So the division began among the gods. When all their strength was needed most, they broke apart. Each of them was weak individually. Draeven had little foresight. Ravess had no skill in battle. Together, they could stand like an unbreakable wall, but everyone knows the gods are nothing if not selfish.
Chapter 53
“We fought with tooth and claw, and we lost. Had it not been for Vesper, we would have all faded into the Void forever, and I learned something I will never forget. The heart is everyone’s weakness. When it fails, even the greatest warrior will fall. When it is strong, even the weakest warrior may prevail.”
~Sidon the Strong, Lessons to the Young Azric Cyrus
Fiona
I feel the pull before anything changes. Shadows wrap around me, claiming me so similarly to how Azric’s did. Then Ainslee, Rhion, and the entire world disappear, only to be replaced by pure and absolute darkness.
It’s not the Void as I initially think. I’m breathing. There’s no insistent pressure surrounding me. I put my hand in front of my face, and I can’t see it. I know it’s there, but there’s no light at all.
“Burn it all,” I swear. The fear that had fallen asleep with Rhion and Ainslee at my side awakens, and it tries to take control of me.Everything inside me wants to scream in terror at being trapped in a place with no light at all. I cling to sanity, though, and push the fear away. This is the final trial, and death is coming for meverysoon.
I take three deep breaths and remind myself that I am a human. I am a Priest. I am Rhaskar Thorne’s daughter. I will not let myself lose to fear. I will adapt, and I will succeed where even the Godforged do not.
My hands move around me in a wide circle as I try to orient myself. My feet are on stone. The sound of my boots tapping against them as I spin is a sound I’m very familiar with. My hands brush against rough-hewn stone, and I’m almost certain it’s the same kind Castle Lachlan is made of, black and gray banded slate.
A voice echoes from everywhere, as it has before each trial. Nyxthos’s voice. “You must find my altar before your competitors do . The first person to touch that altar will become the next Champion of Darkness and Secrets. The others will die, and they will not Return.”
As if that mattered to me. Then the voice says in a whisper. “You will not win, Fiona Thorne. You will die, and Lysara has agreed to give your soul to me. You will spend the rest of eternity in torture for trying to trick me, for trying to manipulate all the gods. We know what and who you are, and you will pay for your insolence.”
A shiver runs through me. The stakes just became so much higher. Yet, instead of making the fear grow, the knowledge that failure means an eternity of torture steels my resolve.
I smile and say, “When I win, the war will end. You will have to learn to work with me. The Hunters are coming for you, Nyxthos. You’re out of time, and you need a champion.”
There are no more whispers, no more threats. Instead, there is silence and utter darkness. Luckily, I have a solution for darkness, one I haven’t been allowed to use in the past, but there’s no holding back now.
I activate the Mark on my right bicep, the Lantern. Warmth flows through me with steadily growing strength. “Only from darkness can there be light,” I whisper, the acknowledgment I spoke as Rhaskar gave me the Fourth Mark. Only one who has walked in darkness can shine a light to guide others. Prior to earning my Mark, Rhaskar had forced me into an unlit room for two weeks. He had given me the task of finding thirty needles on a straw-strewn floor.
Light shines from my body in a constant glow, illuminating the world. Or at least the room I’m in. Rough, banded slate surrounds me on all sides, floor and ceiling included, in a bare room slightly smaller than my chambers in Stormhaven. A single hallway leads away from my starting place.
I immediately take my normal Infusions, the Bear, Boar, Cat, and Falcon, to prepare myself for whatever lies ahead. My feet move on their own, and as I walk, I can’t stop thinking of the ermine pouch in the pocket of my cloak. Those glass beads are going to be the only things between me and death.
Between me and eternal torture.
But I don’t reach for it. There will be a time and a place for those beads. This moment won’t change destiny. Patience will be the key to my success. Just as the Second Mark, the Mark of Chains, forced me to acknowledge when I was ten. I’d spent three days without food or water, my entire body encased in stone, save my face. All I had to do to win my Mark was to wait, to endure the passage of time. The itches were the worst. They felt like they’d never end, just like the craving to draw forth that pouch. Yet, I endured. I waited. I waspatient. I earned the Mark between my shoulder blades that allows me to command stone, just as the House of Earth once did. If only I could use it as often as I could use the Phoenix, I’d walk through the walls of this place, but that’s not the case.
The hallway seems to go on forever. I can only see what is lit by my light, and I feel like there’s something waiting just outside my vision constantly. My ears, enhanced by the Cat, are focused on any sound other than my steadily tapping boots against stone as I jog down the hallway. Minutes pass, and I’m constantly expecting this hallway to end, but it doesn’t.
Out of the corner of my eye, something changes. The bands in the slate that have been so perfectly symmetrical shift and bend. I stop and turn to look at the wall. It looks…strange. I step toward it, my hand outstretched, and I run my fingers over the thin black lines that are as straight as the bands on a canyon wall. Except in this little spot here…
My fingers start at a straight section and creep toward the oddity. As soon as my fingers reach the imperfection, there’s no wall there.I blink. At first, I think it’s an illusion, but it’s not. My finger doesn’t disappear behind a non-existent wall. It’s there, but the wall is just… further away?
I take a step toward the anomaly, and as I put my face where I’d thought the wall should be, I realize that it’s an optical illusion. There’s a passage here, hidden in plain sight. This six-foot long section of wall is missing, and instead, I was seeinganotherwall behind it. I can go left or right from here. Both paths look identical.
The Cat that races through my blood is smarter than me, though, and the obnoxious side-effect of constant distraction picks up a strange scent in the air coming from the right-hand path. Duskthorn trees. Mist in a dark forest. Deep, rich soil full of life. It’s the same scent as the Origin of Night.
Immediately, I’m running, chasing the darkness of this path. It bends and twists, and my eyes pay more attention to the lines in the slate as I run, not wanting to miss another optical illusion, but there aren’t any.
Stone walls open into a forest, the source of that scent. Moonlight fills the world, and my Mark of the Lantern is more of a hindrance than a tool now. The last thing I want is to draw attention to myself. Who knows what’s going to hide within these woods? The warmth fades, as does the light. There’s still some power left in the Mark, but the gold won’t be as brilliant as normal. I’d estimate I have another few hours of light left.
A soft mist meanders through the duskthorn trees, their thick thorns protruding from black bark, and I remind myself of thepoison that coats them. This time, at least, the duskthorns aren’t the only trees. Oaks and willows provide safe havens to walk under and around. But the forest is massive, and I have to find my way through it.
My mind whirs with possibilities I could take, and the only one that makes any sense is to climb the tallest tree for a vantage point to see if there are any paths towards the altar.
I pick out the tallest oak, a giant that must be hundreds of years old, and start to climb it. My Boar-hardened fingertips have no problem digging into the bark, and I scale it like a cat or squirrel. When I get to the top, I look out at the forest that seems to go on forever, and I know I’m doing something wrong.
