“I amPrimaof House Viper,” she announced. “First of the Fallen, Mother ofArchí, Godskiller. And I will tell you everything you don’t already know, AdrianBexley.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dante
“The silence is worse than the noise. I find myself missing him more the longer he’s gone. I was touched by the divine. Now my heart is a void filled only with despair.”
— From the Journal of Eximius, Former Patriarch of House Avus
Every movement of the horse beneath me was agony.
Roman and I had been sparring every night of our journey and the result was simply an accumulation of deep purple bruises at every joint and juncture of my body and an amusedKsenia. They offered instructions now, at least, from time to time. But mostly, I think Roman just enjoyed taking out the day’s frustrations on me andKseniaenjoyed lounging against Phantom and watching “silly boys fighting with sharp sticks” as she put it.
Regardless of their indifference, I could tell I was improving and what little progress there had been was doing wonders in making me feel more comfortable while riding out in this desert in such a small party. Especially since we were going after someone being pursued by the gods themselves. Roman andI still didn’t speak much during our journey whileKseniaflew above scouting the way forward. But three days in I found that I needed to speak, if only to distract myself from the deep ache originating in a hundred different spots all over my bruised and broken body.
“You said she was out there, free of their clutches,” I said suddenly into the still, thick air. “Back when you first freed me from that dungeon, when the Prince gave me the option to join you, you said Adrian was just out here somewhere, free and wandering.”
Roman’s jaw clenched but he answered a moment later.
“I didn't say she was wandering,” he spat. “She isn’t alone.”
I tensed at that, at the cryptic warning in his statement, but pressed on.
“Where was she sent at first?” I asked. “When I…when I betrayed her, where did she go?”
Roman’s gaze snapped to mine and swept over me once in appraisal before he shifted on his saddle and turned back to the horizon.
“We call it the Underground,” he muttered. "Sanctuary is a walled city, four levels tall, you know that. But did you know that it used to float upon a massive rock pulled from the very cliffs around it and suspended in the sky above?”
I gaped at him, mouth opening and closing but no words coming out. He sighed.
“It was so the humans couldn’t reach it,” he continued. “That’s how it was originally created. So we could never return to claim our ancestors. But that meant the Trials simply dropped the betrayed champions into the desert below. And spurnedVerdunn, evicted from the only home they'd ever known and gifted with ten incredible Blessings of magic, as it turned out, held a grudge. They started to become a problem for theGeist. So the underground was built. The stone was pulledfrom the remaining cliffs and created into a column rising from the ground to the base of Sanctuary above so that now the city appears to stand upon a massive column of rock. But beneath the city itself, within that encasement of rock, is a prison of sorts. That's where the Fallen are sent now. They're dropped into that darkness created to keep them held within the walls, away from the city but unaware of the world outside of it. We suspect that's where your Culled go as well, and where your resources ultimately come from, the slave labor of your spurned ancestors. But we’ve never been able to verify our suspicions. No one has ever escaped the Underground or the magical wards theGeistplaced around it. Until now.”
My gaze snapped to his. He was already watching me, jaw set in a firm line, eyes boring into mine as if willing me to understand.
“Adrian was—she escaped?” I asked, stunned.
He gave a slow nod.
“The only way to do so,” he began to explain, “the only way she could have, would be to use the corruption. Your story about the avalanche in the ninth Trial verified it. She can wield the darkness. If we’re aware of it, theGeistare too. She can break through their wards, Dante. Do you understand what that means? She's the physical manifestation of everything they've ever feared, everything they fled their previous world to avoid, and she's already aware of how to use it. They won’t just allow her to survive out there forever. They can’t. And they would have sent you after her none the wiser if they could have.”
Roman turned away from me at that, disgust plain in his expression as he faced the horizon once more, glancing up for any sign ofKsenia.
“But why?” I asked. “Why do they fear this…corruption so much? And one girl who wields it? How could such a thing havedriven them out of an entire world? I’ve seen theGeistwield their magic. How could anything stand against that?”
“You are terrifyingly ignorant,” Roman grunted but explained. “Every magic has its counterpart, its weakness. When one side grows too powerful, an imbalance is created. The universe seeks to rectify that imbalance, usually by bestowing upon a singular person far more power than they have any right to wield. It happened to Deimos in his home world. But he wasn’t enough. So his family brought their people here and spent generations honing their Light Magic, launching a genocide against those using the Dark, and eradicated every trace of their counterpart magic so they couldn't be opposed. Or so they thought. But the universe seeks to balance and they’ve been fighting against that balance for too long. It has long been the belief ofOreka, an ancient religion in the human community, that the universe will always balance itself. No matter what.”
“So your people have been waiting for this…balance to return. And you think Adrian will be the one to bring it.”
“The dark is the only source of magic capable of bending the light. We do notthinkAdrian will bring the balance. WeknowAdrianisthe balance. Therefore, as a basic tenant of our religion and in our ongoing cause to check the power of the beings who've declared themselves gods among us, we're bound to find her, to protect her and, if she should prove herself worthy, to serve her.”
I nearly choked at that, an embarrassing snort escaping me which I tried to hide in a cough but unsuccessfully so. Roman noticed, his shrewd eyes passing over me in a firm glare before he turned back to face forward again.
“I’m sorry,” I said and I meant it. “It’s not funny. Truly, it isn’t. It’s just…well, you don’t know Adrian. Not like I do. You may find her, you may even convince her to allow your protection, but your service?” I snorted again. “She’d never allow it.”
“Then she’s precisely the sort of person who should have it.”
I opened my mouth to question what he meant by that but a shadow passed above us, growing larger and larger as it raced toward the ground ahead. I knew what that meant. Roman and I tensed on our reins, stopping the horses asKsenia and Phantom landed in the sand before us.Kseniadropped to the ground before her mount even touched it and was already striding toward us by the time Phantom folded his enormous wings back to his side and turned to lick a paw, seemingly unbothered.
