12. Elara

Chapter 12

Elara

W hen the line of fire reaches Kaspian and Wilder, I swear I notice a smirk at one corner of Axe's mouth when he hears shouts coming from the entrance to the corridor.

I'm noticing he enjoys surprising people in the worst of ways.

Axe nearly sent me out of my skin when he gripped my shoulder to pull me to a stop in the pitch black passageway. Not that I complained, since I responded to Wilder's dare to enter first like a stubborn idiot. Something in me never wants Wilder to win at his dares, thus I traipsed into the unknown despite my current history of traps and gunshots with faux bravado.

So when Axe cautioned me to stay close while he flipped open a lighter from his pocket and held it to the wall, I did. His tiny flame illuminated a carved horizontal line spanning the corridor and I observed with interest as a combustible powder reacted to his flame and sent an impressive whoosh of fire lighting our way down.

And back.

I don't realize I'm grinning, too, until it falls from my face the minute I behold Kaspian's unbound fury, stoked by the orange line of fire along the wall. And Wilder positioned behind him, gun in one hand and knife in the other.

Kaspian's rage ignites the shadows clinging to the corridor. A vein throbs at his temple. He stalks forward, fist balled at his side.

I backpedal, hands raised in supplication. "Kaspian, we didn't mean to scare you?—"

Kaspian pounces, seizing Axe by his shirt's collar and slamming him against the opposite wall. Pebbles rain on us at the impact. I look at the ceiling with worry. "Kaspian, stop."

"You think this is fun ?" Kaspian seethes, face inches from Axe's inscrutable one. "Sneaking around in the dark, springing traps on each other?"

I have one foot forward, ready to intervene, but Wilder's hand at my elbow stops my approach. He's pocketed those weapons I never even knew he had and shakes his head slightly, watching the scene unfold while saying to me out the side of his mouth, "Let him get it out. Axe wants him to. He can handle it."

Kaspian's lip curls. He shoves Axe harder against the wall, then releases him with a disgusted headshake. Though his throat has become bright red with Kaspian's chokehold, Axe stands strong, arms at his sides.

Kaspian rounds on me, jabbing a finger in my direction. "And you. Waltzing in first like a fool. Letting Wilder goad you into being an idiot."

I lift my chin, meeting his glare. "I don't let anyone goad me into anything. I make my own choices."

Kaspian snorts. "Clearly."

He spins on his heel and stalks down the corridor, the firelight casting his elongated shadow against the walls, storming behind him like his pet poltergeist.

Axe pushes away from the wall, hands balled at his sides. He still won't massage the mark on his neck or even acknowledge it's there.

"Guess Kaspian wants to be the leader," Wilder says at my side.

I don't respond. I'm watching Axe, trying to read his expression in the flickering light. His face is a veneer, but there's a glint in his eye that I can't place. Amusement? Anticipation?

He meets my gaze, and his mouth quirks, just for a moment. Then he turns and follows Kaspian into the depths of the corridor, leaving Wilder and me alone in the wavering firelight.

He regards me with a look that is part appraisal, part amusement, his lips curving into a faint, knowing smile that suggests he likes what he sees.

As he walks by, something about him feels different. Stronger, perhaps more focused and way less playful now that the threat of danger commanded his attention. His prowl is fluid and undeterred by the weapons I'm now aware he holds against his body.

"You okay?" he asks without looking back.

I scan our rocky surroundings while I resume walking. "Let's just get this search over with."

While continuing down the passageway, my feet scrapes against the uneven stone. I really should've worn shoes.

Ahead, Kaspian marches onward, his broad shoulders rigid with anger.

We round a corner, and the path opens into a cavernous chamber. Stalactites drip from the ceiling like jagged teeth, and the air is thick with the stench of damp earth and something else, something rotten.

Kaspian stops abruptly, his hand shooting out to halt our progress. I peer around his sheer size, and my breath catches in my throat.

