Chapter 31

ChapterThirty-One

She’d gotten the damn healing artifact. And she’d done it in the most reckless way possible, almost as though she was trying to make Greed angry at her. But he’d been so pushy with his opinions. So certain he knew exactly who she was and why she did everything that she did.

It was fucking wrong.

She didn’t risk her life because she wanted to prove to herself that her life didn’t matter. Varya was smarter than that. She risked her life because others needed her and that was the only reason she’d almost fallen multiple times in that ancient tomb. The only reason she’d thrown a rope across a chasm and not tested to see if it would hold her weight.

She was and always would be, a good thief who knew how to navigate a tomb. Varya didn’t need the idiot king who had made her entire kingdom fall to pieces, anyway. Why did he think he was better than her?

Their argument continued to roll over and over in her mind. Greed had been so smug telling her that she didn’t care about herself and so someone had to. He hadn’t taken a word of her argument as the truth that it was. He’d just dismissed everything she said! Like he had that right. Like he was the only person in the kingdom who didn’t have to work on himself.

Not that she had to work on herself. Varya was just fine the way she was, and he’d never convince her otherwise. She wasn’t taking risks without realizing the danger. She saw it. Every bit of the danger that she walked into, and she loved it.

She raided tombs every week! By all the seven kingdoms, she’d been just fine before him and now he’d wriggled his way underneath her hard exterior and she was worried about taking risks!

Damn him.

Damn that stupid fucking king who thought he knew her.

“Varya?” Altan asked, drawing her to the present. “Are you so sure this is a good idea?”

No. It was a terrible idea. That’s why she’d wanted to come alone. Instead, he had insisted that a small group come with her out into the middle of the desert.

“Not really,” she admitted. “The map doesn’t tell us what the artifacts are. None of us have ever heard of what the Lamp of Origins does. But I still think its better for us to have it than the Horde. And they’d circled this spot.”

Which meant maybe they already had it. And if they did, then they were all risking their necks for nothing. Varya had guided them to the middle of the desert, and their packs were already running low on water.

She stared around her at the few friends who had gotten ancient donkeys and skinny horses, and wondered what she’d dragged them into in her anger at the king. They wore white and tan shrouds over their heads, trying to reflect the heat of the sun as far away from them as possible. They were all hot, though. Sweating right through the shrouds that were supposed to keep them cool and thus wasting even more precious water.

It was cruel to bring them here.

“You should all turn back,” she said, returning her gaze to the basin in the sands. “I don’t know what this item does. I haven’t heard of it before and... well. This is too risky.”

“If you can do it, so can we,” Altan replied. He sat up a little taller on his horse, but it made her heart race to see him like this.

“You have people back home waiting for you. All of you do.” She twisted on her saddle and the nuckelavee beneath her gave a little restless snort. It had been doing that a lot for the past hour. “Don’t put your lives at risk for something we don’t even know about. It might do nothing. The magic in it might be all used up, or the Horde might have already gotten it. We don’t all need to risk our lives.”

She knew they’d argue. Because they had argued with her for hours on end before she’d agreed to let them come with her. Each one of them had looked at the leathery beast she’d stolen from Greed, and they had said they’d go. As protection? She had no idea.

Altan nudged his horse closer to the nuckelavee, or as close as he could without the mount trying to bite the other. “One last time, Varya. Is Greed searching for you? We cannot have any trouble in the town.”

“I don’t think he is.” It was a lie. He was definitely looking for her, but she didn’t think that was going to be a problem for the town.

It was a problem for her.

Swallowing hard, she stared down into the basin and then got off the nuckelavee. It had been causing her trouble the entire day, but now the beast wished to run. And if that was the way of it, then... She’d let it.

“Off with you,” she said before it raced away. Like lightning across the sands, one moment it was there, and in the next, it was gone.

That should have been her first clue that something wasn’t right.

Instead, she gave Altan one more steadying look and smiled. “Let’s at least keep everyone up here? I’ll go down and get it. It’s got to be buried right at the base of all this, wouldn’t you think?”

