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CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

T he pale yellow stone passages which led into the depths of the mines were filled with dry air and the reek of sulphur, their twisting lengths leading us ever further beneath the ground with every step, and the temperature rising the further we went.

Bastian had little to say for once and instead remained quiet at my back, his looming presence never far away while only my Faelight allowed us to see anything at all in this dank place.

The further we went, the more I began to question the wisdom in wasting time on this search.

Yes, I wanted to claim some answers from the stars – namely the location of the man who had pretended to be Cayde Avior so that it would be all the easier for me to hunt him down and exact the vengeance I was owed.

But the deeper I ventured into the mines, the more I felt a discomfort in the pit of my stomach.

Something wasn’t right in this place. There was rot at its core.

I pushed my fingers into the herb pouch at my belt and drew a sprig of oregano free along with another of lavender and one of parsley.

The herbs were brittle now from having spent so long squashed in my pouch and they were less potent than they’d been when I’d packed them, but I didn’t need perfect.

I only wanted to see if my suspicions were correct.

“What’s that for?” Bastian asked.

“They ward off evil in various respects,” I replied, deftly braiding the three herbs together, brittle leaves falling free, their stalks threatening to snap at every twist. “Or when used correctly, they can locate it too.”

“Ah, that would explain why they remain in your possession then,” he agreed.

I said nothing. Evil was among the dullest insults I’d received in my lifetime and didn’t really warrant a response.

I bent the braided herbs awkwardly, forcing them into the jagged C shape of Perth – the rune pertaining to hidden things. Lastly, I slit the pad of my thumb open on my blade and smeared my blood over the top of them.

I sucked in a sharp breath as I welcomed the call of the ether into my body, the dark magic of the world seeming to hum and pulse more vibrantly in this underground passage than it usually did above it, threatening to overwhelm me.

Bastian almost bowled into me as my feet fell still, my hand trembling where I gripped the herbs and a ragged exhale escaping me.

“There’s a river,” I breathed, more to myself than to Bastian though he answered me all the same.

“A river? It’s as dry as a Manticore’s asshole down here. What are you talking about?”

The electric charge of the world’s energy threatened to knock me from my feet and I staggered a step, my free hand pressing to the stone, though that only seemed to deepen my awareness of the ether.

“Not of water…of p-power,” I gritted out.

Bastian stepped closer, reaching out and clasping my forearm.

“Look at me, spectre,” he growled and I blinked several times, trying to force my vision to stop flickering, focusing on the silver in his penetrating stare but it was no use, the rush becoming a roar, a single word hissed and chanted in a thousand different voices which were everywhere and nowhere and at once all the same.

Bastian gripped my face between his calloused palms roughly, forcing my eyes to stay locked on his while my grip on the braided herbs tightened until they started to break within the cage of my fist.

I tried to focus on him but the call of that power was overwhelming me, tying itself in knots around my soul and demanding I give in to its call. Even the hold of a Dragon couldn’t deny such fervent power.

Bastian growled, shaking me roughly, barking another command for me to look at him, his fingers digging into my skull as his grip tightened but it was no use, something here had more need of me than he did.

The rush of energy flowing through this place was making my head spin, a torrent of raw power was moving through the world all around us, crashing through these tunnels and headed…where?

“It’s beneath us,” I rasped, looking down at the rocks below my boots and somehow seeing a gleaming river of silver light too.

It was thin and far below us, distant yet powerful beyond measure and I knew it was there despite the rocks which parted us from it, racing past us as certainly as the ragged breaths which were filling my lungs. “Come on.”

I jerked out of Bastian’s hold and broke into a run without waiting for his reply, speeding through the narrow passageways, moving ever deeper beneath the ground and ignoring his rough protests as he charged after me.

Lefts and rights, more twists and turns than we might ever hope to keep track of, the earth swallowing us as surely as some legendary beast come to devour the world but I couldn’t so much as slow my pace.