A stone altar lies in the center of the chamber, illuminated by a shaft of sickly green light. Its surface is stained with dark rust- colored patches and symbols are carved into the sides, tangled and coiling like serpents.

Axe is the first to move closer, his face blanched of color, and circles the altar slowly, running his fingers over the symbols at the top.

The slab is just the right length to splay out a human. My eye is drawn not just to the carvings, but the finger-sized gouges along the rough edges.

"What is it?" My voice sounds too loud in the oppressive quiet.

Kaspian slowly shakes his head. "Nothing good."

Wilder moves to the far side of the chamber, scanning the walls and running his hands along thin, vertical marks. He asks in a voice matching the gravel around him, "Do you recognize the symbols, Axe?"

Axe nods.

Then peels off his shirt.

"Oh my god," I say. No, I don't say anything. I moan it through my fingers as they cover my mouth.

Many of the same markings on the altar are ones that the Sovereigns have carved into his back.

His muscular form flexes and strains with each movement, the raw, tortured maleness of him seeming to make the symbols on his back come alive in the eerie green light.

Axe looks at me over his shoulder, his eyes dark pools that the light can't reach. The resigned look on his face twists something in my chest, and I reach for him?—

"Do you like what you see? What Axe has become?" Kaspian asks, a crooked smile accompanying his snide remark.

I recoil, my cheeks burning at the same time I hiss, "I'm not going to apologize for having a heart. Not even to men who clearly have no idea what it's like to feel one beating in their chest."

Kaspian returns his attention to the altar in clear dismissal. I wonder what I did to make him despise me so much. Opening myself up to Cav while they watched, at the time seemed … right. Beautiful, even. But Kaspian, with his unhurried disdain and reluctance to have me at his side now, makes me think I did something shameful.

And I hate him for it.

I am not ashamed.

Axe's guttered eyes meet mine for another fleeting instant before he turns away, pulling his shirt on.

Wilder draws closer to Axe, his attention flicking between Axe and the altar. "You know what this means, don't you?"

I edge closer, morbid curiosity overriding the hurt Kaspian brought forth.

Axe traces a finger over one particularly intricate carving.

"It's some kind of ritual," he mutters. "Blood magic, maybe. Something dark and ancient."

Wilder shifts uneasily, his hand drifting toward the gun at his hip.

I dare to venture, "I thought your current Sovereigns were the only ones to bring dark magic into your rituals."

"Yeah, that's what we thought, too," Wilder says, his eyes not leaving the stone altar.

I turn to Axe, my voice soft but firm. "Do you have any idea what these symbols might mean? Anything at all?"

He shakes his head, his expression unreadable.

"Leaving the question," Kaspian says as he comes up behind me, "why does Axe have carvings on his back that are the same as ones found in an untouched chamber hundreds of years old?"

"Not untouched," I breathe out when something catches my eye—a glint of metal at the altar's base.

I crouch down. There, nestled in a crevice, is a small silver flash drive.

"Guys," I say, my voice cracking as I push to my feet.

I hold up the flash drive. Kaspian snatches it from my hand, examining it closely. "Your brother sure does love his scavenger hunts."

"He was trying to be safe," I reason. "Would you rather he leave everything in one place for the Sovereigns to find?"

Kaspian's eyes flare at my tone, but I refuse to be cut down by him again. Not when, for the first time in years, I feel closer to my dead brother just by finding another clue he left behind.

Kaspian's grip tightens around the flash drive, the whites of his knuckles bursting through.

"Your brother's games are going to get my brothers killed." His voice is a low snarl. "You realize that, don't you?"

I match his glare. "Maverick knew what he was doing. He wouldn't have hidden evidence here if he didn't think it was important."

Kaspian's attention lowers to my lips, his expression stirring with a mixture of lust and fury. The oxygen seems to evaporate from my throat, leaving me light-headed and struggling for air. Under his unrepentant study, the frustration between us undeniable.

It comes with so much heat, my core is melting with it.

