Chapter 10

ChapterTen

The Sanctum of Exiles was a holy place. Well, sort of at least.

Varya had heard about it when she was a little girl. This was where they sent all the people in the kingdom who had broken the law. The ones that weren’t fixable. And in their kingdom, most laws were meant to be broken. Murder, thievery, all of that was fine. But there were a few laws that Greed himself did not abide by.

Did anyone else know what those laws were? No. Of course not. The idiot that she couldn’t get out of her head was the only one who knew what those were. And she had a sneaky suspicion he could change them whenever he wanted.

Still. It wasn’t a good idea to be here, of all places. And yet, here she was.

Tightening her fingers around the straps of her bag, she blew out a very long breath. Steeling herself for whatever she might find on the other side of the cave mouth opening.

Someone had carved it into the head of a lion. Long fangs hung down from the mouth and up from the opening. Stalactites and stalagmites had grown up further in, making it look like the throat of the lion was filled with even more teeth.

If she made it out alive this time, she would be surprised. But it was worth it. She’d take the risk for her friends that needed someone to do it. The gods knew she wouldn’t send anyone else out here when they had children waiting for them back home.

A week had turned into ten days. She’d had a difficult time trying to get a mount, and even Altan had agreed that she needed one if she was going to go on this journey. He’d been a little weaselly about it, though. Insisting that he was the one to make the deal for her to get the mount, and then saying over and over that he couldn’t find one. No one would barter with her either. They just kept saying Altan was handling it.

By day eight, she’d gone to the next town over, a half day’s walk at that, and bartered for a donkey. The old beast wasn’t happy to plod all over the sands, but it had managed faster than she’d have walked. And it carried food and water, which she would have had difficulty lugging around.

Altan hadn’t been pleased. He’d worn that pinched expression on his face when she got back, and then argued that he’d been handling it. But he hadn’t. And she’d had to take matters into her own hands.

Sometimes she wondered if he wanted to keep her around more. He certainly stood in the way of every adventure she headed out on, trying to keep her home more and more these days.

Stopping her from adventuring would be like killing her. Varya would never stand for it.

“One foot in front of the other,” she muttered as she started up into the lion’s mouth.

And there it was again. The faint prickling at the back of her neck which had started four days ago and never quite let up. Turning on her heel, she scanned the desert horizon but still saw nothing. No matter how many times she looked, there was never anyone there.

Still, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that someone was following her. It had started in the town, then trailed her across the desert to get here. She never saw any movement, though. Nothing. Not even a grain of sand out of place.

Squinting, she turned back to the entrance and headed inside. The Sanctum of Exiles had once been a thriving kingdom, or so the legends said. All the people who were banished here ended up building an empire. They’d lived for centuries underground, gathering all the magical artifacts they could until Greed led a battle to their doorstep.

They’d fought. They’d lost. The story was the same as all the others. Anyone who tried to stand up against the demon king always failed.

She didn’t quite understand how, of course. He wasn’t that impressive. But she had only seen the man when he was weak.

The mouth of the cave quickly descended into darkness. Varya pulled out a small torch from her bag and lit it on fire. The blaze illuminated the interior of a massive cave, one that was filled with bats above her head. At the light, they all shrieked and took off in the air, funneling up toward an opening at the very top of the cave that she hadn’t noticed before. There wasn’t any sunlight coming through it, though. Another exit?

Beside her feet, stairs disappeared into the darkness. There was no railing, only a steep drop off into what looked like nothing.

She nudged a rock with her foot and listened, counting the seconds until the rock suddenly clattered against the ground. A long way down.

“All right,” she muttered, her voice echoing in the cavern. “Down we go.”

She hated stairs. They were the worst part of raiding tombs like this. They always took forever, they were always spirals, and it always made her nauseous and dizzy by the time she got to the bottom. It didn’t help that they were always wet, too. Algae covered the stone surface, making it hard for her to brace herself against the wall because her hand slipped in the sticky substance.

Not that she was in any rush. Varya already knew she’d be staying the night in the haunted remains of what had once been a rather bloodthirsty kingdom.

