Chapter Ten

True to his word, the stairs leading down from the chamber of mind are ordinary and quiet. Sometimes I think I hear the hint of a sob as we descend but if there is any, it is quickly carried away. The sound of water falling echoes and gets louder as we descend until we finally arrive in a dark chamber lit with strategically placed candelabras throughout the room. The two largest, however, were placed at either side of an enormous statue of a veiled woman with skeletons bowing on their knees at either side of her. I recognize her now having seen her image throughout the temple. She was hidden among the procession. She was the sculpted figure of the fountain. She was a figure with abundance spilling from her bowl in the chamber of life. She was caught in the throes of passion in the room of desire. She sat on a throne and taught the gods gathered before her in the chamber of the mind.

Nashaka, the primordial mother of death and high queen of the underworld.

Her likeness stands here alone in the room, making the rest of the space seem eerily empty except for the random sculpted figures that emerge from the walls flowing with fountains of blood. Each statue is gruesome, men and women with their bodies contorted in fear and agony, their mouths gaping open and eyes wild with their screams of terror. In front of her image, however, there are small, bent figures prostrating in front of a glowing, whirling pool over which a sculpted basin is suspended. Curious, I walk to the edge of the pool and peer down into it.

On the surface, the water appears to be almost silvery, spinning like a divine font like one of the holy wells of the underwater. In its depths, however, it immediately reveals its truth. There is no blessed whirls of water nor happy spirit to welcome the dead to its cool waters. There is nothing but contorted shades, their faces twisted into something unnatural, their mouths gaping wide in silent moans and screams as they drift endlessly on currents that extend deeper and deeper with multitudes of trapped souls. The depths are darkened with the mass of spirits drifting within it, but I cannot see where it ends. All I can see is the countless dead staring back at me…. waiting for me to join them.

I stumble back from the pool and immediately collide with my mate. His arms come around me, his wings snapping around me in a safe cocoon of warmth that quickly invades the chill that has struck me. His low purr seeks to calm me but my heart is thumping fearfully in my chest even as it clenches hard with heavy grief that fills me. All of those dead souls were sacrificed and sealed away here. The pool extends deep. It appears almost bottomless. How many souls have been trapped within this place?

I shudder and tip my head back to exchange a glance with Jugong. His expression is sober, his eyes bright in that dim light with his understanding. He hugs me tightly for a long moment but reluctantly lets me go so that we can rejoin Nygohl. The wraith has stepped closer to the statue, sadness twisting his features as he stares up at the great goddess. There is such an expression of loss on his face that I silently grieve for him, wondering who he had lost to this place, and when.

"Do you know this is the only place in the underworld where you are likely to see her likeness," he whispers, his eyes moving over the veiled face of the goddess. "The Hasken removed all other images of her long ago and yet though her presence remains here, she hides herself still. Waiting. Sleeping. Alone."

"Nashaka is here?" Jugong gives a wraith a doubtful look and I don't blame him.

It is strange to think that the high queen would be captured in this place, and yet the temple itself subtly illustrated her journey every step of the way. I step away from the statue, my eyes drifting back toward the basin suspended above. It reminds me so much of the fountain in that moment that I instinctively step closer to the pool, aware of the fact that Nygohl and Jugong are close behind me.

"Marie?" Jugong calls softly and I wave him forward to join me.

"I just had a thought," I murmur as I peer speculatively up at it and then glance again over at the statue.

The goddess always has some sort of bowl. In the chamber of grow it was filled with fruits. In the chamber of desire, it poured into the cups of lovers. In the chamber of knowledge incense smoke had lifted from it as she spoke to those gathered around her. Even here she holds a bowl between her hands as she did within the fountain… a bowl emptying into a basin.

"Wait, wait," I mumble and hurry back to the statue. I attempt to grab the lip of the bowl, but the statue is too tall for me to reach it. "Jugong, pull the edge of the bowl forward. If I'm not wrong, there is a mechanism here in this statue as well."

Nygohl's breath catches in excitement, and he crowds closer, his body pressing against mine as Jugong grunts in agreement and reaches up to grasp the lip of the bowl. He tugs it slowly and there is a deep grinding sound. For a moment I am worried that perhaps I guessed wrong and that the stone is preparing to break, but then suddenly it moves and tips forward. Behind us water falls in a crashing crescendo and splashes as it hits the pool. I whirl around and smile. The basin above has tipped as well, and water is pouring freely from it like the fountain. The pool grows brighter and brighter, a flush of crimson invading the white glow.

I rush for the edge and glance down, my heart nearly stopping as a prone, dark figure becomes visible in the heart of the pool. Slowly she drifts upward, crimson light encasing her dark veils and gown as she rises at last from the depths of her prison to the surface of the pool.

