Chapter 59 The Weight Of The Blood
Chapter 59 The Weight Of The Blood
The iron doors didn’t just close; they fused into the rock. The Great Hall of the Iron Peak was no longer a room. It was a throat, and it was beginning to swallow.
Lila stood in the centre, her hand locked in Kieran’s. She could feel the Gold in her veins screaming. It wasn't the warm hum of power anymore. It was a jagged, piercing heat. The mountain was pulling at her, trying to suck the Thorne light out through her very pores.
Opposite them, the "boy" stood still. He wasn't crying anymore. His face was as smooth as a river stone, his eyes flickering between a human blue and a hollow, mechanical red. Beside him, "Sarah" began to stretch. Her limbs grew long and thin, her skin turning the colour of wet ash.
"The Queen must stay," the boy said. His voice was no longer a child’s. It sounded like the grinding of tectonic plates. "The Gold must feed the Peak.”
"Run!" Kieran roared.
He didn't wait for the mountain to move first. He lunged forward, his violet skin trailing sparks of dark energy. He was the Thorne Knight, a weapon forged by the mountain’s own magic, but his heart was still loyal to the girl, not the stone.
He slammed into a group of Bone-Wolves that had emerged from the floor. They weren't like the ones before. These were reinforced with the same black metal the SOC used. The mountain was using the SOC’s own technology against its Queen.
Kieran tore through them with his bare hands. He didn't use a blade; he used the violet pressure coming off his body. Every punch he threw shattered bone and twisted steel. But for every wolf he broke, three more rose from the black sand.
"Lila, the doors!" Kieran shouted over the sound of breaking metal. "Use the Gold! Don't let it take it use it!"
Lila looked at the fused iron doors. She felt weak. The "Toby" creature was staring at her, and she could feel her memories of the real Toby slipping away. Every second she looked at the monster, a piece of her brother’s true face vanished from her mind.
He’s not real, she told herself. He’s a leech.
She reached deep into her chest, past the fear, past the grief, and grabbed the Gold. She didn't try to hold onto it anymore. She pushed it out.
A shockwave of pure, golden light erupted from Lila’s chest.
It wasn't the cold, purple light of the mountain. It was the hot, living fire of the Thorne line. The light hit the "Sarah" creature first. The monster shrieked as its fake skin began to smoke and peel away. Underneath the illusion was nothing but a frame of rusted iron and mountain moss.
The "Toby" creature backed away, hissing. The golden light was poison to the mountain’s lies.
"You would choose a ghost over a living brother?" the creature demanded, its voice cracking.
"I choose the truth!" Lila screamed.
She pointed her hands at the iron doors. The Gold flowed out of her in a concentrated beam of heat. The iron began to glow orange, then white. The mountain groaned in pain. The very floor beneath them began to shake as the Peak fought to keep its prize.
The pack was in chaos. Ronan and the other warriors were fighting off the Bone-Wolves, but they were being pushed back toward the red-veined walls.
"Get to the door!" Lila commanded. Her voice was layered with the power of a hundred Queens. "The Gold will hold the way! Move!"
As the pack scrambled toward the melting doors, the "Toby" monster made one last move. It didn't attack Lila. It ran toward the retreating pack.
It grabbed a young girl from the Shadow Moon pack, a girl about the same age Toby would have been.
"If I cannot have the Queen's Gold," the monster growled, "I will take the pack's blood!"
Lila stopped. Her golden beam flickered. If she kept melting the door, the girl would die. If she saved the girl, the Gold would be drained, and they would all be trapped forever.
Kieran saw the hesitation. He knew what it would cost. He turned away from the wolves he was fighting and blurred toward the monster.
"Kieran, no!" Lila cried.
Kieran hit the "Toby" creature like a falling star. The impact sent a shockwave through the hall that cracked the stone pillars. Kieran grabbed the monster by its throat, his violet hands burning into the ash-flesh.
"You want Gold?" Kieran hissed, his voice vibrating with power. "Take mine."
Kieran didn't have Thorne blood, but he had the Spark that Lila had given him to save his life. He opened his own connection to the mountain. He let the Iron Peak drink from him instead of her.
The violet veins in Kieran's arms turned a blinding, jagged white. He was overcharging. He was giving the mountain so much power that it couldn't process it.
The "Toby" creature began to glow. Its eyes turned into twin suns. It let go of the pack girl, its body shaking as Kieran forced his entire life force into the illusion.
"Go!" Kieran yelled, his face contorting in agony. "Lila, take them out! NOW!"
Lila didn't want to leave him. But she saw the doors finally give way. A gap appeared in the rock, showing the cold, grey sky of the world outside.
"Ronan, take the girl! Everyone out!" Lila directed the pack through the gap.
She turned back to Kieran. He was locked in a struggle with the monster, both of them encased in a sphere of white and violet lightning. The mountain was screaming now a sound that made everyone’s ears bleed.
Lila ran back toward Kieran. She didn't use her Gold to fight. She used it to tether. She threw a golden line of energy around Kieran’s waist and pulled with everything she had.
"We leave together!" she roared. "Or we burn together!"
The Gold and the Violet collided. A massive explosion of light filled the Great Hall. The pillars collapsed. The black lake rose in a wall of frozen water.
In the chaos, Lila felt Kieran’s hand grab hers. It was cold, and he felt lighter, as if half of his soul had been sucked away by the monster. But he was there.
They threw themselves through the melting iron doors just as the Great Hall collapsed behind them.
They tumbled onto the rocky slope of the mountain. The air was freezing, and the wind was howling, but it was real air. It didn't smell like rotting flowers. It smelled like snow and pine.
Lila rolled onto her back, gasping for breath. She looked up at the peak. The red light was fading, turning back into the dull, dead grey of old stone. The mountain had lost.
She looked at her hands. The Gold was still there, but it was dim. It was quiet.
Then she looked at her mind.
She tried to find Toby’s face. The real Toby.
She saw him. For a second, the image was clear his brown eyes, his crooked tooth, the way he laughed at the creek. She had saved the memory. She had kept the ghost.
But she looked at Kieran. He was lying in the snow, his violet skin now dull and grey. He wasn't moving.
Lila crawled to him, her heart freezing in her chest. "Kieran? Kieran, wake up."
He opened his eyes. They weren't violet anymore. They were a pale, washed-out grey. He looked at her, and for a terrifying moment, he didn't say anything.
"Lila?" he whispered. His voice was thin.
"I'm here," she said, clutching his face.
"Who... who is Toby?" he asked.
Lila froze. The mountain hadn't taken her memories. It had taken his. To save the pack, Kieran had given up the memories of the people he loved. He had saved Lila's brother in her head, but he had forgotten why they were fighting in the first place.
They were out of the mountain. But the Knight had forgotten his Queen.