At the bottom of the stairwell, there were three pillars. Each one carved with a symbol of an element. Waves. Air currents. Flames. There should be earth too, she thought. Varya stepped closer, her light catching on one of the pillars that had fallen into ruin. Crumbled like dust.

“Damn,” she muttered as she circled it. “This looks important.”

Tombs like this were always part of some intricate puzzle. She was probably supposed to know what deities these people worshipped, turn the stones in the right pattern, and then press a stone button. The Sanctum had been very exclusive, she knew that. They were intelligent people as well.

Unfortunately, their puzzles didn’t stand up to the test of time.

“Well, that solves it.” Varya set her bag down on the ground, and dusted her hands off on her pants.

She’d taken to talking to herself on adventures like this. Varya so rarely saw other people, and when she did, she wasn’t allowed to speak with them or they might steal from her. The sound of her own voice echoing in caverns like this was soothing.

Looking at the puzzle one last time, committing it to memory so that someone at least would remember it had once existed, she sprinted at the pillar with fire symbols. Her shoulder struck it hard, and it fell as she expected.

Wincing at the pain in her shoulder, she did it again. And again. Until all the pillars were on the ground and revealing the mechanisms underneath them. It was a shame to do it, but a girl had to keep moving. No one was stopping her.

Varya rummaged through her bag to get out her chisel and hammer, and then she spent the next hour chipping away at the metal underneath. It took a while for the first one to click into place, but then she’d gotten the hang of it. The only one that fought her was the damn earth symbol that had rusted so much in the century since this place had been abandoned that it almost didn’t give.

But it did. They always did.

Grunting in approval, she stood and watched the floor beyond groan. There were circular markers on it that she’d thought were just indentations and carvings. Instead, they turned out to be a giant doorway that opened up and revealed running water about two stories down.

Deep running water.

“Oh, damn it.” She muttered. She’d hoped she wouldn’t get wet, but she also knew how these tombs went.

Back in the days when this was used, there were probably boats down there. There were stairs that meandered down into the darkness for people to walk down as they leapt into their boats and made their way to the real kingdom. Unfortunately, that was not the case for her.

Tightening the straps of her bag, she said a brief prayer and then toed the edge of the opening. One leap. She’d hold her breath and then the river would take her where she had to go. At least she didn’t have to walk anymore.

Varya lifted her foot and then stepped forward into nothing.

Only to hang by her bag as the straps caught at her shoulders.

“What—” she hissed, wriggling until she was lifted higher in the air and then dangled in front of golden, gleaming eyes.

“Are you so quick to kill yourself when I’m not here?” Greed grinned. The man was all too pleased to be holding her like a cat who had caught a mouse.

Swearing, she tried to kick him in the thigh but couldn’t quite reach. “Put me down, Greed.”

“No, I don’t think I will. You were insistent on leaping to your inevitable death without a single thought to what kind of place this is. You’d be dead if I didn’t grab you.”

Eyeing the floor, she made sure she wasn’t hanging over the gap before freeing herself. She palmed the clasps at her shoulders and flicked them open. Falling into a crouch right at the edge, she punched him hard in the knee.

Hissing out a breath, he staggered away from her while hissing a few choice swears of his own. “Feral woman! What was that for?”

“I’m not a plaything,” she muttered before walking up to him and kicking the back of his already weakened knee. He went down onto it, eyes wide, before he rolled away from her. “Now give me back my things.”

“The things you stole from me.” He turned in a crouch, her bag still in his clutches. “Don’t start something you can’t finish, treasure.”

“Oh, I can finish it.” She reached behind her and pulled out a knife. “I will not be so nice this time. You needed my help, I gave it. Now you’re trying to steal from me, and that’s an entirely different situation.”

He shouldn’t look so tempting with that grin on his face. It shouldn’t make a flash of desire heat her entire body as he reached for his own knife. “You won’t win a fight against me.”

“I’m a lot smaller and quicker than you. I think you’ll be surprised.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Come on then, little one. Let’s see just how terrible a fighter you are.”

Oh, she was going to kill him.

Varya launched at him, not waiting to see what he might do. He was bigger, but she was faster. She slid between his legs the moment he stood, her fingers already grasping onto her bag. But he used that handle to yank her back toward him.

