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I t was nothing like an illusion or any other kind of morphing Rebecca recognized.
Slow and subtle yet instantaneous.
The age vanished from the woman’s features, white hair coming loose from its bun, softness and youth seeping back into her as her grin only widened.
Most startling of all, those milky white, sightless eyes cleared, taking on the color of true sight.
They were of the brightest blue, not quite a glow, and for a brief moment, Rebecca swore she saw stars in those eyes.
But it had to be a trick of the light. Some illusion produced from her own imagination in a place as strange as this, with a Peddler as unlikely as the woman fiercely gripping her hand.
The next second, the woman’s eyes were normal again—as normal as possible for being clear and blue and bright, perfectly functioning, no trace of her blindness remaining.
A non-existent breeze rustled the Peddler’s hair around her face as she squeezed Rebecca’s hand in both of her own now, bearing down with a painful, ever-tightening grip.
Then the flames filling the hall darkened all at once without having lost their height or intensity.
Rippling with un-light. Dulled and pushed away by the power emanating from the completely different woman sitting in the same rocking chair.
Within the darkening light, the Peddler’s very skin began to glow. Most of it was dark, almost as dark as this lightless place around them, though her face was now speckled with dots of brightly glowing white and luminescent stripes of neon pink, yellow, orange, and blue.
This was new.
Rebecca tried to look around, tried to turn her head so she could look back at the others, but she couldn’t move.
Shit.
This had been a trap all along, hadn’t it?
Then the Peddler spoke, but it wasn’t with an outward voice audible to the naked ear.
Her voice wormed through Rebecca’s mind, and all the while, her features maintained that gruesome, impossibly wide grin.
“No need to worry yourself, child. You are one of a kind and always have been. It only fits that your fortune is the same.”
Rebecca tries to pull her hand from the woman’s insanely tight grip but couldn’t.
She couldn’t move at all.
The Peddler’s fingers traced delicately across Rebecca’s open palm, every line burning with a searing heat despite no visible sign that she’d done anything.
“You too have many paths, each of them pulling you in a different direction with equal strength. The choice is, always has been, and always must be yours to make. And yours alone. No matter which you choose, my dear, you will always end up breaking the rules. Upsetting the status quo. Overturning everything that has come before.”
The woman leaned even closer, looking remarkably, giddily pleased. “Most people won’t be very happy about that at all …”
Then, far more suddenly than the change had come upon her, the Peddler’s initial form returned.
The otherworldly creature grinning at Rebecca was gone, replaced by an aging blind woman sitting in her rocking chair.
The flames returned to their regular magical flickering along the walls.
Instead of throwing Rebecca’s hand back at her like with the others, the Peddler held on, gazing peacefully at her with those blind, milky eyes, staring just a little off-center of Rebecca’s face. She gently patted the back of Rebecca’s hand, and when she spoke next, her mouth moved the way it should, her voice fully returned.
“You know exactly what you have to do. Follow that path.” Then she gently released Rebecca’s hand, sighed, and sat all the way back in her chair, rocking and rocking. “Well. That was certainly fun.”
When Rebecca tried to withdraw her hand, she found she could move again. Or maybe she’d never lost the ability at all.
No way to tell. She had no idea what just happened.
“That’s it?” Maleine scoffed behind her. “Really? If that was my fortune, I’d be pissed . ”
The chair wobbled and groaned beneath her when Rebecca turned halfway in it to look back at the others and scan the hall.
Rowan and Maleine both looked completely unaffected by what had just happened, as if they’d never even noticed the change.
Maxwell remained his usual stony self, but when she met his gaze, his eyes widened questioningly.
He hadn’t seen it either, had he?
But she was sure he felt her confusion.
Rowan cleared his throat. “Is that…everything? You have what you need?”
The Peddler nodded, bestowing that kind, warm smile on them all once more. “Four have entered. Four have paid. The bargain is fulfilled.”
“That’s great.” Rowan’s attempt at a jovial smile fell desperately flat. “But, um…we still need to know where the records are…”
“You will have what you paid for once you leave.”
He looked like he was about to say more, but he kept licking his lips as his gaze flickered from the old woman to the wall, then to the ceiling, then back to the woman. “Right, then. I guess we should…go now?”
