“Can you light this space up with your essence?” Morgan asked.
Elio didn’t answer, but his skin illuminated in warm, coppery light. On the ground lay half a dozen creatures. Morgan crouched down to get a better look at the things on the ground. They were small, ranging in size from Morgan’s height to around five foot six inches. Their closed eyes were unusually huge, taking up most of the upper half of their face. But it was their ears that caught Morgan off guard. They were rounded, just like hers. Their skin was so pale she thought she could see the veins and organs underneath. Morgan shivered in revulsion as she stepped away from the humanoid creatures.
“Are they human? They smell like the stories of human scent.”
Morgan grimaced again at his accusation of humans being stinky. She certainly didn’t smell like this.
“Their ears are rounded, but that’s the extent of the similarities to my species,” Morgan replied. “Come on, we need to get the relic and get out of here.”
“No more noise. With those eyes, they’ll see us through the darkness before we see them. Wrap us tightly in your shadows.”
Morgan wordlessly followed his directions and returned to following the call of the relic.
They walked for what felt like hours, and her exhausted feet ached. Every muscle was tired from the long day she’d had, but she didn’t suggest a break or a stop. At last she heard harsh, cruel voices and a scream of pain pierce the air. Morgan paused, grabbing Elio’s arm.
“What was that?” she whispered.
Elio’s eyes looked like saucers, the source of the sound was ahead of them. Her shadows wrapped tighter around them and she continued walking.
The tunnel took a sharp turn and Morgan found herself in a well-lit, open cavern. They didn’t step out of the shadows,hugging close to the mouth of the tunnel. Morgan’s stomach churned at the sight before her. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of those creatures, dressed in rags and covered in filth, were working to extract a shimmering, glowing ore. That was the source of the light in the vast cavern, filling the space in luminescence.
Muscled fae stood by, whips in hand. Morgan heard a curse across the cavern and the crack of a whip. She watched in disbelief as an elderly woman was struck repeatedly. None of the other workers reacted as they continued digging the ore and loading it into carts. The woman fell to the ground in a breathy cry, but still nobody reached out to help her.
Morgan’s eyes stung and she turned away from the scene. She couldn’t do anything to help the woman. If she did, she’d only get herself killed. As she turned, she bumped into Elio’s chest.
“The relic,” he hissed, reminding her of the purpose of this little adventure. Morgan nodded as she let herself connect back to the call of the necklace. To her horror, the tug was leading her deeper into the illuminated cavern.
She shook her head, trying to pull Elio back. She needed to retreat. Going in there would get her killed. Elio pointed into the open space before them. Morgan’s eyes could hardly make out what it was that Elio saw.
“There, on the spire. That must be it,” Elio said in a voice so quiet Morgan could hardly hear what he said over the ringing in her ears. She squinted, wishing she had the superior fae vision Elio seemed to have. She saw it too. A jewel-encrusted scepter was on top of a spire, nearly forty feet into the air.
Morgan tried connecting to Elio’s mind, searching for him in the darkness, but she couldn’t reach him. She couldn’t find that connection that she could slide so easily into with Rylo, not even the clunky connection with Susan was there. Maybe she couldn’tspeak to him mind to mind since she didn’t know him as well as Rylo and Susan.
This wasn’t the time to experiment with her magic. She needed to convince this man that going into that cavern would be suicide.
“We can’t go in there. They’ll kill us,” Morgan protested.
Elio let out a harsh huff. “I saw you kill one of the most powerful fae in all Aeritis. You took out at least twenty Latians according to Rylo when you chose to flee Orofine. If anyone can do this, it’s you.”
Morgan pursed her lips and observed the happenings in the cavern. There were at least fifty Goldoth guards, overseeing hundreds of creatures mining the ore. The creatures were small, weak, and didn’t show any indication of having an essence or magic. She looked up the cavern and saw a small tunnel cut out of the stone near the ceiling of the massive cave.
“You can fly me over?” Morgan whispered.
Elio nodded. “You grab the scepter and I’ll fly us up to the tunnel near the top.”
So he noticed it too. Observant man.
“What about the fae down there?” Morgan asked.
“On appearance, they don’t look like they’d be as powerful as myself or you. Use those shadows for the ones behind us, and I’ll use my essence against the attackers ahead of us. Is there a spell you can use?”
Morgan thought through the spells she’d read about. She’d use the spell to enhance his essence. “There’s one, but I haven’t tried it. I may not get the words correct. It uses your essence. Is that okay?”
“How so?” Elio whispered, trepidation in his voice.
“I’m not sure. It sounded like I could enhance your essence in an attack. I don’t know if it will harm you though. I don’t have to do it if you don’t want me to.”
He nodded. “I trust you. Try it.”
