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“Oh absolutely, not,” she said with a vicious scowl. “He’s a terrible old d—”
The lantern beside her flickered.
Agatha snapped her gaze to it and pointed at it with raw irritation. “Do not start with me tonight!”
Silence. Then another pulse beneath the floor.
Agatha pushed herself upright from the chair and only made it halfway up before plopping back down in it. “Damnable stars,” she growled before trying once more and finally getting both of her feet under her.
“Terrific,” she muttered. “Just terrific. First the wards. Then the resonance. Now my knees."
Noticing she was talking to herself, Agatha grumbled incoherent words that sounded an awful lot like, “And apparently I am losing my bloody damned mind."
She swiped the sputtering lantern from the table and shuffled into the lower corridor.
The deeper archive halls beneath Lumenshire were older than the abbey above them. The walls changed as one walked. They were smoother in some places and peculiar in others. Astrari convergence sigils curled in gentle wisps through the stone beneath layers of age and salt.
Most of the lower foundations had officially been sealed after the Ash Wars destabilized portions of the western cliffs. Unofficially, Agatha had sealed them herself because she knew exactly what rested beneath the abbey and had absolutely no interest in anyone stumbling into it by accident.
The humming strengthened a bit more as she approached the old western foundations. She detested the way it reverberated through her chest.
It didn't frighten her anymore like it had many turnings before. Aethercurrents ebbed and flowed, changing constantly. The problem was that Agatha recognized the strange pattern emerging within them. And she had spent most of her adult life praying she would never feel it again.
The old Astrari woman stopped before an enormous stone doorway; it was sealed and buried deep beneath the cliffs. Archaic warding glyphs spiraled across its surface while thin veins of dormant astrylite threaded through the surrounding rock like fractures in bone.
The resonance thrummed again, and her lantern light warped sideways. Agatha stared at the seal with exhausted resentment.
“No,” she informed the ancient doorway firmly. “I am far too old for this.”
The stone vibrated once beneath her feet as somewhere impossibly deep below the abbey, closer to the sea or further, something answered.
Agatha closed her eyes briefly and let out a long breath.
Well, this was all quite concerning.
For one terrible instant, a memory crashed over her hard enough to pull her under its spell.
Black skies. Burning towers. The sea filled with a mysterious light. People screaming while the stars vanished overhead.
She sucked in a sharp breath, eyes flying open, the amber within flaring bright a moment before settling into a dull glow once more.
The Great Vigil had not solved the problem of the Blackwakes like many believed; it had only delayed them long enough for future generations to convince themselves they were safe. Then they started arriving closer and closer together, the most recent one when Caelyn and Elowynn were children. Humans and Astrari both loved to act as though they were invincible when it came to world-ending problems. They only acted when it was too late.
Footsteps echoed somewhere behind her, and she turned in a quick twist.
Caelyn stood several paces away, holding a lantern and looking equal parts concerned and suspicious. He appeared as though he’d just rolled from bed with his hair all a mess and his loose-fitting shirt and trousers. He didn't even tie the laces of his shoes!
“Might want to tie those,” she pointed a gnarled finger at his feet. “...before you smash that handsome young face of yours onto the stone floor. What would the abbey ladies think?”
Caelyn ignored her taunt.
“You know—” he said with a scrutinizing narrow of his eyes, “—most people don’t wander forbidden underground corridors during storms.”
Agatha squinted at him in return. “And yet here you are, haunting the tunnels like an overeducated cave rat.”
Caelyn blinked once, then smiled cheekily.
Agatha could only roll her eyes; she had become fond of him over the turnings, despite repeatedly attempting not to. He had the unfortunate habit of getting into trouble and remaining impossible to dislike.
