Chapter 39

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

I twisted around, the shimmering archway at my back emptying in an instant and stranding me here. Fuck, I hadn't brought a scrap of that glittering grit with me and those Vampires were descending on all of them back there. There was no way to help. And maybe I didn't give a shit about the others, but Vesper… I didn't know why but leaving her to that fate didn't sit right with me. But there was nothing I could do now.

My fingers flexed as I turned to take in my surroundings, the walls rough and shimmering silver like they were imbued with metal. I could no longer sense Harlon's presence, but he had to be this way. I'd felt him back in that chamber, had been so sure he was beyond that particular archway. So I wasn't going to falter now.

I crept through the silent cavern as a low humming sound grew in the atmosphere, the noise pulsing, strong then weak, a sense of power building in the air around me. It didn't feel like any magic I had encountered before, the root of it dark and forbidding, drawing my blood to the very edges of my skin.

Closer and closer I came to the source of that sound, the passage winding along before opening out into a chamber that domed overhead. I stilled at the sight of a strange, dark liquid coiling across the ceiling, thrumming and writhing in time with the pulsing, humming noise. Beneath it in a wide circle were around twenty of this year's acolytes, all tethered upright to stone pillars by gleaming silver chains.

My gaze fell on Harlon like my body was magnetised to his, drawing me to him and pulling a desperate noise from my lips.

I ran, tearing across the chamber toward him, my heart cleaving in two at the sight of the runes cut into his bare chest. His head sagged forward, his body limp and his hair was falling into his eyes, that golden stripe at the front caressing his cheek.

I gripped his jaw in a panic, lifting his head and searching his face for signs of life, my chest thick with fear. He was warm, his pulse skipping beneath my fingers as I touched my other hand to his throat and I let out a breath of relief.

"Harl, it's me. Wake up," I urged, my voice cracking the smallest amount, but I couldn't break in the face of seeing him like this. I had to help him. Had to free him. I didn't know what was set to happen here, but I didn't want him to have any part in it.

"Harlon," I growled more firmly, shaking him as I let his head fall forward again.

I focused on the chains instead, gripping them and trying to tug them loose, but they were wrapped around him without an end. No lock at all. So that left one option.

I focused on freezing the chains, trying to figure out what kind of metal they were made of, but I didn't recognise it. True silver would be weak enough to shatter when frozen well enough, but my ice magic was having no effect on it.

"I'm not giving up on you," I swore just in case he could hear me. "I'm here and I'm not leaving without you."

The pulsing thrum of that unholy, dark mass above me was growing in urgency, the power crackling through the air and making my lungs weigh like anchors in my chest. I didn't look at it, ignoring its presence and fighting to break through Harlon's chains, determination burning through me.

I will not leave you here.

I will get you free.

I unsheathed my dagger, jamming it between the frozen chain and the stone pillar, wrenching backwards to see if it would give. My blade groaned, pushed to its limits as I poured all of my strength into levering it backwards, my muscles protesting, screaming at me to stop. But I didn't, pushing myself to breaking point and demanding these chains release him to me. No matter the effort I used, they didn't break and I was forced to give up, panting from exertion.

I tugged the blade loose, looking around for some magical answer that would help me free him, my soul frantic.

"Ever?" Harlon murmured and I gasped, cupping his cheek as his head lifted.

His copper eyes were heavily hooded, whatever spell he was under already working to steal him away from me again.

"Stay with me," I demanded. "I'm here. I'm getting you out. How do I release these chains?"

" Run ," he rasped, terror sparking in his gaze and weaving dread into my bones. "Get out of here."

"No, I'm not leaving you," I swore, clinging to his arms, trying to pull him from the chains and hating that I couldn't find a way to save him. "Tell me how to break these. Is there a lock I can't see? A key somewhere? Please, Harl. Stay awake. Tell me how to get you out."

"You can't," he said, his voice fading, his eyes blinking heavily. His fingers moved, trying to reach for me and I took his hand, resting my forehead to his.

"Fight it," I begged, my heart aching. "Whatever they've done to you, swear you'll fight your way free of it."

"No escape," he croaked. "Run, Ever. Never stop running." He groaned, then lost consciousness again and I reared back from him with a roar of anger leaving me.

I clawed at the chains, trying to break them with water and ice and all the Cardinal Magics I knew. But nothing affected them, nothing released him into my hold.

That power was growing unbearably thick in the air and I felt it creeping closer from above. I didn't want to look, but I forced my eyes that way to face what I was denying. The writhing mass of darkness shuddered and the sconces on the wall flickered out like a gust of air from the mouth of a beast had just snuffed them from existence.

My throat thickened and I placed myself in front of Harlon, raising my blade. The whole chamber shuddered and the sound of something heavy hit the ground before me. Something that made the atmosphere shiver and fear score a line across my chest.

