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CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Ellery

I stared at the trees swaying in the small breeze swirling through them. These weren’t the trees that would take us down to meet the gargoyles, but I couldn’t help pondering if they were all communicating somehow.

I doubted it as those trees were all intertwined, and these were normal trees. Their rustling melted some of the ice in my chest; it was all so peaceful, even if ghosts, poltergeists, and other creatures prowled the woods.

“No one understands better than me and Tucker what it’s like to be imprisoned somewhere.” Ryker rested his hand on my arm, drawing my attention to him. “I’m also aware of how fucked-up I was by the time we were freed, and we were only down there for months.”

“It felt like years,” Tucker muttered.

“It did,” Ryker agreed.

Forgetting my irritation with him, I grasped his hand and slid my fingers through his. He’d endured so much over the years between his father and the ophidians; he knew how awful it was to be trapped and tortured, but he still didn’t want to free the gargoyles.

“You don’t have to worry about them killing me,” I whispered. “I can protect myself.”

“Yes, I do. You’re a powerful force that has never existed before, but I will always worry about you, especially against creatures such as those.”

I recalled those claw-tipped fingers, fangs, wings with their lethal points, and the strength of those chiseled creatures. They could easily destroy all of us, but I also recalled something else…

“One of them has a baby,” I whispered. “She was cradling it in her arms. That child has never had a chance to live.”

Ryker’s fingers tightened on mine. “If we set them free, we could guarantee that many more amsirah don’t get a chance to live.”

I winced at his words as I thought of Mouse, so young and vulnerable, yet so free and feral. He was just a boy, and if they chose to do so, the gargoyles could kill him with one swipe of their hand.

And when they finished with him, they could take out half the realm… if not more. All those lives and all that blood would be on my hands.

“Ryker,” I whispered in a pleading tone.

“It’s not wrong for us to leave them there.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “But it is.”

“It’s not wrong of us to protect the realm; it’s what we’ve been working toward for months. This time, we have to protect it from them .”

My shoulders hunched beneath the weight of the sorrow enveloping me. Every day, for the rest of my life, I would know I walked above creatures I’d left trapped beneath the dirt.

“I guess,” I murmured.

Ryker released my hand to draw me into his arms. I melted against him as I turned my head to listen to the reassuring beat of his heart.

“Why didn’t the tunnel fall apart when it all sank?” Scarlet asked.

“The stone probably helped keep it open, or the survivors went down to dig out the tunnel. I’m sure they tried to check on their relatives when they found the town gone,” Ianto said.

“Probably the only way to get to them was to go through the temple. They would have dug it out if parts of the tunnel collapsed.”

“Pretty brave of them after what happened to everyone else,” Scarlet said.

“They didn’t know everyone was dead by then.”

“The magnetic storms can last for days; if they went down there, they might have been evaporated too. We didn’t find any clothes in the tunnel, but it could have happened.”

“That would be another reason for them to seal everything off and destroy all evidence of the gargoyles,” Tucker said.

“I wonder what’s above the town now,” I said.

“Maybe, one day, if we have the time, we can dig upward,” Tucker said. “We’d risk bringing something down on top of us.”

Which meant we’d never know.

“So, since we’ve got all that out of the way,” Scarlet said before turning to me. I braced myself for what was about to come. “Do you have any other secrets we should know about?”

“No,” I said.

Scarlet gave me a doubtful look. I couldn’t tell if she was angry at me or not.

“Really,” I insisted. “You know everything now. Do you hate me?”