But Rebecca remained seated in the chair, staring at the Peddler. After what she’d seen, she knew full well how powerful this woman truly was. Even if the woman’s revealed form wasn’t entirely what she was, there was definitely something of the Naruli people inside her.
That was what Rebecca had seen. She was sure of it.
“That means all of us,” Rowan continued, leaning forward toward the chair. “Including you. Time to go—”
“One more thing,” Rebecca added, speaking directly to the Peddler while the woman gazed at her with open curiosity and amusement, despite her returned blindness. Then she leaned forward and asked, “Would the Peddler accept a true gift? One without payment or trade?”
The woman hummed in consideration, always rocking. “That depends on the gift, doesn’t it?”
And maybe Rebecca had had the perfect gift on her all along.
She reached into her jacket pocket, feeling the familiar scratchy fabric at her fingertips, and pulled out the Darkspawn. Then she set it on the table in front of her and leaned back in the chair again, waiting for the Peddler’s response.
Rowan sucked in a sharp, hissing breath. “What are you doing ? Are you crazy? That’s—”
“An exchange is underway,” the Peddler barked, pointing a finger directly at him. “For the one sitting at my table only . Do not speak out of turn again.”
The echoing clack of Rowan clamping his mouth shut filled the hall.
Maleine snickered.
Rebecca maintained her focus on the Peddler, watching the woman reach forward to pick up the Darkspawn as if she could see perfectly now.
The woman turned it over in both hands, feeling every aspect of it, humming to herself. With a sudden, shuddering breath sucked into desperate lungs, she paused, holding the burlap-covered doll in front of her like some precious gem. “Why would you gift such a thing?”
That was a tricky one to answer, wasn’t it?
Not entirely sure, Rebecca hesitated, trying to put her gut feeling into words.
“Because I know that whatever path I choose will have no room for it,” she finally replied. “But a Peddler of knowledge is allowed to keep a tangible gift every now and then, don’t you think?”
With another soft chuckle, the woman ran her fingers lovingly over the Darkspawn. “You want to keep it safe and hidden. And you think I am better suited for such a thing.”
“I think you understand its worth far better than most.”
“Hmm… Maybe you’re right.” With a nod, the Peddler gingerly replaced the Darkspawn onto the center of the table and shook her head before leaning back in her chair, constantly rocking. Then she picked up her knitting again instead. “But that is not a gift, Laen-Cáir . Just another trade. The cost of it for a Peddler of knowledge is just too steep, I’m afraid. But I do appreciate you putting in the effort.”
It was a long shot, anyway.
This woman was old enough and powerful enough to understand exactly what the Darkspawn could do and how coveted it was. Rebecca already knew that.
Which meant the Peddler was also perfectly aware of the inherent risk in possessing it, not to mention what might or might not happen to her should anyone come looking for the old-world artifact wrapped in Earthside-doll materials.
“I understand.” Dipping her head, Rebecca took the Darkspawn and tucked it back into her pocket as she stood. “Thanks anyway.”
The woman’s smile widened. “Thank you for the company. It’s been too long.”
“And you’re sure we’ll know where to look for the Tha’rossa records once we leave?” Rowan asked.
The Peddler whipped her blind eyes toward him to fix him with a mock frown. “The Blackmoon Scion doubt everything he cannot see with his eyes or hold in his hands. You will know where to look once you leave. You have my word.”
Still, she rocked, back and forth, the gentle, lulling creak of the chair filling the hall.
“But I would hurry if I were you. Once that door closes…”
The entire cavern of the Peddler’s hall rumbled around them.
The flames along the walls snuffed out, leaving only the tiny little hearth beside the old blind woman rocking away in her rocking chair.
Then walls trembled. The floor shuddered beneath their feet, rippling with a deep tremor that hinted at nothing but pure destruction.
A massive crack split the air, followed by another shuddering groan before the first massive chunk of stone cracked away from the wall and dropped from the ceiling, picking up speed.
Rebecca saw it from the corner of her eye, and all the world narrowed down to a single moment.
This would definitely be a sign to get the fuck out.
The others searched the darkened hall, holding their arms out for balance as the trembling rock bed beneath them bucked this way and that.
Rebecca opened her mouth, but Maxwell spun around and shouted it for her instead.
“Move !”
“Oh shit!” Rowan ducked aside, narrowly avoiding being crushed by another chunk of the Peddler’s hall raining down on top of them.
