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This side of the crypt was a twin to the chamber we’d left behind.
There were two enormous skulls, an even bigger pile of bones against the far wall, as if they’d been shoved to the side to make way. When Tristan drifted closer to one, that dazed, empty look on his face, Tavion pulled him away. After that, Anaria kept her head down until we’d cleared the room entirely.
But I didn’t miss the tears she kept wiping away, how badly her hands shook. Anger rattled through me. We couldn’t get out of this place too soon, even if leaving meant we’d soon be meeting the Oracle.
“At this rate, we’ll reach the end by mid-morning,” Dane explained in a hushed voice. “The main tunnel leads straight beneath the city, but I don’t advise that way. There’s one exit into the city proper, dumps straight into the market, but we don’t use that anymore since the guards boarded up the archway.”
I’d seen that opening, a crumbling arch engraved in the language of the Old Gods; the odor drifting out of that hole was so foul, I’d gagged.
“Most of us use the trio of arched openings below the city in the forest. From there, it’s easy enough to blend in with the travelers on the main road and enter the city undetected.”
“How far is the Wynter Palace from there?” Anaria whispered.
Tavion answered immediately. “A few hours up into the mountains, but the path is treacherous. The only benefit is, since the city wall is over a hundred feet high, the guards don’t monitor it closely.”
“I don’t like this,” I muttered. “We’ll be out in the open. What about the Taranth archers? I have no desire to end up with a bolt through my head.”
“Like I said, that side isn’t monitored by the king’s guard.” Tavion’s low monotone was devoid of emotion. “There’s only one thing there and the palace has been empty so long, I expect even the king has forgotten the Wynters ever existed.”
13
ANARIA
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the vision out of my head, tendrils of darkness still dragging at me like saw toothed fingers.
If I’d been doomed before, now I was positively cursed.
Touching that skull had opened a doorway to the past. A past I wanted no part of. The ancient names kept playing over and over in my head.Amalla. Vitigis. Gelvira.
Those monsters…they were us.
Or rather, they were our ancestors, but from a world long extinct.
We’d parted ways with Dane moments after we emerged from the dark, dank tunnels. He went to sell his Goblin Eel at the market and recoup his losses; we climbed a rocky, arduous trail into the mountains, close enough to Tempeste the spires of the city were visible through the shifting evening mists.
Somewhere within those walls, Adele—if she was still alive—rotted in that horrid prison.
I’d left Ember behind.
But my plan had become clearer with every dark hour we’d spent in those awful tunnels. If there was a chance I could save my mother, I’d sell my soul to get her out.
Raz and Tristan had ridden out ahead to secure the rendezvous point, leaving me behind in dreadful, awkward silence with Tavion. A silence neither of us wanted to break, thankfully. When we crested the final stretch of the path, the sight took my breath away.
The castle’s main tower was an immense white column that pierced the sky like a blade, the very top disappearing into the clouds. The castle jutted off one side of the tower, the entire wing hanging over a deep ravine with nothing discernible holding it up. My stomach churned just thinking about walking out there, with nothing beneath me but rushing air and a two-thousand-foot drop.
Waterfalls spilled over the edges of the cliff the castle perched on so precariously, rising mists concealing the bottom of the chasm. The castle appeared to be floating in the clouds, with long, crystal windows that turned the sun into rainbows of brilliant color, a welcome sight among the stark black mountains and white stone.
The limestone exterior was covered by black, half-decayed vines, reminding me of Tavion’s home. Except here…nature had been cannibalized by corrupted magic. The entire scene was something out of a fairytale, but when we stepped through the doors, something inside me stilled.
Much like Nightcairn, all houses possessed a certain smell.
Their own special aroma, a mix of stone and wood and plaster—the sweat of the people who’d built it, lived within these walls—as unique as the structure itself.
You could paint the walls, carpet the floors, hide the smell with flowers—or in this case, smoking pots of incense scattered on every table—but you could never obscure the original smell, which was too deeply engrained.
I took another deep breath, my nerves on alert, my heart racing so fast my chest hurt. Even rubbing my knuckles against my chest didn’t ease the pain.
“Where exactly are we?”
