Page 67 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

I drag my gaze away before my cheeks redden again. “Well, couldn’t we all just swim?”

Cole hesitantly glances at Marge, exchanging some silent acknowledgement, before Marge admits in a defeated mumble, “I…can’t swim?—”

“It’s fine!” Cole tries to interrupt quickly to cover her confession as he quickly wades into the water. “I’m happy to test the waters.”

My heart thunders in my chest as he takes step after step. My hand on my sword. The water rises higher and higher on his brawny body until it reaches just below his shoulder blades, and then begins to recede.

He makes it to the other side of the pool and waves. “It’s a little cold, but all clear!”

I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

Most of us roll up our sleeves and pants, while Sethan just blazes through the water.

Cole returns, water dripping down his carved body as he slides his clothes back on.

He and I link Marge’s arms between us, and the three of us cross the water together.

“You can’t swim?” I ask quietly. “I didn’t know that.”

“It never came up,” Marge mumbles.

I flick a look at Cole. But he knew. He mentioned having conversations with Marge about me. I’m curious as to how close they’ve gotten, if she’s admitting things to him like not being able to swim. Something vulnerable she’s never confessed to me.

We’re last to ascend the stairs out of the pool, shivering in the cold air. With sloppy, wet footsteps, we all climb the staircase through the double-arched exit into the glowing room, the humming of magic growing louder and louder as we crest the top to a landing.

Waterfalls spill down from the rocky ceiling and collect into a new pool of glowing blue water beneath the cliffside we all stand on. All the previous rooms were clearly human-made, but this?

This is natural.

Raw, primitive, and yet perfect. Jagged rock formations spike from the floors, the walls, and the ceiling like angry claws.

The ceiling.

I’ve never seen anything like it—it reflects the pool below, and yet isn’t a mirror. The water shifts and dances above us, glowing blue as the liquid whips back and forth. Shimmers sparkle in its depths like liquid stars.

Across the pool beneath us is a collection of black, sharpened rocks, formed to look like something between a nest and a throne.

More waterfalls rush behind it, framing it with a blue glow and creating an island around the structure.

But there, in the rocky shore of the island, are deep grooves.

Carvings of the same ancient language we’ve been seeing, along with two intersecting rings, and two dragons.

My father’s journal snaps into my memory.

The ancient carvings in the hatching grounds of Vitalis depict two dragons: one of the sun, and one of the moon.

“Oh, my…” Marge whispers beside me, her mouth open in unfettered awe. “...The hatching grounds.”

Sethan whispers, “This is where dragonkind began. With Vue and Daeja.”

The sun and moon dragons. Gifted by the Gods.

“And yet, the staircase wasn’t built to accommodate a dragon’s width. How would they get down here?” I ask.

“Perhaps there are other access points deeper in the cave. I noticed drawbridges large enough for a dragon in the castle,” Sethan responds. “So, I don’t imagine they forgot to create an access point here.”

“It’s…it’s beautiful,” Melaina whispers, tears lining her eyes.

I nod, transfixed by the luminescent blue, the calming rushing of the waterfalls, the sparkling liquid suspended above us. Daeja should be here. She should be seeing this. Feeling it. Experiencing it just like the rest of us.

“I wish you were here…”

“You’ll make it up to me,” she purrs. “I expect a full day’s feast of elk alone.”

I smile. “You deserve more than that.”

“In that case, hurry back to me. I grow quite tired of your brown-haired friend here. I might bite him, even though he’s been on his best behavior yet.”

“He isn’t a friend,” I grumble, not willing to recall the heat he spoked in my desire.

“Oh? I don’t recall all your friends causing such a stir in your blood when you think of them. Nor you zoning out when someone asks you questions as you think about whatever you two do at night ? —”

“Get. Out. Of. My. Head.”

“When I’m dead,” s he snickers.

I flinch at Daeja’s choice of words. Dead …I swing my attention back to where we came from, in the direction of the crypt we walked through. Vue’s voice, combined with my mother’s, rings like a bell inside of my head, clearing out the cobwebs covering my comprehension.

Secrets never die, they’re just buried in a grave.

When I turn to Sethan, my voice is clear with certainty. “I think I know where Queen Elara’s journal is.”

We return to the crypt, all of us still dripping from the second trip through the water. I see it now, clear as day. As I make my way down the steps into the room, my eyes are glued to the two stone rectangles in the center of the room.

Stone c offins.

We spill into the crypt, fanning out around the two coffins. I can make out two overlapping rings on both lids. Just like in the throne room.

Two rings to hold the power.

Archie clears his throat. “So…we just lift the lid and hope it’s Queen Elara’s?”

“No,” Sethan says, arm outstretched. “Don’t touch anything. Not yet.”

Cole motions over to a wall dim with shadows. “What about that? Sethan, do you know what it says?”

Five panels span the wall, with the center having two circles joined, and the other four panels depicting carvings of the different elements: fire, earth, water, and air. Each panel has a small inscription, lined up horizontally with the other panels.

Sethan shakes his head. “No…no idea. But we’ve been gone hours at this point, and I’m not entirely trusting of Darian being in such little company for so long?—”

“He’s surrounded by three dragons, is restrained, and has three other men watching him. Do not worry yourself,” Marge says.

Sethan snaps his attention to her. “I know him better than you do.”

She snorts, the motion throwing her head back a few inches. “You know him as his father’s weapon. I know him as a boy and a man.”