Everyone turned and fled, racing back down the long stone hallway in the exact path they’d walked. Back toward the heavy iron door wedged in the stone archway and the dusty antechamber beyond.
Giant pieces of stone ceiling the size of cars crashed down all around them, sending rippling shockwaves through the floor.
Rebecca dodged the next in front of her, coughed beneath a billowing cloud of dust and ground rock spewing up in her face, then caught a glimpse of Maxwell’s glowing silver eyes in the darkness.
Rowan shouted something unintelligible.
Maxwell growled and never stopped moving.
Maleine leapt away from another dropping slab, shouted when she smacked up against the wall, then shoved herself away from it with a hiss and kept running.
The creak of the old woman’s rocking chair echoed constantly behind them, joined by the Peddler’s wild, cackling laughter.
Without the flames along the walls, it was too dark to see.
They weren’t going to make it.
A strobing flash of blinding yellow erupted from Maleine’s outstretched hands before a spiraling line of silvery-white crackled off ahead of them toward the door, illuminating the last bits of impending destruction for all of them to see.
More enormous chunks of rock rained down all around them, scattering Rebecca and the others off course beneath the trembling force. The cavern’s rumbling only grew louder, punctured by the deafening crack and rumbling crash of splitting stone.
The Peddler’s laughter continued, following them out the whole way.
Shit. They’d be crushed down here before they ever got through that iron door.
It had closed behind them, and they had no idea how to open it again.
Rebecca watched that door loom closer in her vision as she pumped her legs beneath her, stumbling off-kilter every time another boulder dropped from above and nearly crushed her beneath it.
Six yards, four, two…
Before anyone reached it, the door to the antechamber opened all on its own, squealing open with another metallic shriek. It caught on several smaller rocks broken apart in their fall, but it had opened enough for even someone Titus’s size to slip through at the last second.
Maleine’s spiraling silver light showed them the way, darting through the door before another dropping chunk of rock fell and blocked it from view.
The elf woman reached the door first and disappeared behind it, Rowan close on her heels. Rebecca didn’t know if she slipped through first, or Maxwell, or if they’d squeezed through that uncomfortably narrow space together, but then they were in the antechamber.
Just not out of danger.
This circular room rocked and bucked beneath them too, letting out its own pained groan as the cracks in the ceiling split and widened, rippling dangerously across the space above them from one end to the other.
With Maleine’s light chasing away all the shadows in here, it was impossible not to see how much more the antechamber had changed since they were last here.
The broken bits of abandoned furniture were gone. The two aged skeletons sitting together against the curved stone wall still remained, but they were no longer alone.
The entire floor was littered with bones and decomposing strips of cloth. Everywhere Rebecca looked, she found scattered remains of those who had dared to enter the Peddler’s lair and had never made it back out again.
“What the hell is—” Rowan tripped on the uneven ground with a grunt and sprawled chest-first across the floor with a clatter.
Lying face to face with a skull of one such unlucky visitor staring right back at him.
“ Vrestí !”
The first hunk of stone broke away from the antechamber’s ceiling and tumbled toward them.
“Back up the stairs!” Rebecca shouted as she headed that way. She stopped only to snatch up a fistful of the back of Rowan’s jacket and haul him to his feet before shoving him forward ahead of her.
The second he scrambled with her toward the stairwell, another chunk of ceiling dropped, cracked onto the ground where he’d just been, and pummeled the skull with which he’d had a momentary staring contest to dust.
Their only hope now was to keep following Maleine’s spiraling silver light back up the stairs while trying to avoid being crushed and entombed down here with all the Peddler’s other victims.
The stairwell bucked and pitched, throwing Rebecca and the others side to side like they were in a fucking ship at sea during a deadly storm instead of merely underground.
Echoing slaps of hands and faces smacking back and forth between the walls joined the ominous rumble of the cavern below and the grating roar of the stairwell walls crumbling from their settings.
Rebecca’s feet pounded up the stairs, but then her next footfall came down on nothing at all, the step crumbling away beneath her into nothingness.
Her shin cracked against the edge of what remained, then her knee, and she was falling…
A hot, painful grip clamped around her wrist. Silver eyes pulsed within the billowing clouds of churning dust.
Maxwell hauled her up out of the gaping hole that wouldn’t have been there, then they were racing up the stairwell together. Almost there.
