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Wounded King? What did that mean? Wondering at the labels she’d assigned to us, I kept my tongue. I was rapidly learning over the past few weeks that sometimes silence was the better part of wisdom. Grieve nodded and took his place.
The Maiden of Knowledge began to play her instrument and a swirl of sound echoed and vibrated through the walls. And then, slowly, the outline of a door turned to a sparkling veil. I couldn’t see what lay beyond, but a strange hum began to emanate from the passage. Kaylin looked back at me and without another word stepped forward into the shadows.
How long we were in the passage, it’s hard to tell. When we emerged, it was into a chamber as golden as the sunlight rippling through the trees at midday. The light was almost blinding. I shielded my eyes—the brilliance hurt and I winced, turning away. Grieve was doing the same, but the others just shaded their eyes. The chamber was so large it felt like we were truly outside rather than far under the ground.
“I feel like I’ve slept again.” I yawned, but my body felt revitalized, as if I’d been through both nap and shower.
“Me too. Look.” Rhiannon’s voice was hushed.
I turned and, squinting, followed her gaze. There in the center of the room was a plinth made of gnarled oak and ivy—real ivy. The ivy of the open woodland, not this alien forest of the deep caverns. The plinth rose about twenty feet into the air, and a spiral stair led up to a landing in back of it. Around the base, except at the start of the steps, a deep pit drove into the ground, so deep I could not see the bottom when I gazed into it. But it was wide enough to fall in, and I backed away, not wanting to lose my balance.
I stared at the staircase. “I have to go up there.” The pull was so strong that I couldn’t ignore it.
“Is that…” Rhia looked at me, wary.
“I think so.” The pulse of a beating heart drummed from within the column of oak and ivy, running straight down through the tree stump, into the earth below. This was the heart of Summer, the wellspring from whence she sprang. This was Lainule’s core, her essence.
The others waited, silent, as I began to ascend the stairs. Formed of green and gold glass, they were slick and spiraled around the trunk. There was no railing, and so I kept to the inside, leaning against the oak as I tried to avoid slipping. One misstep and I’d go over the side, and when I looked down, I realized I’d fall directly into the moat. To where that led, I chose not to speculate.
About a third of the way up, my foot slipped, and I scrambled, going down on my hands and knees with a jarring thud. Shaking, I struggled to stand and, after taking a deep breath, started again. The sound of my boots on the glass echoed through the chamber—the others remained silent, watching below. They couldn’t help me. I’d been entrusted with this task by Lainule. I was the only one who would be able to retrieve her heartstone.
As I approached the top, the ivy began to wave, and Ulean swept by.
Beware. Be cautious. You are not through the tangle yet.
What is it?
But I didn’t have time to wait for her answer. One of the tendrils reached out and wrapped around my wrist. I struggled against it, but the ivy came thick and fast and began to wrap me up like a spider wraps its prey. I was having trouble breathing and couldn’t move fast enough to stop it. Below, I heard Grieve shout. The next moment, the tower quaked and the ivy sucked away from me, leaving me to tumble down the steps until I caught myself. The tower quaked again and I looked down.
The oak was caught in a frost that was spreading up its trunk. Grieve was standing on the steps, slack-jawed, staring as a layer of frost spread from his feet to the steps, and huge cracks began to form in the staircase.
Kaylin vanished as I glanced anxiously up at the top of the tower. I wasn’t far from it—but the cracks were spidering up the glass, and soon the stairs I was standing on would break and send me tumbling to the abyss below. I made a run for it, staggering up the slick surface to the landing at the top.
Grieve jumped off the bottom step back to Rhia’s side just as the foundation of the staircase shattered and vanished into the crevasse. I didn’t have much time. I glanced around the top of the tower and there it was—a crystal box, and within the box I could see the brilliant emerald stone, pulsing with life and with light. I grabbed up the case, trying to decide what to do. Just then, Kaylin materialized on the landing next to me.
“Can you take the case while you’re dreamwalking?”
He shook his head. “Yes, I can. As well as your clothing, since you’ll have to change into your owl-shape and fly down from here. There’s no returning down those stairs. Hurry—strip!”
I caught my breath, staring at him, reluctant to hand him the case. But there was no choice. I pushed the crystal box into his hands and pulled off my clothes, stripping as fast as I could.
The stairs were half gone, shattering like tempered glass into a thousand pieces. I kept my moonstone pendant, but everything else I gave to Kaylin, and he vanished back into the shadows. I glanced down at the stairs. Only a few more and the landing would go. I sucked in a deep breath and stepped to the edge of the landing. As the glass began to break beneath my bare feet, I gathered my courage and spread my arms, toppling over the edge in a freefall.
Arms into wings, body into bird, nails into talons. As I headed toward the ground, Ulean caught me in her updraft and I was aloft, flying around the room. It felt so good—this freedom to soar, to fly, to…what the…from here, I could see handholds carved into the walls. I followed them up, and when I got to the ceiling, found a trapdoor right next to a thin ledge. This was our way out. I turned to fly down to the others when the door shattered open and a wave of snow and ice came swirling through.
Holy fuck. Three Shadow Hunters leaned through, their expressions triumphant. And behind them—Myst!
I spiraled down quickly, shifting as I hit the ground. Turning to Kaylin, I whispered, “You have to dreamwalk. You must escape with the heartstone, now.”
He tossed me my clothes, the look on his face pained, and I knew he didn’t want to leave us. “All right, but take this.” He pressed something in my hand as I gave him a sharp nod and he was once again a puff of shadow and smoke, vanishing from sight.
I glanced at what Kaylin had given me. The obsidian knife. Gritting my teeth, knowing what was in store for us, I yanked on my clothes, as the Shadow Hunters began their creep down the ledge, using the handholds. Myst leaned in through the trap door, her laughter echoing through the room.
“Too late, too late, Cicely. And my Consort, what a naughty boy you’ve been. It’s time for summer to end. It’s time to bring the long night of the world.” Her voice was chill, the winds of winter rushing through it. At least she only had three of her Shadow Hunters with her. But three of the Vampiric Fae against four of us? Not even the beginning to a fair match.
Rhia backed up, her expression grim. “We do whatever we have to in order to get out of here.”
“Yes. And my first act is this.” I swept out my fan and aimed it at them.