For a long moment, Kaspian says nothing, just stares at me with those toxic, burning eyes.

Until Axe comes between us, dampening our fervid scrutiny of each other.

Kaspian straightens, his expression smoothing and his stare becoming bland and bored, like I never interested him in the first place.

I hold back the insult on my tongue by clenching my molars together and listening to Axe.

"We need to find out what's on that drive," he says.

Wilder produces a small tablet from his pack, holding it out to Kaspian. "No time like the present."

I hesitate in agreeing, my focus returning to the altar. The stains seem to shine in the sickly light, and a wave of nausea rolls through me. Yet I don't tell them to stop.

Answers about my brother overrides literally anything else.

Kaspian inserts the drive into the tablet's port. The screen flickers to life, lines of code scrolling across the display. He leans in, his brow furrowing as he deciphers the encrypted message.

"It's coordinates," he says after a moment. "And a warning."

Axe inclines his head, his attention locked on the tablet's screen. Wilder leans closer, a pensive frown on his face. After a few taps, his expression almost serene, Kaspian opens up a video.

The sound that comes out of me isn't human. It's an inhale of pain so ancient, every being on earth has felt it.

Grief.

Kaspian's hand clenches around the tablet at the sound, the veins in his forearm pushing against his skin. Axe closes his eyes like he feels my pain.

"You don't have to watch, sweetwitch."

Wilder's sudden proximity is a live grenade, his voice the pin that, once pulled, sets off a chain reaction of explosive sensations that tear through me.

I never saw him move, never felt the breeze of him closing in.

But I can't take my eyes off the close-up of Maverick's face, his face thinner, almost gaunt, as his amber eyes blaze. His hair, a twin to mine, is tousled and matted with sweat, like he's been clutching the sides of his head and pacing, a habit he had when he was stressed out and needed a moment to think.

"Play it," I say in a voice I don't recognize.

"You sure?"

I stare at Kaspian, surprised he even cares. "Yes."

Wilder settles an arm over my shoulders and pulls me close. At least if I explode, he'll cover me to lessen the impact.

Kaspian taps the screen, and Maverick comes to life.

"Sis, Ellie, I'm-I'm so damn sorry if you're seeing this. No, not if. When. When you find this." Maverick pauses, squeezing his eyes shut. The camera tilts as his hold on his phone loosens while he records. But with a shaky sigh, he centers the camera on his face again and continues. "I'm holding on to the hope that you'll find everything I've hidden while also praying that you won't need to. This isn't what I ever wanted for you, but … but if …" His words catch as if something inside his body strangles his voice.

He visibly pushes past the lump in his throat, forcing the words out with a doggedness that belies the tremor in his voice. "If you're watching this video, it means I'm dead, and it wasn't accidental or from natural causes. Playing this video means I was murdered, and you're stopping at nothing to find my killer."

A tremor runs through me, a brief but undeniable quivering that I can't quite suppress at those damning words. They're true. His death has been a fact for six years, but god , it still hurts.

"You're sixteen, just a kid, but I see it in you. There's a force brewing in your soul, one that I doubt was extinguished after I died," he says, a hint of pride seeping through the despair in his voice.

A tear escapes, tracing a warm path down my cheek before falling to the filthy ground.

"I can't protect you anymore," he admits, another painful truth laid bare. "But I trust you can find your way out of this, because I've done everything I can to help you bring the Sovereigns down."

Wilder's arm turns to iron around my shoulders. Kaspian, who hasn't blinked since Maverick started talking, gives a single eye twitch of acknowledgment to Maverick's confession that he was trying to do exactly what we are. Axe lifts his chin, his attention tunneling into the screen.

"What I'm about to tell you goes against everything you think you know about Titan Falls, about its so-called elite Sovereigns who rule every aspect of this town and the powerful people outside of it." Maverick pauses, lost in thought.