Wonder filling me, I stare down at the primordial mother of death--Nashaka. She appears to be sleeping, her dark veils concealing her entirely as she drifts in the pool. The spirits of the slain dead are trapped in there with her, their hands grazing her as they drift continuously. Unlike the high queen, they are not sleeping but trapped in a whirling pool that feeds deep beneath the temple.

Nygohl was right. She had been trapped here, sleeping and waiting. He knew. I frowned at that. He knew she was here. He knew how to break the magic of the temple keeping her here, he knew every step of the way, and yet he had done nothing.

"You knew everything, Why haven't you freed her then?" I demand, whirling on him. "You know so much about this place. You must have been here dozens of times and yet you left her here every time. Why bring me here and not end this yourself ages ago?"

Nygohl shakes his head in frustration, his shadows thickening around him in response. "Do you not think I have tried?" He sweeps his arm violently to the temple surrounding us. "I brought an entire army here to liberate the high queen with the secret support of her daughters, the queens of the underworld. I brought down the temple and my efforts only resulted in my capture. I could not remove her. I could not find her. Even if I had known where they had hidden her it would have been impossible. I would not have been capable of breaking this magic here. Not alone."

Jugong's head lifts, his gaze shifting from the pool, and turns toward him in puzzlement. "I do not understand. The spells here only repulse monsters—and the primordial born of the most ancient powers of the underworld. The infernal races and those among the dead would have no problem unweaving them. Wraiths are born from primordial shadows, but you are still a younger species born after the descent of the gods. And you are not even fully wraith. You could have ended this long ago."

I blink in surprise. Jugong is right. As a wraith hybrid, Nygohl would have no trouble interrupting this magic and subsequently destroying the locks that keep Nashaka prisoner. I look over at Nygohl, suddenly doubting everything I was told and my own assumptions I had made in order to make sense of his differences.

"It is not that easy," Nygohl groans. "You need three key components to disrupt the magic, basically the original three used to make this place. Divine, monstrous, and human—more or less," he adds with a faint smile directed my way. "I couldn't do it on my own."

He needed all the elements in place. Jugong is a demonic monster. I am a human. But Nygohl… Nygohl lied and has been lying since the beginning.

"You're not a wraith." The words fall from my lips before my brain has even fully connected the dots. And yet, from his contrite expression, I know that I am right. Of course I am right. He has touched me several of times now and each time had been nothing like that of a wraith—it was too cold and yet burning hot at the same time in a dizzying sense of pleasure that sounded like no wraith encounter I had ever heard of before—but I had just brushed it off and excused it as being part of his hybrid nature. I was wrong. So very wrong. "What are you?"

His jaw sets grimly, the spirit fire in his eyes brightening as he meets my eyes. "I am not a wraith. I am the first son of Nashaka born fatherless from the shadows woven on her divine loom. I am Desolation, the last sleep of peace that relieves the suffering of the dead and sends them back to the pools of rebirth and reclaimer of the despairing shades of the dead who are slain." His lips suddenly twitch. "And you, a reclaimer with your hunting mate, are fated to be my bride."

My mouth drops as all the pieces suddenly fall into place. I hadn't been the only one to die of the wulkwos attack and yet few were harvested to join the damned, and as far as I knew I was the only one among us that was selected for reclamations. I had lured in a pit monster who was called to mate with me and finally we happened to be assigned to capture the one being who had been seeking a pair, waiting for us but not knowing who exactly he was waiting for until now. Everything has been designed by fate. Even my draw to him and my intense desire for his presence and reluctance to just end the job, giving myself every possible excuse to delay it, all lead to this moment.

Jugong sighs heavily from my side but he inclines his head toward Nygohl in a sign of submission and respect Giwungs show to colony leaders within the pit. "From my juvenile years I was told I would have an unlikely mating, one that would sow destruction and life within this world. I did not understand, and even less when I joined with Marie. I began to understand that it was different when I began to trust you with my mate's care and was eager for you to take the next step to join with her as well as she desired. But now I understand fully the game of the fates and see that all has unfolded as it was meant to be. I greet you leader and co-mate and request that you show us the next step of the way."

I am a little shocked at how easily Jugong has accepted all of this but as I think of it, once we mated, he had started to show a strange rapport with the male that had been our prey up until that point. It was as if our mating in the chamber of desire had set the wheels in motion. Perhaps Nygohl had even realized it then and had left us there for that reason.

"When you left us alone in the chamber of desire, did you do it on purpose to get this result?" I need to know the truth before I make any further decisions. I don't want any more lies between us.

Nygohl's lips purse thoughtfully. "Yes and no. I knew that the unfulfilled mating was causing Jugong distress and because of that I knew that he needed to complete that before things could progress. My absence, however, is due to who I am. There was a soul that had fought their way free from their torment within the forest and called to be escorted. It is not a call I could ignore and just happened to come at a convenient time. But everything else that preceded I had not guessed at."

That makes sense. Lifting my gaze to meet his eyes, I give him a firm nod as I mentally prepare myself for whatever comes next.

"Tell us what we must do."