She never looked away from him. Even as her body trembled and her skin lost all of its once-beautiful warmth, she kept her eyes on Ryuk, and lifted her hand to his face to touch him one last time.
I spared a glance at Kaiden. Perhaps he was a descendant, like the gifted once were. It would make sense as to how his powers were so much stronger than ours. It wasn’t uncommon for the gods to birth children with mortals when they first created this world. They had been on the earth far before we were born. Perhaps one of his ancestors was the direct son, or daughter, of one of the gods.
But if that was the case, how could his blood be potent enough to open the tunnels?
If justanydescendant could do it, surely someone would have found this place by now.
I glared at the back of Cain’s head.Too many secrets. Though, who wasIto talk?
We suddenly came to a halt as we entered a large room, but I remained at the back, still halfway in the hall. Everyone’s eyes seem to have shifted to the left, staring at something. Kaiden’s eyes were hard and glazed over, but his hands were balled into fists at his sides. Even the seer seemed to take in a shuddering breath as she placed her hand over her heart.
“What is it?” I asked, and Kaiden’s eyes slightly widened at my question.
He turned around to face me. “Dez, I need you to listen to me,” he said, moving through the frozen bodies that stood around us.
“Aisha bless us…” Cassius whispered, then his eyes shot toward me as well. “Kaiden, he won’t be able to handle seeing this?—”
“I know!” he snapped back at Cassius just as he reached my side. “Please, Dez, just this once… I need you to trust what I say?—”
I didn’t let him continue.
I shoved my way past him. Past Cass, who reached an arm out to stop me. Past Eris, who whispered a plea for me to stop. What could possibly be so bad that I couldn’t deal?—
As I turned the corner, I halted so fast that I stumbled onto my ass. I couldn’t breathe. Someone reached for me, but I swatted their hands away as I backed up until I hit the stone wall behind me.
“No,” I whispered to myself. “No… No… No…”
“Let’s keep going, Dez,” Cass insisted.
I started hyperventilating as I stared at it. Kaiden mentioned that he had kept Morrigan somewhere, but he never explained… Iron chains hung from the ceiling, broken. And on the ground was a large… a large…
When Cass knelt beside me, I let him wrap an arm around me this time. “Listen to me, Dez. We are going to find her. She is going to be okay.”
“A cage…” I whispered to him. “It’s… It’s a bird cage, Cass.”
I wanted to feel anger. I wanted a raging fury that I could descend upon Cain but I… I felt nothing. It was like my entire body had shut down as I stared at the cage on the ground, tilted over and half broken from whoever ripped it from the chain.
Cass lifted me, helping me stand and keeping a hand on me as he motioned me forward.
Where did everything go so horribly wrong?I thought to myself, as I imagined what she would have looked like in there. All the nights I woke with aching limbs—like there were bruises all along my arms and legs. Gods… she hadsleptin there…
Even the strongest of people can only withstand so much before they break. If we did find Morrigan, how much of her would be left?
We reached a small room where the seer stopped and opened the door.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Cain scoffed somewhere behind me.
I jerked to look at him, but Cass kept me forward. “Morrigan,” he reminded me. “That’s all that matters right now. He will be dealt with.”
Yes, he will, I reminded myself.
“E-Each of you has a small essence of one of the gods,” she whispered to us. “I will n-need blood from you all.”
We each pulled a dagger from our belts and made a small cut into our skin. She had us press against the wall on seven different points, before the seer made a slice on her own palm, and connected each of the spots into a seven-pointed star with her blood.
“Detegere,” the seer whispered. It was the language of the gods, old and forgotten. We had been required to learn it as their chosen successors. It meant: to reveal, to uncover.
Quickly, the seven points of blood burst into tiny flames that quickly danced along the lines, connecting until a bright light formed at its center. It illuminated the entire tunnel, almost blinding me.
