Chapter 108
Chapter 108
RAVEN
The cave is shaking now, like a living thing in pain. Huge boulders are crashing down from the cave ceiling as I unleash my unfocused power through the millennia old rock formations. The silver light escaping my skin lights up the anarchy in vivid, ghastly detail.
"Maya, get down!" I scream as a huge stalactite falls down right where she was just standing.
She rolls to her side, her dark hair turned gray with stone dust. "Raven, you can't do this! The mountain’ll fall on us all!”
But I can't stop it. The power roars through me like a river in full flood, out of control, and down beneath, I can sense our child reacting to my upset. The life that is growing inside me, that pulses to gather its own energy and make everything more until the magic becomes a flood that I cannot stop.
"Wow," Darian breathes, then dodges some debris. The silver light is worshipful in his eyes, red and glassy. “Can you see what she’s turning into? What the child will be?"
"She's going to kill us all!" yells one of his men, pinning himself to the cave wall as another piece of ceiling crumbles.
Eira is at my side, her hair flaming red, wild with dust and terror. "Raven, look at me. Focus on my voice."
I focus on her green eyes, on the warm embrace of family, but another vision hits me, like a punch landing. I see Kael on the ridge, Order closing in all around him. I catch the glint of weapons in moonlight, the wildness in his seafaring gray eyes.
“He’s stuck," I gasp, and the truth sends new currents of power spinning out of my grasp. "They're going to kill him."
"Who's trapped?" "Yukari, are you absolutely sure I'm supposed to follow you?" Maya asks, helping Eira keep me from falling over as the ground keeps on shaking.
"Kael. He survived the explosion but now—” A different image interrupts me, one that has my blood turning to ice. "No. No, that's impossible."
“There is still a traitor,” I whisper, and the terror hits me. “Someone’s been in their ear about everything. Of my visions, of how we plan, of—”
I look to her, despairing. Who do I tell, When I have visions? ” Who always knows what I have seen?”
She pales as the light of realization takes form in her face. "The council meetings. The strategy sessions. Anyone who needs to know for the pack’s safety.
A new section of cave wall falls away, and through the opening, I spot our opportunity. "There!" I indicate the new gap. “We can go out over there!
Darian's guys are spread across the cave floor, some out cold from falling rocks, others holding steady as the cave continues to collapse. They have lost us in the confusion.
Can you move?" Eira says, her hands radiating a dim healing light as she places them on my shoulders.
"I have to." My hand flies instinctively to my stomach. “Our baby… I must protect both our baby and Kael.
Maya takes an advantage of a sharp piece of broken stone and begins tirelessly picking at the chains around my wrists. It is already weakened by my surge of power, and the metal crumples. "Stay close and stay quiet. We move fast and we don’t go backward.”
We slip through a crack in the rock face and crawl into a tight tunnel that descends into black depths. I hear Darian roaring commands to his men below us, the sound reverberating strangely throughout the ruined cavern.
"Find them! The girl is more precious than ever now. Everything depends on the child she bears!
Ice washes through my veins at his words. If he has any real comprehension of what our child is, the depths he will sink to in order to possess us will have no limits.
The tunnel snakes into the mountain, multiple passages diverging. Maya is up front, using her expanded hearing to help us navigate through the complex system of tunnels. I make the air thick and humid as the sound of running water carries to me.
“Underground river,” she says, softly. "If we can get to it, we might be able to trace it to the outside of the mountain."
"And if we can't?" Eira whispers.
“Then we stay and make our stand here,” I respond, making myself sound more resolute than I feel.
“No,” I manage to whisper, faltering against the tunnel wall.
"What is it?" Maya catches my arm.
"Lukas. He’s going to —” I can’t complete the sentence. Through our bond, I sense Kael’s absolute trust in the man who will betray him, and I am powerless to warn him.
The vision broadens, revealing still more of the Order's penetration. They haven’t just put one or two spies with the people we care about — they have put dozens among our allies, and they’ve all been in place for months, if not years. The scale of their planning is mind-boggling.
"Raven, some of us have to keep moving," Eira exclaims. "I can hear them behind us."
She's right. The sound of pursuit reverberates through the tunnels -closer … closer. But as we grope our way through the dark, towards the increasing noise of rushing water, my strength fluctuates erratically. Each flash of bright-silver light illuminates the passage around us but then makes me spew and sicken.
“The baby,” Maya says, and it has just clicked. “It’s making you both suffer, for what you’re missing, for the power you’re missing, isn’t it?”
I try to nod but I don't trust my words. The pregnancy is young, but I feel our baby's anguish as keenly as my own. When I try to access my powers, it's like exposing an infant to a thunder storm.
“Then you need to be somewhere safe where you can get some solid rest,” Eira decides. "Somewhere you can rest and possibly figure out how to aid Kael without self-destructing in the process."
The tunnel comes out into a huge underground cavern filled with the roar of high-speed water. A river runs through the middle of the space, disappearing into another tunnel on the far side. Resting everywhere, like phosphorescent fungi growing on the walls, are just enough to light the way.