“You’re the tomb raider, love.”

“Then I have a hunch it’s right where I think it is.” She hoped, at least. Climbing back out of this bowl in the desert was going to be a real pain in the ass.

Sliding on her butt, she let the sand do the work and send her deep into the depression. There were a few skeletons on the way down, large beasts with horns as long as she was tall, a few of the sand cats with tusks the same width as her wrist. Even an ancient-looking beast with a thick plated skull that would have been useful for head butting its enemies. More skeletons than she would see in a regular tomb.

Landing on the bottom, she rolled into a crouch and waited. No traps? Nothing that rumbled with her weight. Strange, yes, but not something she hadn’t seen before. Maybe this wouldn’t be like the other tombs. Maybe this was just the last known place where people had seen the lamp.

Then she cast her gaze around herself and saw the lamp. Right in the center of the strange hollow was a metal handle. It wasn’t large, just about the same size as she’d expect a regular lamp to be. A thin metal circle, likely with a cage beneath it where one would place a candle.

For the first time, she wondered if she should have researched this item a little more. Of course, she hadn’t gotten the chance to second guess herself. She’d been so angry that she’d wanted something to work off her tension, and now they were all here. All of them.

Glancing up at the edge of the dunes that surrounded her, she could see her people’s worried expressions. This was why she never brought them. They would stare at her like their lives would change forever if something went wrong, and she couldn’t take it. Varya didn’t want to make them watch her die, just in case she maybe did.

“You have no care or regard for your own life!” His words played in her thoughts before she hissed out an angry breath.

She didn’t care what he thought of her. Greed didn’t get to live in her head, even if he was an ass who refused to get out.

Creeping over the sands, carefully watching where each foot stepped, she made her way to the lamp. And nothing happened, which only made her heart race even more. This wasn’t right. There should be a trap, a fight, a guardian...

The sands rolled around her, the dunes suddenly moving as though something deep inside them had awoken and she realized, “Fuck. A guardian.”

Of course, there was something here to protect the magical artifact that hadn’t been seen in such a long time that no one even remembered what it did. All around her, the sands moved. The dunes shifted, raining sand down into the deep gully. Something moved in a giant circle and then she saw the flicker of golden scales. Gold, red, orange, and black, all twisting together just like the creature she’d seen before.

The one that had been there when the Horde had thought to take what they assumed was theirs. The one that had made even the Horde scream in fear. It was here.

The massive snake burst its head out from the sands and she stared into its terrifying black eyes. Nothing could be this big. Was she hallucinating? Was there was some kind of poisonous gas down in this maddening pit? But then it opened its mouth and hissed, fangs as long as she was tall, dripping venom that sizzled in the sand and burned so hot it turned the granules to glass.

And she knew this wasn’t something her mind had cooked up. The monster was right in front of her, and if she didn’t move…

The snake hissed, long and loud, then its hood stood up all around its head. A cobra. A massive fucking cobra that weaved back and forth, staring down at her like she was a mouse someone had thrown into its cage.

Oh, she was dead. She was so dead and all her people were up there, screaming for her to move. Some of them had scattered, racing away while the rest were still there, suddenly off their mounts, on their hands and knees, shouting for her to come to them.

But she couldn’t lead the snake to them. She wouldn’t be the reason they died, too.

Lunging, she hooked her fingers through the lamp’s top and then rolled. The snake hissed again, the sound rumbling through the sand just before it struck. She raced out of the way before those massive fangs dug into the same place she’d been standing. The beast grumbled in anger, then shook its head while sand sprayed out of its mouth.

The lamp swung in her hand, useless, dead weight she should just let go of, but what if it still had power?

“Varya!” Altan shouted. “The dunes!”

Right. She had to get out of this bowl or the snake would eventually catch her. Unfortunately, it had already started descending, more and more of its long mass was revealed as it pushed itself through the sand. And she stared around her, realizing there was almost no way out. Its scales were a giant circle, wrapping around her more than once, twice, perhaps three times.