Slithering out of his arms, she rolled over his back and lunged away from him. The stair, she could use the stairs.

But it was over before it started. He’d already caught up to her, using one of the straps from her bag to slide over her shoulders and yank her back to his front.

He ground himself against her hip, already hard and hot and far too tempting. “I think I like you, treasure. What do you say that I keep you?”

“Absolutely not.” She struggled against the strap, but it was too tight around her shoulders and his muscular arm was a band of iron around her waist. “Let go of me.”

“Absolutely not,” he mimicked, before jerking her around.

Greed walked her toward the edge, the rushing water echoing in her ears as he dangled her above it again. Her feet no longer touched the ground. The only thing holding onto her was his arm and the very precarious hold of her bag.

His lips brushed her ear, his words stirring every ounce of desire in her body. “This way is a lie. Any who dared to touch the sacred waters ended up stuck in a wedge of stone where the water disappears in the earth. It is a slow way to die. You can gasp for air every minute or so, but only that. Eventually everyone drowns.”

By the seven kingdoms, he’d saved her life.

Gasping, she tried not to show how pale her features had become. “Then what’s the right way to go?”

He released his hold around her waist and she felt the strap give. Varya hated the little sound of shock and fear that came out of her mouth as she slipped, just a little. But he just waited until she looked at where he’d pointed, where a small opening had appeared on the opposite side of the wall. Not down, but across.

“We go that way,” he murmured into her ear. “The door is the entrance into the rest of the kingdom. And depending on what you seek, I can bring you the rest of the way.”

“What do you want in return?” Because nothing with this man was ever free.

His arm returned to her waist, dragging her away from certain death and pressing her against all that warm skin. The heat billowing off him warmed her to the core, but it was the feeling of his impressively large cock wedged against her ass that made her blush.

He moved, shifting against her, rubbing and teasing and she had to get control of this or they’d have a repeat of that stupid moment in the cave.

“Greed?” she asked, and hated how breathless her voice was. “What do you want in return?”

“You,” he growled into her ear. “I only want you, little thief.”

Oh.

Oh, that sounded so nice.

And that was exactly why she had to get out of here or she would make an idiotic mistake. She struck out with her foot, catching him on the thigh again. He made a lovely little grunt in her ear before letting her go.

“That’s enough of that,” she hissed, straightening her shirt and reaching for her bag. “Thank you for saving my life, but I think I’m fine on my own now.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No.”

“I don’t know how you found the Sanctum of the Exiles, anyway.” He meandered away from her, eyeing the distance between them and the next ledge. “Few people know of this kingdom anymore.”

“I don’t know how you found me.” Varya ignored him and surveyed the distance herself. “Neither of us knows everything, it seems.”

He looked down at her with a much too amused expression. “I’m part animal, treasure. Didn’t I make that clear?”

“That doesn’t mean you can sniff me out whenever you want.” He touched her back, and she didn’t want him touching her. Angrily glaring, she looked over at him again to see his arms were crossed over his chest.

Was that...?

Letting out a choked sound, she slapped his tail away. “Stop that.”

“Well? Did you want to investigate the rest of this tomb or not?” he asked.

“I do, but I have to find the right rock to connect my rope to and then I’ll throw it over to the other side. I see nothing to attach it safely to, so I suppose I could start rock climbing.” If only the ceiling was a little lower. This would be an entire day’s worth of figuring if she was lucky.

Greed wrapped his massive hands around her waist and tugged her in close to him. On impulse, she held onto the top of his pants and then shrieked as he... leapt.

He jumped. From one edge to another that was easily fifteen feet wide and far too large a distance for anyone to just jump over.

But he landed in a crouch, his arm around her as he set her feet back on the ground. Chest puffed out, pride glowing out of his body. He shrugged at her horrified glance. “It’s faster this way. I’d like to get back to the castle by dinner, wouldn’t you?”

She watched him swagger away from her and had the thought to throw her knife into his back. The man just couldn’t... he didn’t have to...

Growling under her breath, she pinched her lips into a thin line and followed him. But if he thought for a second that she would let him take the treasure, she would steal it back from him in a heartbeat.

A quiet voice in her head whispered maybe he wanted her to.