Dustin looks between me and his wife like he’s trying to decide which one of us he’s more scared of before he spits on the ground at our feet.
“Fucking bitches. I hope he’s dead.”
I kick his cage as hard as I can which sends it spinning and careening into the wall so hard pieces of stone come flying off. “Come on, he’s a dick. That’s going to spin for a while so let’s go find Clyde on our own,” I tell her and we both walk away with her husband screaming bloody murder as his cage spins on like a top.
“I can’t believe I married him. How could I have done something so stupid?”
“It happens. You live and you learn. What matters right now is getting a fresh start, yeah?”
Dina nods and picks up her staff with a deep breath. “Yeah. Thanks for being so nice to me. Not a lot of people are. I know how it sounds and looks to say I’m in love with someone else while I’m still married but we’ve been over for years. I don’t know how everything got so messed up.”
Behind us the cage hits the wall again and sparks fly from the metal on stone, which just makes Dustin shriek. The sound makes me smile.
“I know what it’s like to wake up in a life that doesn’t feel like it’s yours. You don’t have to explain anything to me, and maybe we’ll start calling that whack job your ex-husband?”
“I like that.”
Chapter Thirty Eight
“Check the doors. See if any of them open, we’ll pick a direction from there and work our way through until we find the head mage.” I try the door in front of me but it doesn’t give. Not even when I try to blast it with a hit of magic. Lame.
Mort, Charlie, Jaak and Dina check the other four doors and I almost think we’re going to have to sit here and wait for the ceremony when Jaak’s door opens with a creak. We all head to Jaak’s door. A wail sounds from inside and a gust of frigid air blows out and hits us in the face. I grab onto Jaak’s arm. The wail sounds inhuman, but I know it. I’ve heard it before in my dreams. Whatever is in there is a nightmare come to life.
“That doesn’t seem ominous or like a trap at all,” I mutter and swallow hard. The door opens into a hallway lit by torches and wide enough for two of us to walk side-bye-side. I look at the others who look pale in the face. The reality of what we’re here to do is finally setting in and I get it, but even with how scary this is, not a single one of them looks for an escape.
I’m so proud to be here with them.
“I’ll go first. The rest of you follow behind.” I move to go first but Jaak stops me.
“No, I will go first. You’re right, this is a trap and I cannot let you walk into it. Whatever is there will have to get through me if it wants you.”
I put my hand on his. “Jaak…I don’t think it's me that it wants. I’ll go first.”
“My heart, you-”
I squeeze his hand. “If I’m to be your anchor, your soul-bonded, then I am your equal. I can’t hide behind you when things get tough and that means I go first. I need you to understand me, trust me now, please.”
Jaak holds my gaze for a moment before he nods and steps aside. “I will be a step behind you, Meadow.”
“I know. Thank you for trusting me.” I rise up on my tiptoes and press a kiss to his cheek. “It will make sense soon, I promise.”
The second I connect with Jaak to fight, he’ll see what I’ve been thinking. Why I want to go first, so I don’t explain it here. It would only waste precious time. I step into the dark stone hallway and one by one we file in. I know the second we’re all in because the door slams shut behind us with a resounding boom.
“Definitely a trap,” I mutter and pull my swords out just in case the fun is about to start but nothing happens. We continue forward, the torches lighting the way and I listen hard for any sign that something is coming while I ponder on the thought that’s slowly begun to take shape since Jaak said this was a World Eater Temple.
“The World Eater. I thought I had left such a being behind. It seems my life’s path is never to be free of them.”
“I have served one.”
What are the odds that I would free Jaak on the eve of a World Eater consuming this world? Why did fate wait until now to bring us together? I grip my swords tighter. Up ahead I see light. We’re almost there.
If the World Eater is rare then how is it here now at the same time Jaak is? He said that he only served one in name, that it had been a long time since he’d seen his master Eri. Time moves differently to him, a long time isn’t a few years or even a decade, it’s hundreds and thousands of years, more time maybe than when he was trapped in rock jail.
And that makes me feel more certain about what I’m thinking. I don’t think it’s the world the World Eater is hungry for. I don’t believe all of this is for Charlie’s book, or even in some weird way, me. Nothing that ancient or powerful would care about any of us, except for one of us.
Jaak.
I look over at him. He’s as beautiful as ever. The armor he wears and the battle axe in his hands looks so natural on him. He looks every bit the agent of chaos and strife the mages said he was. The perfect servant of a World Eater.
