“The merchant business?” I inquire. “Or are you alluding to your mother’s inn?”
“Neither, let’s just say… my family is a bit more than meets the eye and leave it at that.”
Even though she is facing away from me, I can hear the smile on her lips as she speaks of her family. “Are you close to them?”
“Very much so,” she replies without hesitation.
“That must be nice,” I murmur. I kick at the water. “My father and I rarely see eye to eye. He’s a harsh man that always expects perfection and compliance.”
Bronwyn glances over at me again, her eyes sparking with sympathy. “And your mother?”
“I think she loved me. My father sent her away when I was quite young, he said I was adopting too much of her culture as a Higher Elf. She was just a servant so when he let her go, she was forced to seek employment elsewhere. I like to think that shewrites to me sometimes and that he just confiscates the letters before they reach me.”
Bronwyn has stopped moving, I draw to a halt just behind her. Without a word she reaches out and snags my hand. She gives it a squeeze as if she is trying to will her sympathy into me. If only she knew that I don’t want her sympathy.
I’m not sure what I want from her, but sympathy certainly isn’t it.
She starts forward again, and she doesn’t drop my hand, so I’m forced to keep close behind her as we make our way down the tunnel.
“I love my family,” she says in a heavy voice. “But sometimes I feel as if I am growing up in their shadows. As if they fill too much space and that there is no room or need for me.”
“I can’t imagine a world that has no need for you,” I say, her words causing a jolt of surprise to run through me. How could she say that she loves her family when they make her feel inferior?
How could she even feel inferior? What sort of amazing talents must her family have to make someone as truly exceptional as Bronwyn the Eel feel inferior? She’s the smartest person I know, sharper than a blade, and beautiful to boot.
She ducks her head, and I’m quite certain that I don’t miss a slight rosy color tinging her ears before she raises her hand. “Look, the tunnel widens ahead.”
Indeed, it does, I’m not sure why she felt the need to point it out.
After all, I have eyes to see.
I also have ears to hear, and I can make out the sound of rushing water just beyond.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bronwyn
The room I find myself in as I exit the tunnel exceeds my wildest expectations. I have never seen anything like this, and my father’s lair is set in a half-crumbled city built into a mountain, a remnant of the Higher Elves’ societies before their great collapse that left them as outcasts.
Even with the wonders of that architecture and knowing how deep and vast underground chambers can be, I still find myself utterly stunned by what I behold. Dozens of waterfalls cascade down from hidden sources in the domed ceiling far overhead. They land in water that is green as if it belonged to the sea, churning and bubbling up, but the water toward the center of the room is crystalline and blue.
There is a single platform in the center of the room and on a raised dais is a rectangular box.
The resting place of Petrov Hansimov.
Mist rises up along the corners of the room, but the water surrounding the platform is entirely smooth. Uninterrupted by the churning waves surrounding it.
“This really is something,” I breathe as I take it all in.
“If I ever die, make sure I’m buried in a place like this,” Wilder says, his tone equally awestruck.
It’s with a great effort that I force myself to lower my gaze. It lands on the dais. “The spellbook must be lying with Petrov in his tomb.”
“And this is where I must interrupt you.”
I startle at the loud voice ringing through the vast chamber, louder even than the roaring of the waterfalls.
I whirl to see Morozov standing behind me with a twisted smile on his face. Gregos is next to him, his arms crossed and a hard expression on his face.