He leans in closer to the camera. "I found something, Ellie. Proof of a secret that could bring their whole empire crumbling down. That's why they want me dead." His voice drops to an urgent whisper. "There's something called the ruby Heart. If you've gotten this far, I hope you know about it."

I nod, though there's no way he can see me.

"I found it. There are so many people looking for it, bad men, bloodthirsty ones, killers. But I found it before them, and I broke it. The other half, the one that will help you reveal everything, I've hidden it where they'll never find it. It's the only leverage I have over them."

Maverick glances over his shoulder, his jaw working nervously before he turns back to the camera. "Inside this drive are documents—photos—of what Sarah Anderton compiled centuries ago. Records, transactions, communications. I took photos of everything I discovered in the Grand Library underneath Thornhaven Estate. Hard evidence of the Sovereigns' true origins and the means by which they seized control."

Kaspian's stare lasers into the tablet's screen as if the threat of his eyes alone could force Maverick's ghost to provide more details.

As if predicting such intimidation, Maverick continues, "I won't risk going into detail in this video in case it falls into the wrong hands, but I will tell you one thing. The place where you found this drive is where Sarah Anderton was imprisoned, tortured, and killed."

I suck in a breath. My stare immediately locks on to the gouges in the slab, the vertical marks Wilder noticed.

Nails. Desperate, clawing fingers belonging to a woman.

"Sarah's death wasn't through official or lawful means," Maverick says, redirecting my grief. "Not after her trial. The Sovereigns kidnapped her and held her here for weeks?—"

A crash sounds behind him. Maverick's head twists toward the noise, then swings back into focus, and he's talking faster and with more panic.

"Someone's coming. Find the second half, unlock the Heart, and expose their lies. Change history, Ellie. You have what it takes. You're the only one I trust to finish what I started … and please, please ? — "

Another sound clangs, then a shout. "Mavvy-boy, you in here?"

"—don't trust anyone other than family, Ellie," Maverick says in a rush, the camera shaking now. "You hear me? Family only. No matter how many years separate them from you. Members of the Cimmerian Court will try to manipulate you and sway you to their side, but these are not good people. Everyone's a liar. We're bred to kill, to work for the Sovereigns, and destroy anyone in their way?—"

"Mavs! Where you at?" a disembodied voice yells somewhere behind him.

"I love you," Maverick chokes out. "I love you so much, Ellie. And I hate that you'll never see me again. There are no more USB drives. Just the three. Be safe. If there's a way to still be here after death, I will do everything that I can to stay with you."

The screen goes black as Maverick cuts the video.

I close my eyes against the anguish of his confirmation. The deep cut of his vow. Maverick was part of a brutal secret society and never breathed a word of it.

My shoulders slump as the final image of Maverick's drained face is seared into my mind.

The second I saw him on the screen, alive and talking, I had hoped for answers, maybe even a, "If I'm dead, it means [insert name here] killed me."

But it was a false hope. I should know that this world, these people, don't deal with their problems upfront. No, they stalk, and circle, and study, until their prey is at their weakest. Maverick, good man that he was, would've been trained in the same way.

My god. Trained .

For how long? How long did the Sovereigns have him for?

More questions, more worries, swirl inside my head.

What is the full extent of the Cimmerian Court's influence in Titan Falls—and beyond? How far back does their power truly reach? And most importantly—where the hell has Maverick hidden the other half of the ruby Heart?

I can't shake the cold, phantom fingers brushing along my shoulders, chilling my skin and raising the hairs on the back of my neck.

Don't trust anyone.

I slowly become aware of the others in the altar room. Wilder's arm still wrapped tightly around me, more possessive than comforting. Like he's saying through his strength, You're not going anywhere, no matter what your brother just said.

Kaspian watches me for any reaction, a python waiting for its dinner. And Axe's calm presence unsettles rather than soothes me.

I'm alone in here. Utterly alone among these evasive and dangerous men who likely know far more about my brother than I ever did.

Everyone's a liar.