AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Looks cheerful,” North says dryly.
How much of my own vision was accurate? Was any of it real? A true glimpse in the future, or the past?
I’m tempted to ask Cain and Raven about it, but I don’t. I’ve always kept things close to the vest, and that’s a habit that’s hard to let go of. Besides, given North’s behavior last night, they’ve clearly got some issues of their own that they’re not sharing with me. Why should I share with them?
I’m not quite sure I even want to know if the vision is true.
We all get out of the car, into the heat, which none of us like. Fae get cold easily, it’s true, but we’re suited for more temperate climates, not this stupid relentless heat. Ugh.
“We should scope it out first,” I say. That’s always what you have to do when robbing a place, even if you’ve done reconnaissance before, or research. You can never be too careful.
The men nod without complaint and we inspect the area around the ruins. There don’t seem to be any powerful magical wards or security features. Maybe there were, at some point, and they’ve just expired. Who knows? I can detect a kind of glamour on the ground, though—must’ve been the reason we couldn’t see the building until we were almost right on top of it.
“Anything?” I call out, the other three scattered around the area, inspecting.
“Nothing,” Cain calls back to confirm as North shakes his head.
We reconvene in front of what seems to be the main entrance. It’s hard to tell, with so much of the place caved in. It looks less like some kind of Wild West fort and more like a castle that someone gave up halfway through building.
Here goes nothing.
I feel along the walls of the entryway as I start to step through, but I don’t feel any mechanisms that will activate. That’s good, at least. I get inside, and I feel the men fanning out behind me.
Once inside, my jaw drops a little.
This place is much bigger than it looks on the outside. Maybe I should’ve expected that—it’s a supernatural building, after all, one built by our people. Those rarely look the same on the inside as they do on the outside. The ceiling’s much higher, and the walls are farther back.
Everything is dimly lit, mostly from the holes in the roof and walls, the sunlight streaming in wherever it can. I squint, trying to look around and see more. There’s nothing on the walls, no murals or words. No furniture. Whoever was last in here cleaned this place out, scrubbed it down. Interesting.
“This place wasn’t just abandoned,” I announce.
“What makes you say that?” Cain asks as Raven looks around, sniffing a little like this place is giving him allergies.
“Abandoned places just have shit lying around. You can’t take everything with you.” I gesture around us. “There’d be furniture, or knickknacks. You can’t take everything with you no matter how much you might want to. This place looks… neat. Like a shell.”
“She’s right,” North agrees, coming up to stand beside me and look around. “This feels deliberate. Someone did this.”
“If there’s an Aurora Gem here then it was probably done after this place was originally abandoned,” I add. “To put in modifications when they hid it.”
“What kind of modifications?” Cain asks.
“Security measures, usually. Like traps.”
“I don’t detect any traps,” Cain replies.
Famous last words. A large rumbling noise fills the massive chamber, and huge Indiana-Jones-style boulders appear out of goddamn nowhere.
Fuck.
I quickly phase out as a boulder comes crashing toward me, rolling across the floor like a gigantic marble, and I pass right through it, safe. Cain and Raven are doing the same, but North…
“Why aren’t you phasing?” I yell, panic clawing at my throat. I don’t want him to get crushed!
North ignores me and instead, as another boulder rolls toward us, jumps up into the air, smacking his palm against the side of the boulder and using it as leverage to leap over it, landing on top.
He leaps onto the next boulder, and the next one, his momentum keeping him going, heading toward where the boulders seem to be coming from.
“There’s a stairway!” he yells.
