“Atos take them! Shadowfeeders everywhere! They’re coming our way, Talysse,” he hisses.
With swift, silent steps, he disappears into the inky gloom of the stairwell. I summon my timid light back and follow.
We climb fast, leaping over rubble and old bones. Elders, what has happened here? What kind of terror was unleashed upon these people? How did they die?
The flight of stairs ends on a landing identical to the one below. The carved arched door opens up to another empty room, and Gale rushes in. Probably all chambers in the tower are similar, but this one is more damaged by the elements—holes gape in the floor planks, pieces of the outside wall are torn down, and the pinpricks of stars are clearly visible.
“Here, Talysse, I came in from here.” He runs to a gape in the outside wall, overgrown with thick, centennial ivy. It’s large enough for a man to squeeze through. “We climb down from here, Talysse.”
Atos’s warty ass.
I look down, and chills crawl down my spine like angry ants. It’s a nearly forty-feet drop. There are cracks in the masonry and sturdy branches of ivy that could offer some support when climbing down the uneven walls.
But me and heights?
Those are two things that don’t mix well.
My father tried to cure my childhood fear by encouraging me to climb all the trees in our garden. Certain spots in my body still ache when I remember it.
My fingers desperately dig into the masonry as I struggle to steady my breath.
“Are you sure it’s…safe?” I swallow drily, fighting a wave of nausea.
Gale looks at me as if I’ve just lost my mind. “There is no safe here, Talysse. We’re in the Nightfall Trials. There’s no safe here. But let me tell you, it’s far safer than getting anywhere closer to Prince Asshole. You either climb down or run downstairs to that murderer and a pack of Shadowfeeders.” Seeing my throat bob, his tone softens. “It’s easier than it looks, Talysse. The holes and the plants make it as easy as climbing a staircase,” he finishes reassuringly.
I nod, trying to steady the shaking in my limbs. “You go first.” I bargain, still suspicious that there might be some trick and he can push me to my death. Without saying a word, he swings his legs over the edge, grabs the thick ivy branches and starts his descent. He surely makes it look easy.
I watch him for a couple of minutes, but the unnatural silence from downstairs is more frightening than the abyss beyond the wall.
Trying to calm my breath, I get on my knees and slowly straddle the wall. My right foot dangles over the chasm, and my teeth are chattering.
My feet search for support and find it easily in the damaged stonework. Thank the Elders Myrtle gave me soft boots with flexible soles, so finding a purchase is not that difficult. The ivy branches are sturdy, and my fingers are strong enough to hold onto the rocks in the wall.
Gale was right. It’s easier than it looks.
The crack in the wall is becoming a black ulcer in the tower body of the ancient tower. Gale must be further down, as I don’t hear his ragged breathing anymore. It’s just the cool night wind howling through the gaps in the masonry as if those trapped inside have regained their voice.
Don’t look down.
One step after the other.
Don’t look down.
Elders hate it when things are easy for me. A noise from below breaks my concentration. It’s a soft, inhuman, guttural growl, and I react without thinking.
I look down.
And it is all it takes.
The gloom at the feet of the tower is taking monstrous shapes. Gray skin, scales, claws, and feral fangs merge together, forming grotesque figures. I recognize immediately what it is. A Shadowfeeder, right beneath us, its eyes—portals to a dark world full of suffering. Its dagger-sharp claws promise agony, and its teeth—a long death. The temperature around me drops immediately, and I can see the vapor of my breath leaving my lips, just like my calmness leaves my body. More shadows melt, and I realize that the Tainted Ones—the feral thralls of the Shadowfeeders, starved for living flesh, are not far. The last fragments of control over my body shatter. Tainted Ones can climb well.
“Talysse!” Gale hisses from the depths, desperately trying to get to me, but it is too late. “Talysse, let me help—”
Terrified and shaking, my fingers grab the wrong ivy branch. Too thin, too young, too loosely attached to the wall.
With a tiny, terrible noise, it rips off the masonry.
“Talysse—”
