff face disappearing into darkness beneath us.
“How is this even possible?” I can’t seem to understand the enormity of it, the emptiness that doesn’t seem remotely imaginable.
“No one truly knows. Maybe it has been here since Arin was created. Or perhaps the tale of the wicked mage is true and it was formed by the darkest of magics mixed with alchemy.” Chastain seems almost as awestruck as I am. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. We have to cross it.”
“How?” I mean, it’s a giant hole in Arin. No way down that I can see. No way in or out, or even an end to it. How do the caravans get the slaves through this pit?
Chastain points to the right. “The road runs along the rim for another hour or so. Then we’ll arrive at the caravan entrance.”
“Guarded?” Gareth doesn’t seem too concerned about the gaping, black, terrifying void, but then again, he’s a stoic sort of fae. Or maybe he’s still mad? This is when that bond sure would come in handy. I could check on him. “Knock knock, you pissed?”
“Usually, yes. And if Cenet came through here, he’s no doubt put them on high alert.”
“Zatran was just to slow us down,” Gareth says.
“Oh, I’m certain Zatran thought he’d kill us with ease, but Cenet strikes me as far more calculating.”
“He is. He’s a bastard. I hope he fell over the lip and is still screaming on his way down.” I spit for emphasis.
“He’s too clever for that.” Gareth guides Iridiel away from the edge and back onto the narrow road. “He’ll have planned for Zatran’s death, left word that we’d be along shortly, and possibly set up some traps of his own.” He grows more tense with each word. “I should’ve killed him in Cranthum.”
“You would have, if it weren’t for me.” I can’t say that I regret being alive, but I hate Cenet enough that I would have risked a bit more death if it meant a one-way trip for him to the Spires.
“I would do it again, just the same.” The tension is still there, but now it’s backed with resolve. “You are worth any cost.”
Was I mad at him before? Surely not. Couldn’t have been. Because this male seems to know just what to say to turn me all warm, wet, and weak.
“There it goes. In the nostrils.” Iridiel snorts. “Your scent is all over my back. If I’m not careful, I’ll be the one getting mounted.”
“Oh, as if you wouldn’t enjoy that.” I shake the leather cloak, sending rainwater into his mane.
He turns and looks at me with one big blue eye. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”
I laugh, the sound bursting out of me and unlocking the hurt I’d been nursing ever since last night.
“I love that sound.” Gareth relaxes behind me and pulls me tighter. “I want to hear it so much more.”
I lean my head back on his shoulder and look up at his drenched hair and wet face. “I’m sorry about last night.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry.” He sighs and kisses my temple. “I knew the agreement before I pushed you. It’s just so difficult. My need for you is destroying my self-control, my reason, my decorum.”
“That decorum has been long gone. Ever since you left the winter realm you’ve been throwing around the word ‘cunt’ like it’s a bit of salt on your meal.”
He grins. “When it comes to yours, I’m more than happy to speak of its wonders.”
“In front of the winter realm nobles?” I arch a brow.
“In front of the king.” He nods. “In fact, I’ve been thinking that perhaps it needs its own holiday in the realm.”
“What?”
“I’m in charge of the official royal calendar, so I can add a holiday if I so wish.”
I can’t seem to stop smiling. “You’re going to dedicate a day to my lady bits?”
“I think that would be the first step in giving it the praise it deserves. Perhaps we can call it the ‘Choicest Cunt Day’ in honor of my mate?” He nods to himself. “That would be quite nice.”
Iridiel guffaws. “The winter realm is starting to sound like my kind of place.”
Warmth prickles along my skin and lights me up from the inside. I’ve turned this prim and proper winter realm noble into a crass, hungry fiend, and I rather like it. No, in fact. I love it.
I stretch up and meet his mouth, our kiss friendly and sweet with white-hot passion lurking underneath. The next time he has me against a tree, I know I’ll fold. I can only hope that there isn’t a single tree trunk between here and the mines.
15
Gareth
The rains have finally broken, leaving the Abyss covered in a milky white fog. We continue along its rim for another hour until Parnon calls a warning.
We halt and set up a quick camp. No fire. Nothing to alert anyone in this craggy, rock-filled landscape that we’re approaching the main gate into the Abyss.
I sit Beth onto the side of the wagon beside Parnon who still huddles beneath the canvas away from the wet and rain. We each chew through some stale bread and cured meat.
“We have to assume we’re expected.” Chastain leans on the wooden wagon and sketches out a quick map to match with what Parnon described. “So this wide gate here will have guards—likely sellswords hired by the slavers—along these low battlements on either side. Beyond that is a sheer wall on one side and a deadly drop on the other, so no help there. Anything else?” He looks at Parnon.
“Beyond the gate there are two long houses. One is quarters for the guards. The other is for the masters, a place for them to rest before entering the Abyss. Past that, the road leads to the mechanism.”
“What’s that?” Beth asks.
“Some infernal machine built by the masters that lowers the caravans down to the only road through the Abyss.”
“You sure there’s a road in there?” She leans out of the wagon and peers at the deep, black pit.