"Blue," I whispered for him. "Light your tail," I urged, knowing I needed to see whatever was here if I was going to have a hope of surviving it. But Blue didn't answer, and I couldn't sense a single claw of his or the light weight of him on my body anymore.

He was gone.

A guttural breath rasped from the jaws of some unknown being before me and I steadied my hand around my dagger, my pulse hammering as I awaited its approach.

Power roiled and scattered from the being, racing out around the chamber and a few of the Fae in chains awoke and started screaming. At least, I assumed it was them because no one else was here and the roars and cries of utter terror set my nerve endings on fire.

I held my breath, trying not to draw attention as a terrible sound filled my ears. Crunching bones and ripping flesh, screams like no other flooding the air and branding themselves inside my skull. Whatever monster was here was feeding on the acolytes and I was terrified for the man at my back as those screams slowly quieted, the wet slap of body parts and spill of blood making my chest clog with terror.

The scent of it was everywhere, death like a tangible thing that was moving this way, about to dig its claws into me too.

I felt it move closer, the power of this thing beyond anything I could imagine, its presence so consuming that it felt foolish to hold my blade against it. No weapon, no magic could halt this entity and as its cold, lifeless breath washed over my cheeks, I felt the weight of its gaze settle on me.

"I'm Everest Arcadia," I spoke, not knowing why only those words came to my lips and I simply let them pour free. "Daughter of Kaylina Arcadia and Commander Abraham Rake, Raincarver of the mighty Cascada, neophyte of Never Keep, and one day I will be a warrior who is feared across the four lands. I don't know what you are, but I know that my fate does not end here. I am destined for more ."

That dark and terrible power slammed against me all at once and I cried out, my knees hitting the floor as the being took control of my mind, rooting through everything I was and ever wished I could be. It saw me as a dirty-kneed child with a bloody nose and my back against the wall of an alley while Ransom and his friends closed in on me.

It saw me bleed and saw me fail time again. But then it saw me rising too. It saw me love and burn and ache and want. Oh the desperate wants of me, it saw them all. The crux of my being, the root of my desires and it examined each one like placing worth upon it, deciding its value. I didn't know if I'd passed its assessment until it released me, that unbearable weight of its magic retreating from my body and leaving me panting beneath it.

Then it was gone, so abruptly that I was still quivering on the floor when the sconces flushed back to life and I found a Reaper striding into the chamber with rage pouring from his eyes. Three of the acolytes had been ripped apart, their pillars red with blood and pieces of their bodies strewn across the stone floor. But the rest of them remained unconscious, unharmed.

"Blaspheme!" the Reaper spat. "You are not chosen. You do not belong here!" He cast huge vines in his hand, slashing them at me in great whips and I was too slow to recover, still shaken to my core from what that being had done to me.

I was dragged to the centre of the chamber by his earth power, those whips striking at me, tearing into my clothes and biting through my skin. I cried out as pain ripped through me and more vines gripped my arms and legs, yanking on my limbs then pulling, laying me out for punishment. I stared up at the writhing mass of darkness on the cavern ceiling with fear clamouring in my chest as those whips struck at me again.

Agony raced through me, the Reaper's whips slashing across my legs and stomach, making me scream. I sent ice flooding over me in a shield, thickening it as the whips lashed down again, trying to shatter it.

"You will bleed for your crimes," the Reaper hissed. "You will be sacrificed to the Void and your pain shall be the first payment."

The word ‘Void' echoed in my skull. That strange entity must have been what he was referring to. They had found the weapon the Elysium Prophecy spoke of. And that knowledge would die with me here if I couldn't escape.

Another whip struck me so hard that the pain of it had me baying like a wounded animal. I was a girl on her back beneath her mother's screaming form again, rendered useless by the cruelty of others. And my mind cracked and split apart, my fear turning to a blinding rage at the injustice of it all. I thought of my half-brother pushing me in the dirt, calling me freak, nothing, worthless. I heard the laughter of all the Fae who had dismissed me, and it awoke something so brutal and cold inside me that I fell into the darkest spaces between the fractured pieces of my soul. All of it brewed and boiled and burst from me at once and a roar of refusal left me, rejecting my fate as a girl who was nothing .

Power spewed from me in an unimaginable wave, that darkness inside me spilling onto the outside and eating through the Reaper's binds at once until they were dust.

I rose to my feet, blood soaking down my thighs, stomach and arms from his strikes and my upper lip peeled back in a sneer.

"Wh-what are you?" he stammered, backing up, raising his hands but no power came for me. He was too afraid to cast against me again, and I revelled in the high I got from that.

"Your death," I whispered, shifting my eyes into that of my Leopard's before sending a blast of water out around the room, plunging us into the dark. But without that thick presence clogging the air, the being returned to that strange coiling liquid above us, I could see and the Reaper could not. And I prepared to punish the devil who had hurt me.