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I checked April’s monitor, carefully this time, because it was much higher than I’d expected. I felt it in me. The clear focus, the sense of control, the power. I felt energized, but not shaky. Even so, I took a few deep breaths, lowering my heart rate. Part of me knew I was being reckless, but wasn’t this always the plan?
I pulled Damien’s fingers from my pocket, unwrapping them from the bloody handkerchief, and held one up to the scanner. Then I took out the small device Zane had given me for communication. I’d taken a picture of one of the king’s royal portraits, which had hung everywhere in the citadel until this morning, when the guards began tearing them down and piling them up. I broke one out of the frame and ripped out a section showing his eyes. Zane made a high-resolution closeup, and I zoomed in until it filled the screen.
I held my breath, hoping it would be enough, but was still a bit surprised when the heavy door clicked open with a hydraulic hiss. The tunnel was so dark it took my eyes a moment to catch up. When the door closed behind me, I was plunged into darkness. I waited for my eyes to adjust enough to see the outlines of the dark tunnel. Then I followed it, trailing my fingers against the wall, until I stepped into the large cavern. Here it wasn’t completely dark; a shaft of light pierced the gloomy room. Roots hung from the ceiling in twisted ropes. A section far above, a round hole, was a well of some kind. I hadn’t noticed it before, when the cave was lit with colored ground lights… at night, under the gray skies, it would have been invisible. But now it seemed almost like a flashlight beam cutting through the darkness.
The cavern was as ominous as I remembered it; the thousands of skeletons, their bones tangled beneath the silent water. A gruesome, untended mausoleum. There was something calm, even serene about it. All this death, from the war before the covenant. The king’s cave of bones; his reminder that the blood wars were not to be repeated. But also that they werefinished.
Parts of the wall had been sculpted into relief illustrations of previous battles and important precursors to the covenant; a crude recounting of events. The king’s lie, carved into stone. But just beneath it, I could see the remains of older structures from the Before. I realized this cavern must be connected to the other stretches of underground Trevor had shown me earlier, pieces of a buried city from long ago.
I seemed to be seeing far more detail this time, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the elixir, or if I’d been so distracted by my royal tour and my private audience with the king that I hadn’t been paying much attention to my surroundings, apart from the initial horror of the display. He’d warned me about becoming the thing that I became. The thing that destroyed the kingdom. But by warning me, hadn’t he in some sense created me?
A thin mist swirled around my ankles as I strode into the damp cavern. There was a sense of timelessness about everything, like I was fulfilling some ancient prophecy, but also like I’d been here before. The lake was turquoise, but still treacherously clear and deep at the edges, full of the mountain of bones that barely broke the surface, creating the small island in the center where the king’s sword had been displayed between a pair of benches. I crossed over towards it on the narrow footbridge, that gave just enough to ripple the water. It was so silent my footsteps echoed, and I could hear the dripping of water and the soft scraping of bones tumbling into the depths in slow motion as I upset the careful balance. Specks of light spun like stars as I disturbed the peace; the thin light picked up the casual gleam on a lost sword or makeshift helmet, half submerged in the shallow water.
Towards the center, small pockets of bright green grass sprouted to life, framing dark purple flowers with yellow centers. They looked hungry and wild, but also half-timid, bent over, as if not sure whether they should thrive in such a stew of death. Soil from above had made little mounds of dirt, like freshly buried graves, which made the partially-exposed skeletons look like they were trying to dig their way out. Small pockets of mushrooms grew out of their jaws and eye sockets.
My heart pounded in my chest as I stepped into the light, my senses alert and muscles tense. The elixir had kicked in, making the colors and details even sharper. I heard scratching and found a beetle climbing through a ribcage a hundred paces away. But it was mostly quiet; a hushed, painful silence, like someone holding their breath. Movement caught my eye and I stumbled, looking for a place to hide, but nothing offered protection.
But it was just a large insect, with black wings and a skull on its back. The death moths must have gotten in here somehow and breeded. There were hundreds of them, their wings fluttering like velvet eyes. They made the ground ripple like waves. I looked past them, my eyes adjusting, to find a white shape, chained to a pillar in the shadows, near the far wall.
Damien’s shirt was torn open, with angry red slashes across his chest. I gasped when I saw his hand, even though I knew what to expect; the missing fingers burned a hole in my pocket. Bloody stumps where they used to be, were wrapped in soiled bandages. I rushed towards him, but stopped before I got too close. He thrashed against the chains, his eyes red and dark, his cheeks sunken, black veins under his porcelain skin. He was hungry. But I’d never seen him like this.
