But Khadyr? He'd slit my throat and then loot my still-warm corpse without a second's hesitation. And he wouldn't even apologize. Because he's ruthless. I may be a thief, but at least I have a code I stick to. If I'm going to loot a corpse, well, it has to have been a corpse for at least a few decades, not mere minutes. Though really, if I had my way, I'd avoid corpses entirely.
I don't know exactly how old the corpse in the crypt is, but if he's like the rest of the shard guards, I'm guessing he’s been under this mound for at least a thousand years and change. It wasn't easy to find–even for me. We're talking layers and layers of glamours. High-fae glamours, too. Shit, this mound is covered in so much magic that even ground penetrating radar wouldn't be able to find anything suspicious beneath the surface. I do admire humans and all the things they manage to do without magic. Radar? That penetrates the ground? Genius. Truly, human ingenuity knows no bounds. Well, okay. Some bounds.
I huddle against the damp stone slab sealing the horrors within the tomb away from the world, and stamp my feet, trying to warm myself. But it’s no use. There’s no banishing the chill that’s settled into my bones. Not with the approaching storm. Not with the oncoming horrors.
I'm stalling. Of fucking course I'm stalling. If you're going to cover a tomb in this many glamours, you're going to protect it with all kinds of wards and magic booby traps. I canfeelthe magic radiating off the burial mound. It buzzes, charges the air like high-tension powerlines. It skitters across my skin like spiders. All this power… the veritable shit-stew of curses, hexes, and all kinds of unimaginable torment weighs on me until my breath is thready in my throat.
Fuck, all the other tombs I've raided this year have been literal nightmare fodder. And I've got a sneaky suspicion this is going to be the worst yet.
Did I save the best (worst) for last? Of fucking course I did. I may be an excellent treasure liberator of many unique and varied skills, but I sure as shit didn't want to put every last skill to the test if I didn't have to. Spoiler alert: I got to raid a few more tombs just to be stuck having to run the last one on hard mode.
I consider my options. I can die trying to get another shard for Khadyr in some kind of bad-ass way (and fingers crossed it takes him a ton of effort and frustration to find my speared-through-the-chest or poison-dart-pin-cushioned corpse, because fuck that guy. For real.) or I can die at Khadyr's hands and have my looted corpse dropped on Shadow House's doorstep for Aron or one of the kids to find.
Okay, so I'm doing this. For the children of Shadow House.
There are nine switches hidden in the stone slab, set so seamlessly into the rest of the stone that they're invisible to the naked eye. But I yank off my pilling wool gloves and find them easily with the pads of my fingers because, apparently, finding is my superpower. If anyone elsecouldsee them, they'd assume the switches form a circle, but I know better. I found the truth in an old demon myth transcribed by a druid a millennium ago. I dig a stick of chalk from my backpack and draw lines between the switches, scrubbing out mistakes with the cuff of my coat sleeve until the nine-pointed star that makes up the Light Bearer's crown emerges. Nothing to it but to do it.
I tap out the switches in the order ordained in the old myth with the very tip of my pointer finger, leaning as far away from the entrance to the tomb as I can, braced and ready to bolt. But just as before, the switches sink into the stone with little clicks. I let out a thin breath and slump against the stone, all the adrenaline flooding from my body, when I’m not immediately struck down by magic lightning.
Stone grinds against stone and just like that, the adrenaline is replaced by excitement. It thrums in my blood until I’m practically vibrating with it. Or, shit, maybe that’s all the magic. But, seriously. I freakinglovethe sound of spooky doors with treasure behind them opening through some magical mechanism. Because as deadly as treasure liberation often is... I kind of love the thrill of it.
My skill of finding shards, particularly in tombs, is aided by a fun new development: the shards give me the warm fuzzies when another is nearby. It's like tomb-penetrating radar, built into my chest.Freaky? Absolutely. It's useful enough, but I really wish they'd do something abitmore useful. Like, glow. Turn me into a meat flashlight. It would really save me on batteries. But alas. The shards just chill out behind my ribs, not glowing like the little shits they are.
"Sorry, little buddies," I say, tapping at my chest. Because, yeah, I talk to them. You try not talking to your growing collection of fuzzy-feeling-giving rack rocks and tell me how longyoulast.
Still definitely stalling. Still trying to banish the feeling of dread that makes me want to upchuck fish and chips into the snow with humor like this isn’t the scariest fucking thing I’ve ever done.
Big. Girl. Panties.
I dig out my flashlight and switch it on, giving it a good slap when it flickers.
The tunnel under the mound immediately curves and I know I've got nine layers of nightmare labyrinth to navigate before I get to the goods.
The shards warm in my chest, and, okay, I don't hate it. It feels kind of like getting a hug from the inside out.
"You feel that, little dudes? We're getting closer to your brother or sister. You guys probably don't have genders. I mean, you're rocks. Glowy, shiny as fuuuck rocks, but rocks. So, your non-gender specific sibling. Can you do me a solid and not help suck it into my chest? I really need this one on the outside, okay?"
They don't often seem to listen to me, though what do I know about the listening habits of magical crystals?
"Can you little rock stars help keep me from getting speared, darted, flamed, spiked, or squashed?" So far, these tombs have challenged even my elite skills, and I'm guessing this particular tomb will get extra points for creativity. Prepare for the worst (getting simultaneously stabbed and squashed when one spiked wall and one rock wall close in on me), hope for the best.
I steel myself and start into the labyrinth. If it's anything like the others—and I expect it will be—it's not a maze. The tunnel will snake around the tomb, lead me around and around the crypt at its heart, trip me up with switchback turns, but eventually the tunnel will end at the tomb's center. All within the freaky realm of normal I've come to expect.
But this tomb? It isn't filled with trip wires or loose stones that make the floor fall away from me.
By the second turn in the tunnel, I understand why.
I underestimated the violent creativity of this tomb's traps. Because there are dark hollows carved into the stone walls, each big enough for one very broad, very tall, very, verydead,armor-clad, armed-to-the-teeth, very much waking-up-at-my-intrusion demonkin.
Holy fuck, demon draugrs?
That wasn't on my Bullshit Booby Tomb Traps bingo card. They draw their swords in what sounds like a symphonic car crash and cross them with their buddy across the way until all I see is unending exes of swords. I didn't show upwhollyunprepared. I’m decked out in all manner of stabby and shiny (my favorite combination) things: iron and silver daggers for fae and shifters respectively, and a recently-liberated gold stiletto knife. I even have a few spelled water balloons filled with salt water in case I need to as-salt any demonkin. So I'm prepared for demonkin, butdeaddemonkin?
I slip a water balloon out of my bag, squinch one eye shut and lob it at the nearest draugr. It strikes him right in the face (score one for the Lucemiester) and drips down his neck and chest. No telltale sizzle of salt doing its work. Damn. The undead demon cocks his head and I swear, if he still had eyelids left, he'd be blinking at me in bemusement.
I cringe and am about to turn tail and run when my little bust buddies do their warm fuzzy thing in my chest. And the draugrs... just lower their swords? And step back into their resting places?
And then they bow. To me. Fuck, as if this whole past year hasn't been freaky enough.
