Chapter 38

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

W e ran on through the darkness, little knowledge to our direction aside from heading ever downward and hoping we might end up in our desired location. Everest's desire to find her man was rippling through the air, her magic continuously fuelling my own without me having to try and drain it. Her desires were what drove us on and I couldn't help but wonder why I was still pursuing them. But with the Vampires in the Keep and our route back upwards blocked by them, there weren't many alternatives to forging on regardless.

"Where is this Raincarver leading us?" Moraine growled, moving closer to me and hiding our words in a silencing shield as she narrowed her eyes at the back of Everest's head.

"The Reapers are keeping secrets in this place," I replied, looking from her to Cayde and Dalia who weren't at all subtle in their thirst for this information which I had been withholding for so long. "While I was investigating it, I came across her doing the same. I needed the information she'd gained and I offered her a blood pact to get it. I can't cause her harm or my own blood will rot."

"Why the fuck would you make that pact with a Raincarver?" Dalia hissed.

"Because she didn't seem important enough to kill and she's been useful in discovering the Reapers' secrets."

"Which are?" Cayde asked in a low voice.

"Something dark," Everest replied, glancing over her shoulder at us and making me startle as I realised my silencing shield had somehow vanished, leaving her to listen to all we said. "Something twisted and fucked up which they don't want us to know about. They've taken the acolytes somewhere and I just know that something isn't right about whatever they're doing with them."

Moraine arched a brow at me and I shrugged.

"Kitty cat has a little boyfriend who claimed two elements – she's all kinds of heartbroken over his disappearance."

Cayde snorted in amusement and Everest shot a dagger of ice at him which he only just shielded against in time.

"You might have a blood pact with her, but I don't," he growled, moving to step past me but I slammed my hand against his chest, halting him.

"Pretty sure one of you harming her on my behalf would trigger the blood pact too, asshole," I hissed, forcing him to back down.

"So she's here for her boyfriend," Dalia said as we took another set of stairs downwards. "But why are you so interested in the Reapers' private business, V?"

"Because I'm sick of being manipulated," I said in a low voice as a cool breeze drifted over me from the passage ahead and I inhaled the fresh air of home. "And I want to know what they're up to."

I upped my pace, moving ahead of them and glancing at Everest as I passed her too. We said nothing, but the look confirmed our tentative alliance still stood.

I moved to the front of the group just as we turned a final corner in the passage and recognition filled me as I found a heavy wooden door barring the way on. It wasn't the entrance we had used to reach this place before, but I knew before opening it that we had found our way back to the caverns lined with archways to the unknown.

I swallowed thickly and pushed the door wide, a shiver rolling down my spine as I led the way into the room.

Everest scurried forward, moving into the centre of the space, running her fingers over one archway then another, inspecting and dismissing them in turn.

"What is this place?" Dalia asked, walking up to the closest archway, decorated with the symbols for fire, and stepping through it to no effect.

I glanced between the three of them, the weight of this secret feeling heavier than before as I wondered about trusting them with it. But Dalia and Moraine had been my sisters for as far back as I could remember. And Cayde had unlocked my heart and stolen my trust alongside it since we'd been at Never Keep, earning his own level of faith. Besides, we were all loyal to the kingdom of air, all sworn to the same sovereign and all just as certain to protect it at any cost.

I glanced at Everest as I constructed a new silencing shield, making sure she was too far from us to overhear my words even if the shield somehow failed again.

"That urn contains the means to open these archways and create gates between places," I said in a low voice.

"What?" Moraine asked, her brow furrowing.

"When we came here before, I opened one of them and it took us to an underground hall decorated in the colours and style of our kingdom where the air tasted of home and my feet felt more firmly weighted on the ground than they ever have anywhere else."

"Home?" Dalia asked in confusion. "But we're a thousand miles from Stormfell. There's no way-"

"There is," I said firmly, looking to Cayde whose brows had creased, his expression stony as he took in what I was saying.

"You travelled to Stormfell via one of these archways?" he confirmed. "As simply as walking from one room to the next?"

"Yes," I confirmed. "But she didn't realise that," I said, nodding towards Everest. "She had no idea where we were. I could just…tell." I shrugged, knowing that sounded insane but the looks the three of them gave me said they trusted my word on it.

"Where do the rest of them lead?" Cayde asked, looking at the symbol for fire on the closest archway.

"We had to run before investigating further but my bet is that the rest lead to the other nations based on those symbols. You understand the risk of that, don't you? If the Reapers have created this secret network for moving around The Waning Lands at speed, it's only a matter of time before one of the nations discovers it and turns it to their advantage. Imagine an army passing through these archways and appearing without notice in the heart of an enemy city? This could be the key to the end of the war."

"Who have you told about this?" Cayde demanded, his glare shifting to Everest again and I stiffened.

"I told you, she hasn't figured it out," I growled. "She's just looking for that man she lost. She has no idea."

"And V's life is tied to hers so stop eyeing her like you're planning where to stab first," Moraine hissed in warning and Cayde's eyes flashed with anger at the suggestion.

"It's this one," Everest called, turning to beckon us closer from across the cavern and I gave the others a stern look before striding over to join her, taking a fistful of that sparkling grit from the urn and dumping it into my pocket as I went.

"How do you know?" I demanded, moving to stand beside Everest where she looked up at an archway marked with all four elemental symbols. It was one of at least six which held the same markings, but the certainty on her face said she knew without a doubt that her boyfriend lay beyond this one.

"I can…feel him. It's hard to explain but I can taste salt on my lips from the ocean where we always swam together as I stand here. I can smell the lime and sea air which always clung to his skin and almost hear a breath of his laughter… He's here. I know it."

Something twisted in my chest as I looked at the desperate longing written into her features, the pull of that desire untying a knot within in me, her need to find this Fae so intense that I couldn't even summon a quip or joke at her expense.

"Alright." I dug into my pocket, taking the glittering grit from it and moving to the depression marked with the rune for travel before dropping it into place.

Bright light sped into the rivulet which curved over the archway, rushing through it before erupting across the open space at its centre and once again opening a door to the unknown.

A foreign whoop of victory shattered the silence and I whirled around as a door on the far side of the cavern burst open, my eyes widening as the Vampires tore through it with cries of delight at finding their prey.

"Vesper!" Moraine yelled in alarm, drawing her daggers while Cayde and Dalia whipped up a storm of air to defend themselves.

I turned to Everest whose eyes were wide with terror.

"Go find him, kitten." I gave her a dark smile before shoving her straight into the blazing light and sending her into the questionable safety beyond the archway.

Air blasted from me as one of the Vampires shot straight towards us, but my smile only widened as he came for me, the thrill of the fight lighting a blaze in my veins while Everest sped into the unknown. And despite all the reasons I had to hate her for what and who she was, I couldn't help but hope that she found her copper-eyed Fae beyond that door because I'd tasted her desire and it had been so fucking sweet, it hurt.