“There are many, but only one way out.” He leans back and peers past her at the bright sky. “Dry enough for fighting.”
“So, with all that said, the plan is a direct assault.” Chastain straightens and checks his sword. “Everyone ready?” He turns and surveys the fighters he brought with them. Each of them has a story, and some of them have shared them over the campfire at night.
The bravery alone in these former slaves is enough to earn my respect.
“Ready.” Baralja draws his sword and the others follow suit.
Flexing his fists, Parnon points to the gate. “I will take this down. Then I will kill any guard that gets in my way. Follow me. Do the same.”
Direct. I like it.
“So, what do I do?” Beth looks around at the former slaves, all of them armed and itching to spill slaver blood.
“Guard the unicorns.” Parnon slides out of the back of the wagon, the wheels groaning under his shifting weight.
“Guard the unicorns?” She frowns.
“You’ll be great at it.” I cup her cheek and kiss her with a fierceness that burns deep inside, a flame she lit the moment we met.
When I release her, she has that heavy-lidded look that makes my heart skip a beat. “Mmm.”
I want more of her mouth, but it’s time to go. Time for blood.
I stride away and join the force headed to the gate.
She sighs behind me, and I can barely make out her words. “This male. What am I going to do with this male?”
I smile all the way into battle.
“No, the other way.” Parnon points to a huge wooden cog coiled with some sort of wire.
Two of the fighters, blood still on their hands, use a wide lever to turn the cog. Two more stand on
the other side, turning the second. Both are attached to similar cogs on the sides of the platform in some ingenious pulley system.
“This seems deeply unsafe.” Beth peers over the edge of the platform as it creaks to life.
“Don’t look down.” I keep her caged between my arms as the floor begins to move.
“That’s it.” Parnon grunts his approval. “Keep turning until the rope is out. Then pull it back up and send the rest down.”
“How long?” Chastain eyes the huge coil of wire.
“It’ll be a while.” Parnon motions for the fighters to speed up with the uncoiling. “Settle in.”
We have half our number. A few more former slaves are staying behind to loot the slavers’ quarters for any goods that could help us through the Abyss. Not to mention the platform already seems crowded. One wrong step, and the plummet down would not end well. I pull Beth even closer to the very center of the now-moving platform.
“There’s no other way in?” Her voice is almost a squeak as the upper level disappears and all we can see is a rough-hewn rock wall surrounding us on all sides with several feet of dead air between the platform and the stone.
“This is it.” Parnon sits heavily, which causes the platform to sway a little.
Beth grabs onto my arms with a death grip. “Ancestors, save me.”
I pull her to the floor with me, more stability that way, and keep her in my lap. “We’ll make it.”
“How do you know?” She pulls my arms around her like a blanket.
“Parnon said so.”
“Thousands of slave caravans pass through here each year,” Chastain offers. “The mechanism transports them all.”
“No one ever falls?” She’s like a spring all wound up and ready to pop.
“I didn’t say that.” Chastain doesn’t meet her gaze. “But we are going to be just fine.”
“Oh.” She scoots back even more until her ass is wedged against me.
My cock, apparently oblivious to the danger, answers.
She doesn’t seem to mind, because she presses her back to my front, her head on my shoulder. With a deep breath, she says, “At least if we fall, it’ll be a quick death.”
Chastain shrugs. “You could survive, possibly, but then the creatures of the Abyss would come for you. If they get a whiff of blood—”
“He’s never been to the Abyss,” I almost coo it to her, because she tenses with every word from Chastain’s too-chatty mouth. “He doesn’t know.” I shoot him a hard glare.
He glances at her, then back to me. “Oh, right. Right. Never been. Don’t know what I’m saying, really. Just tired, is all.” He leans back against the wagon wheel and closes his eyes. “Just going to take a quick nap.”
He feigns sleep, wisely, as I rock Beth slowly in my arms.
Long minutes pass, the platform lowering at a steady pace. I think Beth might be dozing off when she grips my leg again. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“Thought I heard a shout.”
“My fae hearing is far better than yours, and I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Oh.” She looks around, the stone walls farther away now, the empty darkness looming. “Okay. Safe, right?”
“Right.”
She’s still tense, so I hum her a song about fires and cold nights and the snows that never seem to end.
“I like that,” she says after a while.
“Of course you do. You’re a blade of winter. That song is likely being sung right now around a warm fire in the forest of the High Mountain.”
“I have to admit,” she sighs. “That does sound lovely.”
“I’ll take you there.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.” I answer so quickly the magic sparks bright blue.
“I want to go.” She runs her fingers up and down my forearm. “When this is done, that’s where I want to be. With you.”
“You belong there.”
“And I miss Taylor,” she adds. “I even miss Selene a little. Is that crazy?”
“You miss the obsidian witch who has, several times, threatened to kill me and drag my carcass to her cave near the Spires and feast on my bones?”
“Everyone has their flaws, right?”
I smile and thank the Ancestors once again for my peculiar mate. “I suppose that’s true.”
