I lean forward and try to see his face as his hand continuously brushes the wall. It’s only then I see that one side has completely melted away.
The Fae behind me squeezes around my side so he’s now standing in front of me.
“On three duck and step forward,” he says. He counts down and we both crouch down.
When we duck a fine mist sprays above our heads, but when we step forward the spray misses us as it falls to the floor. The slab of stone in front of us moves to the side and we fall through, landing in a pile of tangled legs and arms.
Before I even get a chance to extricate myself, I’m being hauled to my feet by Trenton and Jackson. I look back and all our teams are mixed together following the pattern of the person in front of them. The four of us move further into the next room, cautiously stepping away from the door to make room for the rest of us.
There are no dead in here and although I’m wary I move all the way into the room. The walls surrounding us are clay and smooth, except for three archways that lead into dark tunnels beyond.
I pause my observations when Bastian enters the room and stalks over to me. I almost flinch when he stands in front of me, his jaw clenched shut, and the vein in his temple throbbing.
He leans in and in a whisper through clenched teeth, says, “There best be a good explanation as to why you just risked yourself like that.”
Even though he’s whispering I can hear the fury in his voice. I look over his shoulder to find Jared and Aylesbury standing behind him both with their arms crossed and both with identical looks of anger.
I fight back an eye roll and sigh. “Do you not trust me?” I whisper while watching the rest of the Fae file through the door to stand in their respective groups.
“You expect me to trust you when I know you’re lying to me.”
I couldn’t really say anything to that, knowing what I had to do to end this I would be lucky if he didn’t kill me first.
“Use your brain, Bastian. The dead showed me the way,” I say, and push past him.
I lean against the wall at the side of the tunnels listening to the occasional gust of wind that wails through them while waiting for the others to come through the door. I scowl at Bastian a few times for good measure when the male Fae that had potentially saved me from death by acid burn, leans on the wall at my side.
I swivel my head and look at him, and he does the same, so I arch an eyebrow.
“The name’s Dracon. Come find me at camp,” he says before pushing away from the wall to stand with his team.
I know he can see the dead, which is a huge problem for me, at least he wasn’t on the same team as Vex because that would completely screw up my plan.
“What now?” says Jared as I reach the group.
“We obviously take a tunnel,” Phoenix says.
We all look into the three tunnels. The other teams are also studying them. I grab Jared’s flashlight and shine it into each of the openings, and it shows me that there are dead in two of the tunnels, but one remains empty. The others look at me as I pace in front of the tunnels trying to decide if we follow the dead or if we take the other route.
Why are there dead in two tunnels but not the other? Are the dead here because they were caught in a trap? If they are, they can show us the way again, or do we take the empty tunnel?
I stop my musings and watch Dracon take the tunnel furthest away, his team following. He’d opted to follow the dead. I decide to follow his lead by taking the remaining tunnel filled with dead.
I go back to the others and look at Bastian. “Do you trust me?” I say, giving the words more meaning than he’ll ever know.
He sighs and says, “For now.”
I grab his hand and pull him towards the tunnel closest to us. It had less dead than the one the Unseelie had taken but that could mean anything. We walk into the mouth of the tunnel the rest of the group close on our heels. As we near the dead their screams and wails screech through my ears. I flinch, wanting nothing more than to clamp my hands over my ears and run through the tunnel until I reach the end.
Although the more I interacted with them the easier it was becoming to block out their lives, emotions, and voices.
I tug on Bastian’s hand and stop as I reach the first dead Fae, this one is female. Her body looks to have been skewered from the ground upwards as she hangs in place, screaming, her body at an odd angle.
The twins step up behind me and Jackson bends down to say, “There’s something waiting for us in the tunnel, Scarlet. Be cautious.”
I take a breath and try to take a step forward, Bastian’s grip on my hand tugs me back.
“I can’t show you the way to go without going that way first unless you’ve also developed the ability to see the dead,” I say to Bastian, wrenching my hand from his grip.
“Trust works both ways, wench. Tell me what you see,” he says, his voice low.
I point to the first corpse. “There are three Fae all screaming and they all look like they’ve been skewered from the ground upwards. None of them are moving.” I point the others out as well.
“Well, that explains the energy we’re seeing, brother,” Trenton says.
“That makes this easier then,” Jackson says as they both step in front of us.
Jackson and Trenton both high five then, with a flourish of magic, they both manifest large thick lengths of wood.
They take another step forward and I shout, “Wait.”
Trenton throws me a smile over his shoulder and says, “We can’t have you getting all the glory.”
Neither Bastian or Phoenix stops them, and I can only assume whatever magic they have will stop them from becoming skewered. They take another step forward, the stone floor in front of them riddled with holes. The wood they hold in their hands they use to bash each separate slab of stone. Trenton bashes the one that holds the dead Fae and a series of silver spikes fly up from the ground. They both avoid that stone and work their way forward. Bastian starts to follow, stepping only on the same stones. I then follow on Bastian’s heels all the while watching the twins.
