Chapter 9 9
ARIA'S POV
I awoke cold, which didn’t make any sense because the last thing I recalled was lying in my bed at the Night Palace where they kept rooms warm by building fires all day and night.
This was different. This was the type of cold that seeps into your bones, that causes your breath to fog in the air. Blinking slowly, trying to see; trying to make out why everything was holding wrong.
The surface of the ceiling above me was ragged rock, overgrown with odd mushrooms that glowed a pale bioluminescent light. Blues and greens and purples thrummed softly, just enough light to see by. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, the light catching and bouncing in dizzying patterns off the crystalline spikes.
I endeavored to rise and discovered at once that my hands had been bound. Chains bound my wrists, but they were not of metal. They were black as shadows turned solid and writhed like living creatures. When I resisted against them, they tightened and pain shot up my arms.
I gasped, going still immediately. The chains had scorched me where they'd seared my flesh, not with heat but rather the cold of such extremity that it felt like fire. As I attempted to find the power within me, the chains seemed to siphon it off before I could collect enough and strike back.
Panic hit me then. Where was I? How did I get here?
I made myself breathe slowly, to think past the fear. I remembered falling asleep after breakfast, tired of getting ready for bed. I recollected that I had ordered the servants away, wishing to be alone. I recalled lying on the ground, my eyes shut.
And then the shadows woke up.
They poured in from every corner of the room, thick and suffocating, wrapping around me before I could let out a scream. I had been felt myself being pulled, dragged through that hole in something that wasn't space. The feeling that she was falling and drowning and burning all at once.
Then there’s nothing, until I woke up here.
"Hello?" I yelled, my voice bouncing of the walls. "Is anyone there?"
No response. Nothing but the drip of water somewhere in the dark.
I looked around carefully. It was a big cave, maybe thirty feet or more across, with multiple tunnel openings disappearing into darkness. The floor was as smoothed by water over the centuries. No clearly marked exits, no weapons to speak of, nothing useful.
I attempted to grasp the link, the connection with that quartette of kings. It had been continual ever since the seal was applied. But now there was nothing. Just a flat ache where the bond should have been, as if someone had erected a barrier between us.
“No, no, no,” I muttered, tugging on the chains. They contracted in defiance, heated further. My eyes stung with frustration, fear and tears.
There was a grinding sound from one of the tunnels, like stone against stone. Something shifted in the dark and I stood still.
The thing that came out of no longer human. It was roughly human in shape and yet all wrong. Too tall, too thin, and with limbs that swiveled at angles that should not have been sustainable. Its skin seemed like broken rock and it shimmered faintly from within with a sickly green light.
But the eyes are what made me scream. There were too many, too spread out – and this could have been its face; every one was a different color, all focused on me.
“Finally awake,” it said, its voice like rocks grinding against one another. "The master will be pleased."
I pushed myself back against the wall Sensed I wasn’ t goin& #146; nowhere left to crawl. "Who are you? What do you want?"
The creature circled me slowly. "I am Keeper, emissary to the Fifth King. It is what my master wants that counts." It paused. “And he craves you, little goddess. For a long time, he has been in expectation of your return.”
I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, trying to sound steady. "I'm not a goddess. I am just a human girl who wants to go home.”
Keeper emitted a noise that could have been laughter. "Is that what you believe?" It extended one of its too long hands, and I recoiled. "You are so much more. Before you were Celeste, before you made the four planes, when was of the Fifth King. You were his queen, his equal, the partner in ruling the primeval void.”
I shook my head. "That's not true. I'm twenty two years old. I grew up in New York. I was adopted by a lesbian named Stevie Rae. That's all I am."
“You’re a soul in a new body,” Keeper said, its many eyes blinking. “You betrayed the Fifth King, when you held favor towards creation rather than destruction. You stole his power and created the four realms. Your penance was to be reborn without memory, only to love and lose the four champions again and again. A constant cycle of pain to douse out your spirit."
The creature leaned closer. “The Fifth King wants to undo the four worlds, to revert everything back to the void. And only you can put a stop to it, or help him succeed.”
