Steig nodded, though Ena could still sense his reluctance.
“Now, are you with me?” Ty asked.
“I’m with you,” Steig said, his anger simmering down.
“Really?” Ty asked, sounding skeptical.
“Really. If you’re all in, then I’ll try to be too,” he said, reaching out to grip Ty on the shoulder.
Ty nodded at him, and gripped him back, and Ena felt the tension dissipate between them as she emerged from behind the tree, walking again towards Ty.
His face lit up as he saw her, a smile breaking apart the harshness of his features. “Are you ready to go?” he asked her.
“Yep,” she said, giving him a warm smile in return. She was glad that Ty seemed to have worked things out with Steig—it would be much nicer for them if he was supportive—but some of the things he had said, some of the difficulties he’d hinted at, left her feeling a bit apprehensive.
She chose to push those from her mind as Ty helped her mount up and settled in behind her. Turner, who had finally made his way out of the cave, and Steig followed suit on their own horses. Ena was pleased to see that Turner’s horse, Mahnin, was healthy and well cared for. She’d developed a soft spot for the beautiful creature when they’d met in Attax after Ty had traded one of his best daggers to purchase her. For some reason, Ena felt a strong affinity for the black, glossy mare, and she was secretly jealous that she didn’t get to ride her herself.
The four of them rode for most of the morning, weaving back and forth across the elevating landscape, nestling themselves deeper into the foothills. They rode at a good pace, stopping just once for a brief break, but everyone seemed in good spirits as they joked and shared about their recent experiences. Ty finally had a chance to share in detail what it had been like with the Occidens Coven, and Turner had been thoroughly impressed hearing the details about their escape.
But sometime around noon, Ena felt the air around her companions shift. They fell silent, almost as if they were under aspell, as they entered a shadowed pass between two of the peaks. Ena had never been this deep into the Chasm Mountain range before. She’d been to the edge of them south of here where they neared the Auster Coven, but the witches never ventured beyond the edge of the foothills. There was never any reason to.
The four of them moved deeper into the pass as it got narrower and colder, the only sound the clip-clop of their horses’ hooves on the rocky soil. Ena wanted to ask how close they were, but she didn’t dare speak. Something about their eerie silence told her not to—like they were concentrating, and she shouldn’t disturb them.
After about an hour, they turned the corner and stopped as Ena found herself facing a huge, gaping hole in the side of the mountain—the entrance to the Underworld.
It was clearly not natural. It was jagged and uneven, and looked like it had been made by hand, whether by pickax or…something else. Wide enough to fit at least two horses side by side, and tall enough for someone twice her height, it was pitch black and intimidating in and of itself, but that wasn’t even the strangest part. Etched all around the edges of the opening were symbols—they looked like complex markings made of lines and angles, kind of like the letters she knew, but different. There was no doubt that they were significant, but what they meant, Ena had no idea.
“What are those?” Ena asked in a whisper as the men dismounted.
“Runes,” Ty answered, as he wrapped his hands around her waist to help her off the horse.
“What are runes?” she asked, realizing that she probably sounded like a child with her constant questions, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Runes are a form of magic used by daemons to infuse their Powers into objects. We call it Imbuing. These ones,for example, are Imbued with a daemon’s Power ofambago, meant to confuse mortals if they were ever to stumble upon the entrance.”
“What would happen if they did?”
“They wouldn’t know what they were looking at, and they’d feel confused enough to think they were lost and turn around.”
“That’s fascinating,” Ena said, contemplating this form of magic that was entirely novel to her. “And does it impact daemons too?”
“Not if you already know where the entrance is,” Ty said. “That’s why we were all concentrating so hard as we entered the pass. It takes focus to overcome the magic.”
“Huh,” Ena said, feeling grateful that daemonic magic had no impact on her. Though Ty had said that had been an unintended consequence of the witches’ spell binding daemons to Iblis, and suddenly she wondered…would that change when they broke it?
Gripping her hand, Ty guided her and their horse towards the entrance and stepped inside.
It was pure darkness. She couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her, and her heart pounded as they entered it.
After taking several steps into the dark, her eyes began to adjust, and she saw why. The entrance immediately lowered into a wide set of stairs carved into the cave floor. Now that she was directly above it, she could see lanterns placed strategically along it, illuminating the staircase, but as they moved to walk down them, their horse balked.
“Shh, shh,” Ty said, attempting to soothe the animal, who clearly had no interest in going down the deep, dark stairs into the unknown.
“This one’s freaking out too,” Turner said, wrestling with Mahnin, who was trying to flee out of the cave.
“Iblis, this always happens with the unfamiliar ones. Let’s leave them here for now and we can send Myka up to get themlater,” Ty said, leading their horse back towards the entrance and tying it to a metal bar drilled into the cave wall that looked like it was made especially for this purpose.
Steig and Turner did the same, even though Steig’s horse seemed to be having no trouble—Ena supposed that one must have been with them since they’d left the Underworld—and then the four of them continued, now horseless, down the stairs.