As the twins near the end of the floor that’s riddled with holes Jackson begins to step forward without first using the length of wood he carries. I begin to cry out to him as his foot connects with the floor. As a series of spikes fly up from the floor Trenton reaches out to pull his brother back but not before his foot is skewered by a spike.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Mother Fucker!” Jackson cries out.
We all freeze, unable to move forward to help until we know which stones have spikes.
“Breath through the pain, brother, the spike will relinquish its hold in a few more seconds,” Trenton says soothingly then takes a step forward like he didn’t just witness his brother get impaled.
The spike finally releases him, and he puts all his weight onto one leg. Bastian reaches out to steady him as he grits his teeth and hops his way to the end of the stones. Once he reaches the dirt-covered floor he slumps to the ground at the side of Trenton.
The rest of us rush over the final stones and circle around him. Trenton has already removed his shoe, causing Jackson to curse the day he was born. If he wasn’t hurt, I’d love just how dramatic he was being.
Once his boot is fully removed you can clearly see a gaping hole in Jackson’s foot. I inhale sharply as Phoenix kneels at his brother’s side taking the pack that Aylesbury hands him.
“I thought Lycans healed instantly,” Silas asks, leaning against the wall watching Jackson with wide eyes.
“Unfortunately, bone takes a little longer to grow back than flesh,” Phoenix says while administering a shot from the medical pack. “We can’t even wrap the wound in case the fabric heals into his skin when it repairs.”
“I remember Gerry telling us that bit, I just didn’t realise he wouldn’t heal instantly,” Silas says.
Unable to help Jackson further Phoenix and Trenton lift him to his feet while hooking his arms over their sho
ulders so they can support him. Jackson is sweating, and I can only guess how painful it will be to regrow bone.
I take the lead again with Bastian and after a few twists and turns, we arrive at a door. We don’t encounter any more traps, but the door has no locks or handles. It is just another slab of stone set into a curved stone archway.
Bastian tries to shove his body weight into the slab of stone, but after a few attempts he gives up. I carry on studying the door, unsure how I can possibly do anything to make it open, when Lykos and Adam step up to the door.
“The door is blocked by magic,” Trenton shouts.
Both Adam and Lykos stare at it, I’m not sure if they think somehow watching it will make it open.
“It’s got to be ancient Fae, but how do we make it open,” Adam says, rubbing his chin.
Lykos shouts something unintelligible at the door then waits. Nothing happens.
“What was that?” I ask, studying the door with them while Silas systematically presses every stone around its frame hoping that will work.
“It was ancient Fae, they regularly used doors imbued by magic you simply had to say a specific word to get it to open and most of the time it was the word open. Back then most Fae were illiterate the symbols used to express the language were far too complicated for most to learn,” Lykos explains.
His words make me think back to the door in the black hall, that was opened by tracing the symbol for open, probably the only ancient Fae that I did know.
“Adam, when was the black hall built?” I ask.
“Around a few hundred years after the fall of Luin,” he tells me.
I grin as he looks at me curiously. I move over to the door and stand directly in front of it. “Can you remember when you directed me to a secret door in the black hall?”
“Yes, but that door isn’t like this one it has no symbols carved into it,” Adam replies, his brow wrinkled slightly as he cocks his head to one side.
“Maybe you don’t need pre-carved symbols,” I say as I reach up and trace the symbol for open on the stone’s surface. It is a simple symbol, a circle with a V running along its length.
I finish with the V and the second I stop tracing the symbol with my finger it glows orange and etches itself into the stone. After a few seconds of nothing, I’m about to say that it didn’t work when the door grinds slowly away from the wall. The sound of stone grating on stone sets my teeth on edge.
When the tunnel beyond is revealed I take a step back, crashing into Bastian. Blocking our way are three shadowy Wraiths. I shiver as Bastian shoves me behind him. I hear Silas scream and Jared’s intake of breath. I was afraid of the Wraiths but both Silas and Jared had suffered from them a lot more than I had.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Adam and Aylesbury trying to comfort Silas as she mutters, “I can’t. I can’t.” Over and over. I don’t take my eyes off the shadows coiling in front of us.
“What is that?” Phoenix asks.
“That is a Wraith. An entity that feeds off the destruction of your reality,” Lykos mutters, taking a step forward.
“Please tell me you know how to get rid of one,” I say to him while clinging onto the back of Bastian’s shirt. The fear of not being in control, of being unsure where and what my reality is, terrifies me. I couldn’t go back to that place in my head again.
“I can’t hold them off for long,” Lykos says as he steps into the coiling mass of darkness.
I can no longer see Lykos for the shadows dancing around him. I don’t get long to stare before Bastian is pulling me along.
“We can’t just leave him,” I say as I stumble along behind Bastian.
“He’ll be fine. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t know what he was doing.”
We walk quickly down the remainder of the tunnel. As we near an opening that glows orange and yellow, Bastian motions for us to stop. He drops my hand and places himself in front of me, Phoenix moves to join him. I know they hear something, but I don’t know what until I see a group moving towards us from the opposite end of the tunnel.