I flick my attention down to one of the stone lids closest to me, reaching out a hand and hovering inches above it. “Shh, not the time right now…” I wave my hand over the lid and follow a tugging urge until I walk over to the other coffin. “Here. I think this one is hers.”

I take the Blood Ring off my finger, then look each person in the eye. “Are we…sure we want to do this?”

“You have the gift and the curse of making the choice,” Marge responds.

I’m caught in her gaze like a fly stuck in a spider web. “I don’t want to make the decision. It’s not up to me…”

I glance over to Sethan, and he shakes his head, clearly agreeing with Marge. Then to Melaina, Archie, and Cole, who all dip their heads.

I blink, returning my attention to Marge. “But I don’t want to choose wrong.”

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to choose wrong. You only choose wrong by not making a decision,” she hisses.

“I—”

“Now’s not the time for your indecisiveness. Choose.”

With a shaky breath, I lower the ring into the coffin’s groove, and after it snaps in, I turn it to the right. Invisible cracks burst from the lid before glowing with a pulsing blue light.

We all shuffle away from the lid, our splayed hands held in front of us as the stone lid scrapes sideways off the coffin, as if pulled by a pair of giant invisible hands.

It tips over and slams onto the ground. The flickering flames in the torches surrounding us almost completely fizzle out before they flare back to life again.

We all exchange a wide-eyed gaze before we inch forward, peering into the coffin together.

My skin crawls at the vision before me.

Cobwebs are strewn across the eye sockets of a skeleton, its teeth completely missing and its bony arms crossed over a black book held to its chest. A rich, lavender dress trimmed with gold drapes over the body.

Her body.

Splashes of dark stains spread across the light fabric like a sinister ink, followed by one deep, angry gash slicing from her chest down to her hips, with her spine and ribs peeking through the tattered dress.

Mutilated.

She had been mutilated.

King Aaric killed her. Murdered her. Just to take the throne.

“So then…I suppose it’s a merciful thing she’s dead, right?” Archie murmurs softly. “If Vue was still alive before Kat freed him, she would have been stuck in this coffin. Alone for…well over a hundred years?”

“Which means the bond between them must have been broken. Yes,” Marge answers quietly.

Cole leans over the coffin, squinting as he tips his head to the side to peer down at the black book. “Something’s written on it. It must be her journal, right?”

Sethan slides in next to him, craning his neck to get a better view.

It feels incredibly wrong to be bursting into someone’s tomb and plucking their belongings from their cold, dead fingers. But there it is, staring me in the face as bright as a sun.

Vue told me.

My mother told me.

Something deep within told me, like a flicker of a distant lifetime.

Secrets never die, they’re just buried in a grave.

We need to read that book. This was what they all wanted—what they all tried to tell me.

Archie leans forward on the side of the coffin, he plucks the book out from the skeleton’s rigid fingers.

Marge smacks him on the back of his thigh with her staff. “Foolish boy! What are you doing?”

He almost drops it back into the coffin, catching it midair, before whispering down into the coffin.

“Sorry, Your Majesty!” Then he turns and holds it out to me until I take it.

“Is this not what we came for? Are we not running out of time? With no disrespect, I imagine we may need it more than she does.”

As I crack open the midnight black cover, a shot of energy ripples through my hand, down my body to my toes, and out across the room in an invisible wave.

“What was that?” Melaina asks, scanning the room.

Sethan withdraws his sword at his side, following his daughter’s suspicious eyes surveying the room. “I’m not sure, but?—”

A tremble quakes the ground and walls, shaking dust free from the ceiling above us.

Archie swallows, unsheathing his daggers. “That can’t be good.”

Cole follows suit by silently drawing his blade and shifting closer to me, his eyes set on the entrance toward the hatching grounds.

“Give that to me,” Marge barks, snatching the journal from my hands. She hurriedly flips through the pages, her chest rising and falling quicker by the second. “Sethan, this entire journal is written in the old language?—”

“We don’t have time.” His voice has a deadly frigid tone as he stares into the dark entrance through to the hatching grounds beyond, the ground still quaking. “Something is coming.”

Marge is hit with a sudden thought, evident by her rounding eyes as she looks at me and tucks the journal into her side. “Give me your hand.”

I offer it to her, still smeared with blood, the crimson staining the wrinkles of my skin.

She grabs my wrist and holds it out over the skeleton. “Do you sense anything?”

“No,” I admit in a small voice, sweat trickling down the back of my neck.

“Close your eyes. Focus, just like you’re pulling,” she urges. “Hurry!”

Cole stalks up the stairs to the arched entryway of the hatching grounds, his blade raised and ready. Archie, Melaina, and Sethan follow behind him.

“Close your eyes, Katerina!” Marge barks.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and she removes her grip from my wrist, allowing my hand to hover. I fight to keep it raised as the ground beneath me continues to tremble, the force of which increases by each breath.

“We’ve got company!” Sethan shouts somewhere in the room.

But before I can open my eyes, a sparkle of energy whispers to me, far below and beneath the surface. I lean forward, partly nervous I might fall in if I’m not careful.

“Now, Katerina! Now! Follow your intuition!” Marge’s voice wavers as if on a receding tide.

The hums grow louder, the black behind my eyelids transforming into a melding of blues until it shifts into a sparkling white. I reach toward it until my fingertips press against cold, brittle bone. I pull. And my consciousness is swept away, all my logic and thoughts vanishing in a single breath.