I scanned the dark cave, glaring up at the pocket of warm yellow light, but it wasn’t close enough to hurt him. I looked around for something to pry open the chains. The best I could find was a broken spear, with a long iron tip. I splashed into the water and wrestled it out of the pile of bones. I was about to stand up when I heard noises behind me. I wasn’t alone. Something growling, like an animal, but like one I’d never heard.
My mind reeled with all the experimental creatures I could be about to face, my imagination making monsters out of the darkness. I kept my back to Damien, trying to protect him from this new threat, but just far enough out of his reach that he couldn’t seize me with his grasping claws. Something small flew out of the shadows from the side, slashing and biting, with enough force to send me tumbling backward.
I was too surprised to do anything, but she attacked like a feral squirrel, her blonde hair a web. Crawling up my side and slashing at my face, inhumanely fast. I could see the bright gleam of elixir, the sweat on her skin and hair.
I used the spear to force her back as she snapped her teeth at my neck and scratched my face with her fingernails. But she was small and frantic. Not even an elite. I brought a leg in between us and kicked her off me. She rolled to a stop, but lifted her face to scowl at me. My heart turned to ice.
Loralie’s face was pale, but her eyes—her eyes were gone; replaced with carved X’s that slashed deep into her brow and cheeks. The perfect face I’d watch grow up from a baby, now a plundered treasure.
Her clothes were torn and soiled, and deep purple bruises marked her neck and arms. Someone had taken her eyes, just like the girls I’d seen at the citadel months earlier. But at least she was alive.
She was drawn to the elixir, desperate to relieve the pain. If I could give her a little, maybe it would bring her to her senses. But I didn’t get the chance. We both froze when a low chuckle erupted behind us.
Nigel’s dark silhouette was framed by the steam of the shallow water, but he was being careful to stay hidden against the craggy walls at the edge of the cave.
When I looked again, Loralie had scampered into the shadows, leaving me alone with Nigel. I could feel the deep gouges she’d left in my neck and shoulders begin to heal, using up the elixir in my system. But I was glad she was safe, for the moment.
I maneuvered slowly, into the dim spotlight in the center of the cave, as the elite circled me, his eyes bright in the shadows like a wolf. Nigel was a coward, but I knew he was strong. I hadn’t counted on facing him directly.
I felt panic rush through me, but I wasn’t the same girl I’d been when he attacked me in the meadow, before my choosing. And I didn’t see him the same way either. Perfect, untouchable immortals. The elite weren’t better than we were, and I knew some of them could be kind. He was just an immortal asshole, and we were both marked now; one eye was split and smoky, like burnt coal, and the trace of a scar cut across his brow and cheek.
Somehow it made him look even more distinguished, in a black suit, his dark hair tousled, the collar of his white shirt unbuttoned. But also unnatural. A face that hadn’t changed in decades, now seemed thinner, with deep purple bruises around his eyes and mouth, which was stained a deep crimson. Like he’d been feeding all day and hadn’t bothered to wipe his mouth after. Layers of dried blood, applied for show like cosmetics. He smirked at me, his good eye twinkling, running a tongue past the edge of his fangs and sucking his teeth.
I had already killed two of his friends, although indirectly in both cases. I wasn’t as fast or strong as a slagpaw. But he made no move to attack, and I was protected in a halo of sunlight.
“You’re so predictable, it’s disappointing,” he taunted. “The one place in the citadel, the dark heart of the kingdom that the light cannot pierce. And you came rushing down here… expecting, what, to save him? You think I didn’t expect you? You’re here because I wanted you to be. I lured you here, like a spider and a fly.”
“Let me guess, you’re the ugly one.”
“I’m the one that wins,” he grinned.
I glanced up at the rays of daylight, checking to make sure I was completely surrounded in the golden glow. It should keep me safe for the moment. But its protection wouldn’t last long. If I could get Nigel to attack me, step into the light, it might slow him down just enough for me to jab him with the antidote. It wasn’t the worst plan.
“Damien is a prince,” I said, still clutching the spear, but spinning it to use the jagged wooden edge. “You have no authority here, no real power. As soon as the people find out—”
“That I’ve been keeping him here? Damien wasrescuedfrom the rebels, and brought here for his own safety. But the treacherous assassin who killed his father, infiltrated our defenses and finished him off.”