Ice ran down my spine. "What?"
"You are the Heart of the Veil, you who is key to every blockade. My master will be able to instantly bring down the barriers between worlds thanks to your cooperation. Without that, it will be long and it will hurt. But the outcome will be the same.” Those many eyes fixed on me. "So he offers you a choice. Come by choice, reclaim the lost power of your people, stand with him – and it can be a painless process. Resist, and see the four kings rip each other apart to try to save you.”
I stared at the creature. Both options were impossible. I found myself unable to not destroy entire kingdoms filled with innocent mortals. But neither could I watch the four kings kill one another off.
“No,” I said at last, lifting my chin though it trembled. "Both options. I don’t have to make a decision between the two.”
Keeper tilted its head. “That is not one of the options open to you.”
“Then put it out there,” I snapped. I’m not going to be anybody’s weapon. If the realms are to be saved at all, they’ll be saved by me choosing to save them. Not because I got compelled.”
The monster just stared at me for a long time. Then it laughed, that grim grinding vinous laughter which resonated throughout the cave.
"Defiant," it said. "The master will have fun breaking that spirit of yours."
Before I knew what I was doing, instinct reigned. I gritted my teeth down on my bottom lip and gave into biting it hard enough to fill my mouth with blood. The agony was sharp and clarifying.
I savored the blood pooling on my tongue for a second before deliberately making it drip down onto my wrist. Now to the mark which marked me out for prey To the four kingly shepherds by whose fault, First Robber, with his unforgiven twins My blood was levelled!
The response was swift and fierce. The mark ignited, the four sigils burning so flaming bright I had to turn my head. Suddenly the wall between us broke like glass.
I had four presence put into my face all at the same time. Draven’s chilling fury, Ronan’s feral rage, Kael's razor-sharp worry and Lucien's dark amusement tinged with something close to fear. They all sensed me, sensed my fear and also my determination and where I was.
And I howled back -- not in words, but with emotion alone; putting all that I had into it. Help. Please. I'm trapped. I'm scared. Please find me.
The response was instantaneous. Four powers responding to my summons, Four mortal directions coming to meet me. I sensed it coming, sensed the sheer mass of their combined might racing my way.
My two wrists are suddenly free as chains falling to the ground. I tripped forward, bracing against the cave wall, my hands massaging away at the inflamed and blistered skin on my wrist but noticing it healing already.
Keeper gave out a surprised sound, backing away from me. "What have you done?"
“Help,” I struggled to say, my voice trembling but triumphant.
Screed, my girl I squeezed her hand without looking down. The ceiling caved in with a sound of explosive shattering, as though the stalactites flopped like fishtails down and burst upon the floor. Cracks veined across the walls as four kinds of power ripped at the very essence of his abode.
Out of one opened a fire, demon fire that burned black and red. Shadows cascaded from the other, vampire magic that ate at light. A third passageway golden light so blistering to the eyes, pure Fae power. And out of the last came a roar, bestial and angry, followed by the rending of stone with large limbs.
They were coming. All four of them, and they were carrying destruction with them.
Keeper peered between the tunnels, several pairs of its eyes wide with perhaps fear. Then it turned back toward me and laughed once more.
“You’ve ruined them all by bringing them here to be together,” it said, retreating toward a fifth tunnel I hadn’t seen before. "The prophecy begins now. The curse comes in when all four love you at the same time, in the same spot. And you just made sure of it.”
Dread came over me as I realized. The curse. The one who could kill us all if they ever did, why love me. And because I’d just caused the four of them to converge on one spot, in terror and desperation, feeling things I should not.
The ceiling was starting to cave in and the chunks of stone that rained down were large enough to leave craters in the floor. I covered my head with my arms, wrenching to keep the worst of it at bay; my heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst.
In all the madness and dust and debris falling, I watched Keeper vanish into that fifth tunnel, laughing as it disappeared from view just as its entrance caved in.
And with a simultaneous cry they exploded into the mouth of the cave from four corners of the world.