The snake’s hood shook, and it was so large that the sound rolled through the air like thunder. Its scales tightened around her, writhing and moving ever closer and she just... froze.

“Varya!” Altan shouted again, before backing away as the massive cobra turned its attention to him.

She hadn’t thought... Well, she supposed she had. Wasn’t Greed right, after all? She’d sought death her entire life and now that it had come for her, she didn’t want to see it after all. What a fool she’d been.

Damn. She hadn’t thought this was how she’d go, but here they were.

The snake hissed, the sound blasting Varya’s hair away from her face, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Not quite as brave as she’d thought she would be in facing her end. But then an answering roar screamed out in rage and she knew exactly who had come to collect her.

On the opposite side of the gully, Greed and his brother rode on their lightning fast mounts. The third beast had joined them, its teeth flashing and leathery skin rippling in anger. So it hadn’t run away from her after all. It had just been returning to its master.

She shouldn’t feel such relief seeing him there. He glared at her attacker as though his eyes alone could slice through the beast. The cobra turned its attention to Greed, those black eyes locking onto him as prey.

He swung off his mount without hesitation and sprinted toward the snake. Though the surrounding scales tightened for a mere moment, the beast seemed to realize that Greed was a greater threat. Casting aside its desire for food, it launched itself at the demon king.

Greed’s form changed mid stride. His hair burst out around him in a wild mane, his claws wickedly sharp, his body massive, his tail flicking behind him as he used the snake’s body to catapult himself toward the creature. They met in midair, both roaring in rage and shaking with power. She’d never seen anything like it. Because Greed might be smaller, significantly, but he moved faster than the snake could track.

His claws dug beneath scales, shifting before the snake could snap at him. He climbed the long body of the snake as if it wasn’t even moving. And all the while, Gluttony sat there on his horse, grinning.

The brother caught her looking at him and then gestured with his hand. Did he want her to come up there? With an enraged demon king who was currently battling a snake as large as his castle, and what? Wait for the demon who was so clearly bloated with rage, like the good little girl she was?

Crossing her arms over her chest, she let the lantern dangle on her right side while staring up at Gluttony. Not moving. Making her point known.

He nodded at the other side, toward Altan, and then lifted a clawed hand to point at the massive writhing tail in her way. Right. Well, maybe he had a point. That didn’t mean she had to like it.

Grumbling under her breath, she ducked beneath the massive body that was having to move now to avoid every slash of the demon’s claws. It hissed, venom dripping all over the ground, and she kept an eye on the drops that were the size of dinner plates. Varya danced out of the way of each of them, nearly crushing herself in between two mounds of scales before she got herself to the edge of the dune.

And then she started up. Hand over hand, dragging herself through the sand that wanted to drag her back down. She slid a few times, but she’d been born in this environment and knew how to move when she had to.

Crouched on her hands and knees at the top, she dragged in a few lungfuls of air before shakily rising to her feet. Lantern hanging from her fingers, she watched as Greed landed hard on the ground at the same moment the snake let out a long hiss and dove into the sands.

The beast retreated.

Greed himself was slick with sweat, not a wound on him or a bruise that she could see. His hair was plastered back from his face as he spun and advanced on her, so angry that she knew he wasn’t quite himself.

“What are you doing here?” he snarled.

She held up the lantern, not trusting herself to answer him without starting yet another argument that would only end in her tossing him onto his back and stealing another mount from him.

He ripped the lantern from her grip, hissing at her. “This? This is why you risked your life? Yet again?”

“It’s the Lamp of Origins.” As if she knew what that meant.

“And it’s been useless for years,” he said, before crushing the metal in his grip. The lantern folded in half like paper, then dropped onto the sand and rolled back into the pit. “Get on the horse.”

Her knee jerk reaction was to say she didn’t see a horse, but Varya knew better than to poke a beast who was quite literally frothing at the mouth in front of her. “Absolutely not.”

“Get on the horse, woman!” His voice thundered almost as loud as the snake, and for once, Varya didn’t think she should argue.