“This might work,” Maya says, considering the water’s movement. "If we go with the current, it will draw us completely out of the mountain range.
"And leave Kael to die?" I shake my head violently. "I can't do that. I won't."
“You can’t save him if you’re dead,” Eira points out. “Or the baby dies from your power. "\[Imagine\] what Kael would want — if he would rather offer his child to save himself?"
The question breaks my heart because I know the answer. Kael would die a thousand deaths to save our child. But that doesn’t make the decision any easier.
From the tunnel behind us, we hear the sound of footsteps and raucous voices. The men of Darian's have discovered our spoor.
“We must go,” Maya pleads. "Now."
We walk to the edge of the water and poke the current and depth. It’s fast but not unnavigable, and the tunnel it dives into appears wide enough for us to slip through without too much risk.
“Together,” I say, and reach out to hold both their hands. “No matter what, we stick together.”
But as we are getting ready to plunge into the water, a different sound fills the cavern — it’s slow, deliberate clapping. “It’s the sound of someone who’s been looking and waiting.
"Bravo," a voice familiar to you from the shadows near the entrance of the cavern. "Truly impressive. It was only a matter of time before you got to that."
The dim phosphorescent light reveals a form that fills my heart with dread. It’s Viper, very much not dead, even though with the explosion, I felt that through Kael. Her silver hair glows in the fungal light, her pallid eyes twinkling with mirth.
"Impossible," Maya breathes. "You were in that warehouse. We felt the explosion."
“Oh, there totally was an explosion,” Viper confirms, taking a step forward with feline grace. "But did you think I was stupid enough to try to detonate it from inside the building? I’ve been playing this whole time throughout the whole entire time.
The pieces fit together with an awful clarity. "You've been the one who's been supplying Darian information. Not just in the past few years — ever since the beginning.”
"Clever girl." Viper’s smile is colder than the coldest winter. “You took longer to understand than I had hoped for. Every dream you’ve had, every plan you’ve made, every ounce of hope you’ve allowed yourself — I have been there, listening, learning and now reporting back.”
“But you helped us,” protests Eira. "You fought against the Order."
"I accomplished the resistance, just as I accomplished your packs. And do you reckon the Order would leave something important like that to fate? We’ve been running things long before you were even born.”
Beyond viper, more moving figures can be seen coming out of the Shade. There they are, order soldiers, dozens of them, all armed and alert. But it’s the silhouette they’re protecting that makes my blood run like ice water.
Lysandra—my mother—staggers, her hands tied behind her back. Her hair, black shot with silver, is matted, her amethyst eyes are wide with fear and pain. A cut on her temple oozes blood.
“Raven,” she says, her voice cracking. "Run. Please, just run."
“Well, now,” Viper says cheerily, like she’s talking about the weather. I think you and I need to talk about your future. And the future of that very special child you carry.”
My power grows with the threat to your mother, but Viper screams at me to halt.
"I wouldn't, if I were you. You see, it just so happens that your mother is the one wearing our special new collar—the one our scientists created to make it easier to funnel magic straight into the wearer's brain. Exercise your strength for one, and you kill her now.”
It's like my powers shuddering away from me after I've been burned, the silver falling away from my skin. Devoid of my power, I am now exposed, utterly at their mercy.
“There you go,” Viper adds. “Now, this is what’s going to happen. You’ll come with us, no fuss, or your mother lives. You will help us finish the ritual and bring about the darker truth of the prophecy, and in return your friends go free.”
"What ritual?" I want, but I’m scared of what he’ll say, even though I already know.
"The binding, of course. Your daughter is the union of the two bloodlines spoken of in Ancient texts. But guns without direction are chaos. "Our order has spent hundreds of years priming to be ready for this moment, to be able to direct that... power to our purposes."
The realization was like a blow to the chest. It’s not just that they want to kidnap our kid — they want to poison it while it’s most vulnerable, indoctrinate it from the moment it exits the birth canal.
"And if I refuse?"
Viper nods at one of her soldiers who places the edge of a blade on my mother’s throat. Well then, we'll have to think of some other way to motivate you. Perhaps we'll begin with your mother, and then the lovely Maya, and then little, dear Eira." How many people you love are you willing to lose to your pride?”
The underground river still roars behind us, escape now unrealistic and out of reach. Order troops join them in a bristling circle; their weapons pointed at my friends.
But there is something about the helpless despair I see in my mother’s eyes that ultimately shatters me.
“I’ll go with you,” I whisper and it and the words leave an ash in my mouth. “But I give you my word that they’ll be O.K.”
“That you have,” Viper says with a smile that indicates, from her, the word is less than nothing.
As we're encircled by the Order soldiers I lock eyes with Maya and mouth one word softly, "Kael."
She nods her head, barely visibly, getting it immediately.” “Who’ll tell him if I can’t get out and can’t get away nor save myself or our child?” To explain to him what we’re really up against.
But as the soldiers arrive and I feel the cold steel of the handcuffs wrap around my wrists yet again, can it be that it is already too late for any of us.
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