“I think she’s probably having a great time at Leander’s court. Scaring children for fun. Cursing the nobles to get her rocks off. Stuff like that.”
“That certainly sounds like her. I know Taylor misses you, too.”
“She better. After all, I’m the—”
A loud thunk startles us, and I’m on my feet with my sword haft in my hand in a split second.
“What was that?” Beth wraps her arms around my calf.
Another thunk, and the platform trembles, then stops completely.
Iridiel whinnies. “Bodies.”
Chastain rises and rushes toward the back of the platform.
I bend down to Beth. “Stay here.”
“Don’t go.” Her fear cuts me to the bone, but I have to act.
“Baralja, sit with her.” My feral hisses at the thought of another male touching my mate, but it can’t be helped.
He hurries over, his gaze on one of the huge cogs that’s no longer turning, and sits next to her. “Don’t worry,” he offers, despite the very obvious worry in his eyes.
“Let go, my beloved.” I pry her hands from me, then kiss them. “Stay here. You’re going to be all right.”
“No, no, no.” She shakes her head vehemently.
“I’m coming right back.”
“It’s fine.” Baralja reaches out to pat her knee, then stops when he hears my growl. “This machine is safe.”
I leave before Beth can wrap herself around me again. Darting past Iridiel, I find what caused the noise. Two of the fighters we’d left to turn the cogs are dead, one hanging off the platform, his body carved by some unknown assailant. The other’s throat is cut, his arms bent at wrong angles when he landed half onto the wagon.
“Well?” Parnon asks but doesn’t rise. Shifting the platform with his heft is likely not the best idea at the moment.
“Trenhar and Pilari.” Chastain shakes his head and looks up into the inky black. “Must have been ambushed.”
“Maybe Cenet left a few tricks behind.” I bend down and close Trenhar’s eyes. “Waited for us to get onto the platform, then sprang the trap.”
“Great.” Parnon rubs a hand down his sandy face. “What now?”
I eye the cogs. “We have to turn them ourselves.”
“How?” Parnon grunts.
The other former slaves gather around while Baralja tries to get Beth to engage in conversation.
Chastain digs in the back of the wagon and pulls out a particularly heavy bag. “I have a few things to work with, but I’m not sure if gold is what’s needed for this.”
“We can try—”
The platform jolts again, but this time it’s not from a falling body. The cogs are beginning to turn. But it’s different now. Not controlled. Someone above has loosed both cogs, letting them spin us down at a breakneck speed. The impact will kill or gravely wound us all, and I have no idea how much time we have before we reach the bottom.
Beth shrieks, and the fighters grab onto the wagon and each other as we pick up speed, the cogs turning impossibly fast as they unspool. The unicorns panic, but there’s nowhere to go, so they neigh and whinny and huddle against each other around Beth at the center.
I need to get to her, but there’s no time, not when we’re speeding toward the ground faster and faster as the lines unfurl. With a running leap, I launch myself onto the framework of the nearest cog. The cylinder rests on a simple metal spindle, but it’s spinning so quickly it’s throwing sparks.
“Parnon!” I yell and stare up at the rapidly unspooling wire. The top cogs must be completely slack, allowed to spin unattended.
He
stomps up. “Great.”
“We’re going to stop it.”
“Too fast,” he says, but pulls up his hands all the same.
“I can jam this one, I think,” Chastain yells from the other side, a flash of gold telling me he’s fashioning something to wedge into the cog. “Everyone who can, come help!”
The fighters rush to his aid as Parnon and I grimace at the blurring cog.
“We need to do this together! Slow it down first, then jam it!” I yell back and brace myself against the side of the platform. If one of us stops our side too fast, it’ll send the entire thing careening to the side. Not good.
I motion to Parnon. “When I say go, we’re going to push against the side of the cog.”
“With our bare hands?” Parnon’s sandy brows rise.
“You have any other idea?” I shout over the whine of the spool.
He grumbles, but it’s lost to the wind as we hurtle downward into the dark.
“Ready!” Chastain yells.
Parnon leans out toward the cog, the air pushing his hair straight up.
“One, two, three, go!” I shove my hands against the cog as Parnon does the same. Pain rips up my arms, the skin shredding from my palms as I push as hard as I can. My bones threaten to snap, and I’m certain they would if Parnon weren’t here to help.
The sparks lessen, the cog slowing, but the platform begins to tilt. Beth screams as the wagon rolls toward her and the unicorns. Panic erupts inside me, and I ease my pressure on the cog. The platform straightens, the wagon stopping with a wobble.
“Match their speed as best you can!” I yell over the noise.
“I’m trying!” Parnon shouts, blood splattering onto his face from his own ruined hands.
When the platform begins to tilt the other way, I press harder. Agony coats every nerve in my hands and arms, but I can’t stop, not until the machine is under control. All the same, I howl at the white-hot pain, and Parnon does the same.
Gritting my teeth, I adjust the pressure until the platform finally slows enough to be manageable, but I can’t let off the cog. If I do, we’ll be in the same predicament, or worse, if the platform tilts again.