It was as though this force beyond my own autonomy had me in its grasp and my body was helpless to do anything other than run.

I lurched straight over the edge of a precipice as an impossibly steep descent opened up before us out of nowhere, an underground canyon eating us whole as we fell into its jaws.

My heart tripped over itself, some of my own mind lurching free of the power’s grip at the surge of adrenaline the fall brought on and I managed to catch us in the fist of my air magic as we fell.

Bastian caught hold of me as air rushed passed us and we tumbled into the depths of a seemingly endless cavern, his huge body cradling mine even though I had hold of us too.

But I didn’t use my magic to slow our fall, not until the final moment when the rocky bottom of the ravine loomed into focus beneath us.

We jerked to a halt and Bastian cursed violently, barking demands for answers but I was already pushing out of his hold, not caring if he followed me or not.

Because now the river was so much closer, the glow of silver light piercing the stones ahead of me and the hiss of countless whispered voices filling the air.

I sprinted towards them, some deep energy urging me on, wanting me here, needing me to see. That word tumbled over itself in the current of the river, impossibly yet undeniably sounding over and over again. Vesper. Vesper. VESPER!

Ether crackled in my veins, the whispers turning to screams as I forced my way through a tiny gap between the stone wall ahead of me, shifting sideways as the rocks pressed close around me and promised to trap me here beneath the ground forever.

I forced myself to keep moving, ignoring the way the stone crushed in around my body, the crevasse getting tighter and tighter while I worked to squeeze through it, my attention fixed on the brilliant silver glow before me.

My fingers curled around the edge of the rock, my muscles bunching as I heaved, the stone crushing me, threatening to keep hold of me and never let go.

With a snarl of determination and a wrench of my muscles, I forced my way free of the tiny gap, stumbling into the open space beyond it and finally falling still, my chest heaving with laboured breaths.

The rock groaned at my back and I turned to look at Bastian as he stepped through a far bigger opening than the one I’d just scrambled through, the passage widened by his earth magic and a look of fury painting his expression.

But before he could berate me or speak a single word of whatever murderous thoughts were passing through his mind, the herbs crumbled to dust in my fist, my connection to the ether shattering as the weight of its power overwhelmed me.

My legs gave out and I would have fallen to my knees if Bastian hadn’t caught my arm to right me.

I jerked out of his hold, not needing anyone to rescue me just as my Faelight guttered out along with my connection to the ether, plunging us into total darkness.

“For the love of the stars,” Bastian snarled somewhere behind me and I hushed him aggressively. “What is it?” he demanded.

“Something…raw,” I said slowly, inching forward in the dark, my hand outstretched before me as I felt rather than saw what I was headed towards. “Something old… Something which is calling my name.”

A shudder ran through me as I realised that this was the voice I’d been hearing in my sleep for weeks, the breath of my name on the wind, the hint of it in the rustling of the trees or the murmurs of a crowded room. This was what Moya had warned me about back in her cavern.

“Ether is more than just the root of the land’s power,” I said, echoing the words she’d often spoken to me in her teachings - if only to remind me of them and feel a little closer to her in their repetition.

“It is the current which sweeps us all along in its path. We may access the bounty of its river through rite and sacrifice. But we cannot control its flow.”

“And what does that have to do with the two of us standing down in the bowels of Pyros in the pitch black?” Bastian growled, making me flinch slightly as his hand landed on my shoulder.

“Everything. At least, I think it does,” I replied.

I shrugged his hand off of me and stepped forward again, creeping through the dark along a path which seemed to have been laid in place for me alone.

Bastian kept close behind me as I moved through the dark, the heat of his body at my back a comfort it shouldn’t have been because it was a link to the world beyond this place, a reminder that we were still real even inside this vault of ancient magic.

I walked on in the dark, my steps laid out for me while I continued reaching ahead of me blindly. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised in the least when my palm met with a smooth, stone monolith.