Almost free…
The door at the top of the stairs opened on its own too, just in time for all four of them to barrel forward and through.
The second they did, the entire stairwell they’d descended collapsed, churning up a thick, billowing cloud of dust and ground stone to suffocate them if the cave-in below failed.
A deafening roar followed them, shaking the foundations of the earth above and below, all of it punctuated by the Peddler’s cackling laughter echoing everywhere.
As if a part of her had followed them back to the surface and would follow them still, just to keep up the chase.
Rebecca skidded to a halt above the surface and pivoted to slam the full weight of her body against the open door.
It shut with a hollow clang, and the noise from below cut out instantly. Like nothing had ever happened.
If it weren’t for the clouds of dust settling around them or the desperate panting from four pairs of lungs, she almost could have believed she’d dreamt the whole thing.
With her chest heaving, she sagged sideways against the door, for now focusing solely on the fact that they weren’t dead.
Maxwell was at her side in an instant, reaching for her without touching her, looming over her with deepening concern as he coughed and waved away the dust. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she panted.
His concern for her only strengthened, so she forced herself to straighten against the closed door, look him in the eye, and try again to hopefully convince him. “Really. I’m okay.”
The shifter’s deep rumble didn’t sound like he was fully convinced, but he didn’t argue or ask again.
For a moment, they all stood wearily on the other side of that door, catching their breath.
Without warning, Maleine whirled on Rowan, fury blazing behind her eyes. “You said you just wanted to see a Peddler!”
“Isn’t that exactly where we just were?” he quipped and rolled his eyes. “Mission accomplished?”
“You didn’t say shit about the Agn’a Tha’ros records!” she snarled, shoving him away with both hands. “What the hell are you thinking ?
“I’m thinking it’s none of your gods-be-damned business!”
“That was not your assignment!” She shoved him again.
Rowan stumbled backward and almost went down, pinwheeling his arms to right himself.
“No one gave your orders to—”
“That has nothing to do with you!” he roared, spinning out of his almost-fall and catching himself with a wide stance as he pointed an accusing finger at her. “No one gave you orders to be here, either! So go crawl back into your dusty little hole in the Moon’s Heart, where all the unworthy masses can keep worshipping you as long as you like and just…do whatever it is you do somewhere else !”
She stopped at that, glaring at him with wide eyes, then shook her head. “Oh no. This just got way too good to leave now. And if you’re trying to do this on your own, you’ll just end up screwing the whole thing anyway. You need me.”
Dipping away from his sister as if she’d thrown the first punch at his face, Rowan rolled his eyes, smoothing back his hair with both hands. “Yeah, like I need a fucking bramble of thrisí skewering me through the eye after a little drought.”
Then he turned toward Rebecca, scowling. “What were you thinking , huh? Handing over the Darkspawn to that… witch ?”
“Definitely not a witch,” Maleine muttered.
He ignored her, focused only on glaring daggers straight through Rebecca’s face as he surged toward her. “You know how much something like that could help Agn’a Tha’ros, and you wanted to gift it to her? Are you completely insane ?”
She almost thought he’d close the gap between them and take a swing at her , but then Maxwell inserted himself between them, growling in warning and staring down the Blackmoon Elf without a word.
Rowan stepped back without acknowledging the shifter, like he’d almost just stumbled into a firepit before reorienting himself. “Do you even care about—”
“I care about the risks when I see them!” Rebecca snapped. “Plain as day. Unlike some people, who know exactly what they have in their hands and ignore all the risks anyway so they can play with it like a fucking toy!”
“I—” Rowan stopped himself, mouth gaping open, then thrust a finger in the air. “That was different.”
“You’re unbelievable,” she snarled, spinning away from him.
But she couldn’t help double-checking her jacket pocket all the same, just to make sure the Darkspawn was still there where she’d put it.
He’d stolen it right out from under her once before, after all.
There it was, the rough outer surface of the burlap serving as the Darkspawn’s disguise in a faded and frayed rag doll.
But there was something else there in her pocket. Something she absolutely did not put there herself.
It crinkled beneath the pressure of her fingers, and she froze.
“Wait a minute…” With a startled yelp, Rowan spun around, extending both hands outward to steady himself as he took in their surroundings. “What the hell? Where are we?”