As they get closer, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see it’s just the Unseelie team. Bastian and Phoenix don’t relax but they move forward towards the opening as Zeke steps through.
“Finally, you’ve arrived,” Zeke states, clapping his hands together. “Although I thought the Seelie team would arrive first as they were the ones awarded the clue.”
Both our teams merge together as we step through the doorway to tonight’s camp. I fall into step with Bastian as we emerge into a huge cavern. I can only describe it as a mountain that’s been hollowed out, the space is that big. The centre of the cavern is lit by torches, their flames flickering and dancing. Around the cavern, it looks like houses have been carved out of the rock. There are many doorways and windows overlooking what must be our arena for the night.
As we all filter through the door Zeke announces, “I’d like to welcome you all to the underground city of the Pixies, Aurelia. It is the only part of Luin that has not suffered from the ravages of time.”
As I turn in a circle taking it all in, I see Aylesbury teasing Silas about being a Pixie and Adam frowning in their direction.
“Each team has been allocated a number of rooms, on opposite sides of the arena. You have a few hours yet before tonight’s round of fights, I suggest you use it to rest and refuel,” Zeke says before walking away.
The rest of the team head off in the direction that Zeke has pointed but I stay back and fall into step with Dracon.
He eyes me and motions with his head to the nearest doorway. I follow him, throwing caution to the wind because I have questions I need answers to. Inside the door is a small room. It’s completely barren except for the two of us standing, eyeing each other.
He leans against the wall his hair falling over his eyes as he studies me.
“You haven’t seen them for long, have you?” Dracon asks, shoving his hair from his face.
I shake my head and say, “How do you control it?”
He pushes from the wall to stand in front of me. “You can’t control it. It’s a very unusual gift. Some say you have to have one foot in the grave to interact with the dead.”
“Then how did you end up with that ability?” I ask, curious about any information he could share.
“My father died in battle along with my mother. She was pregnant at the time. For reasons no one could fathom, I remained alive in her belly for weeks before someone stumbled upon a baby wailing at the side of its mothers rotting corpse. I was literally born with one foot in the grave. What’s your excuse?”
I shrug, not sure if I should tell him I was the descendant of the Goddess of Death and for some reason, her power now coursed through me. Instead, I ask, “Do the dead ever talk to you?”
“I see the dead, but they never see or hear me until today when one of them spoke to me. She told me I needed to find you and pass on a message. She had your eyes,” he says, watching my reaction. I knew he spoke of Tera, I had seen her too. “She said to remind you to embrace the darkness because only in the darkness can you truly see the light.”
“What does that mean?” I say to him.
“No idea, the dead very rarely speak to me, so I figure she was special. I’m merely the messenger.”
He moves to walk out the door before I stop him with a hand to his arm.
“You can’t tell anyone,” I say to him.
He laughs then says, “My own team don’t even know I see the dead. Any sane person with this ability hides it.”
He walks out the door without a backward glance. I don’t know why but I thought he may have more answers for me.
I walk from the room and out into the arena. As I walk, the stone around my neck brushes my skin, its coldness weaving its way into my heart and my head. The cruel power inside whispering at me to use it.
I shake my head and those thoughts away for now and head towards Silas who is talking with Phoenix. I wince and wonder i
f I should avoid her. Would she know I was keeping something from her? Should I tell her the truth? My heart breaks a little for her when I think of what will happen when she finds out Vex doesn’t even have her sisters.
I take a breath and walk over pretending like I don’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders.
“Bastian wants you,” she says as I reach her side then she points at a wide door a few feet away.
I grumble under my breath and walk away. No doubt I was in trouble again, I suppose it was better to face the firing squad now, I’m sure he’d only get worse if I let him stew.
I reach the door and push through into a bedroom; my bags were on a low table at the side of the door, so I guess this was where I had been assigned. I look and see Bastian leaning against a side table laden with fruit. The room has a large bed and one chair in it, two doors lead away to other places.
Bastian looks up as Jared and Aylesbury walk in behind me, their faces set in a grim expression.
I narrow my eyes at Bastian. “What the hell is going on?”
“You’re acting cagey, Red, and it’s not like you,” Aylesbury says as he stands in front of me.
“We’re concerned, sister?” Jared says.
“We can help you if you just tell us what going on,” Bastian says.
“Let’s see… yet again we are puppets in one of Vex’s manipulative games but to end him we have to see it through to the end. The game we are playing is archaic and extremely dangerous. In a matter of days, I have gone from what I considered normal to discovering I have Nymph magic and finding out I also have access to some long-lost ancestor’s ability to see and hear the dead,” I say, practically screaming the words at them. “I think that about covers what’s going on, don’t you?”
“Yes, there’s a lot happening right now, but that doesn’t explain why you’re still lying to me, to us?” Bastian says, stepping forward with a growl.
Bastian was far too perceptive, they all were. I could only keep this act up for so long.
“Do you trust me?” I ask Bastian.
He doesn’t answer, his mouth set into a firm line. I look at both Jared and Aylesbury and see conflicting emotions on both their faces.
Rage (Scarlet Dawson Book 3) Page 16