Silver, sticky thread strung together in a dazzling web of swirls and patterns, stretching from the surrounding blackbranches and coming together in the center, where it held a strange glass container.
We moved closer, examining the web that looked eerily similar to those I’d seen in countless Death Scholar excavations. The hairs on my arms pricked up, and I scanned the surrounding branches, searching for the source of the web.
“Is this the key, or the lock?” I asked, doubt plaguing my words as I leaned forward, careful not to touch the sticky web.
“I have no idea,” Kellan murmured, narrowing his brows. “It looks like a crystal wine decanter.”
The U-shaped glass in the center of the web was hollow, the opening of one end wider than the other.What the hell?I shook my head.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “We’ve come this far. This is the end of the path. There were no other entrances to this cavern.”
Kellan ran a hand over his face and began to pace. “Then we don’t leave without it,” he replied quietly. “I don’t see any way around getting it out without disturbing the web.”
I eyed the tangled, sticky mess holding the glass container and nodded my head despite the twisting in my gut.
“We grab it and go,” Kellan continued, moving away from the web and scanning the other exits. He poked his head out of the dark opening and turned back, giving a confident nod and unsheathing his curved blade.
I reached a hand back and withdrew Enya’s intricate blade, the braided hilt smooth against my palm.
“Ready when you are, Bonscaíh,” he muttered. A mischievous glint brightened his dark eyes as he cocked a brow.
A surge of butterflies squashed the growing anxiety, and I matched his smirk with my own before I reached forward to pull the glass decanter free.
CHAPTER THIRTY
EVONY
Agreed. March your forces back to Aedrialis, and I’ll sign the papers.
– Correspondence from High Steward Merik to General Calvus.
Evony – Eastern Lumerians, Sultira
“Gork?” I called into the dim opening of a squat, dingy-looking tunnel leading into the bowels of the Lumerian Mountains. My voice answered back. The sound ricocheted off the stony walls in a pitchy echo. A chill breeze carrying a damp, loamy scent blew a wet braid across my vision. I wiped my hand down my face, clearing it from the crisp mountain rain that had arrived. I set the tightly rolled communication beneath a rock, a fool’s hope, and turned away from the cave.
“Nothing?” Ronan called as he walked his agrippa up the slippery, narrow path we’d traversed.
“Nothing,” I confirmed, crossing my arms.
Ronan’s lips pursed in frustration, and he handed me a deep blue cloak. I wrapped the fabric tightly around my shoulders and flipped the hood over my head.
We’d spent the last two weeks riding south along the edge of the Lumerian Mountain range, where Gork and his little community of creatures had last been seen in search of the Celestyn Bone. All to no avail.
A small host of soldiers had accompanied us, and most of them remained on their mounted agrippa at the head of the trail. Spindly trees dotted the mountainside, their buds pressing through the gray bark. Bright green vegetation crawled over the matted, dead leaves.
“Can you think of anywhere else they would have gone?” Ronan asked, offering me his hand as I stepped carefully over the jagged rocks.
I shook my head with the jerk of my chin, irritated that everyone thought I should know where the godsdamned Celestyn Bone was. Had I spent months with Gork and the other little creatures? Yes, but I’d never seen anything resembling a Bellator Bone, and we didn’t even speak the same language. And though I was pretty sure Gork still couldn’t read my language, I left the note anyway.
Ronan’s shoulders sagged, and a pang of pity tightened my chest. Bags crouched beneath the sapphire eyes of the high steward, and his normally clean face was shadowed with thick stubble.
He gave me a leg up onto the agrippa stallion and led the massive horse down the rickety path and back to our group. I could handle the walk, but I had to admit the slow rock of the agrippa’s gait as he made his way over boulders and downed trees was soothing.
“How did you encounter Gork, anyways?” Ronan asked. He held the agrippa’s reins in one hand as he pulled aside a thick pine branch reaching over the trail.
“There was a cave near our house in Rivaner. My mum’s cave,” I replied, my chest constricting as the title left my lips. “Dad’s face started showing up on wanted posters shortly after he left for Odessa. And when Ezrich didn’t come back…” I trailed off as a hollow feeling arrived at the base of my throat, snaking down into my stomach and twisting it as I remembered those lonely days.
Ronan looked over his shoulder. His brows were pinched, and I forced the feeling away.
