Chapter 39 THE BLIND WELL
The air was different down here.
It wasn't the sterile, cold draft of the palace corridors. The wind hitting their faces from the mouth of the Blind Well smelled of rotten eggs and... strangely, wet dog fur. Serra's stomach clenched.
Dorian shoved the heavy cover of the well aside. The sound of metal grinding against stone echoed in the dark void, and from deep below, a low moan rose up, as if the well was answering him.
"Dorian," Serra said, grabbing his arm. His skin had turned grey. Beads of cold sweat dotted his forehead. The life force he had poured into Kael was barely keeping him upright. "You don't have to do this. We can call Lukas. A squad..."
"No squad," Dorian rasped. His voice sounded like he had gravel in his lungs. "Whatever is down there likes crowds. Likes fresh meat. Just us, Serra. Quiet and fast."
He didn't look at her. He was afraid that if he did, he might give up. He reached out his hand, and Serra took it. His hand was as cold as a corpse, but his grip was still iron.
They started descending the rusty iron ladder.
With every step, the darkness got a little thicker, a little heavier. Serra's phone flashlight could only cut through a few meters of the gloom. The walls... God, the walls seemed to be moving. A layer of slime and moss pulsated, as if breathing.
"My father never told me why he sealed this place," Dorian whispered. His voice sounded muffled in the void. "He just said, 'What we buried there, stays there.'"
"Lorden knew," Serra said. "So you aren't the only one who knows your father's secrets."
They descended about a hundred meters. Finally, their boots hit the ground—sticky, sucking mud. This wasn't a tunnel. It was a massive, natural cavern carved out of the palace's foundations. And in the center lay a black pool formed by an underground river.
But the pool wasn't the horror.
On the banks of the pool lay hundreds of empty husks.
Not human bones. Animals. Wolves, bears, deer... All of them with dried skin, hollowed out, turned into pulp. They looked exactly like Vespera in her cell.
"It's been feeding," Dorian said. His voice trembled. "For years... Lorden has been coming down here, feeding it. While we played palace politics upstairs, he was fattening an army down here."
Dorian stopped suddenly. He clutched his chest and dropped to his knees.
"Dorian!" Serra dropped beside him.
"It's close," he groaned. The seal on his chest began to glow with a violet light through his t-shirt. But this light was pulsing in the same rhythm as the thing inside Kael. "Kael... the thing inside Kael and the thing here... they are calling to each other."
(THE LEADER'S DEN)
"Welcome," a voice said.
It came from everywhere. Echoing off the wet stones.
Lorden stepped out of the darkness. But he wasn't the hunched, elderly Council member anymore. His body had changed. His spine had elongated, his skin stretched and greying. His fingers had lengthened into daggers. And worst of all... on his chest, there was a seal like Dorian's, but inverted, looking like an open wound.
"Do you see, Alpha?" Lorden glided toward them. He didn't walk; he seemed to slither. "This is the 'treasure' your father hid. The Void is not just hunger. It is evolution."
Dorian tried to stand, but his legs shook. "Stay away from Kael," he snarled. It was the last warning of a wounded wolf, not a lion.
Lorden laughed. His mouth opened wide enough to swallow a man's head. "Kael is just an incubator. The real prize... is you, Dorian. Your seal isn't like mine. Yours is pure. Yours was made to hold the Void King."
He shifted his gaze to Serra. In that moment, she felt her blood freeze. He wasn't looking at her like an enemy, but like a key.
"And you," Lorden said, licking his lips with a black tongue. "Red Blood. The hand that turns the lock."
Lorden raised his hand. The mud on the cavern floor shifted. Shapes began to rise from the muck. Those dried animal carcasses... they were moving. Jerking upright like puppets on strings, fueled by Void energy.
"Run," Dorian said. He tried to push Serra behind him, but he had no strength. He stumbled.
"I'm not leaving you!" Serra screamed. She drew the silver knife from her belt. "Lorden! If you touch him, I swear I will spill your blood on this floor!"
"Blood?" Lorden grinned. "I have no blood, little girl."
He made a gesture, and that army of dead animals lunged at them.
(BATTLE IN THE DARK)
Chaos erupted.
Dorian, despite having no power, shoulder-checked a skeletal bear, shattering its ribs. But he was tiring. Every blow took away from the energy keeping Kael alive.
Serra sliced the head off a wolf skeleton lunging at her. But they didn't stop. They popped up from the ground like mushrooms.
A claw grazed Serra's arm. The pain was hot and sharp. Blood dripped onto the mud.
The moment her blood hit the ground, the cavern shook.
Lorden stopped. His eyes locked onto those three drops of bright, red blood on the floor.
"Ah," Lorden said, his voice trembling with ecstasy. "The scent of Red blood... He is waking."
The black water in the pool began to froth. Dorian turned to Serra. His eyes were filled with horror.
"Serra," he said. "Your blood... It isn't attracting them. It's waking them up."
From the pool behind Lorden, a massive, shapeless shadow began to rise. This wasn't Lorden. This was what Vespera had talked about. The ones coming to collect their due.
And Serra, like a fool, had just invited them to dinner with her own blood.