Page 30 of The Inheritance (Breach Wars #1)

If I opened that door, the government, my employers, would disappear me before I was able to make a difference.

They probably wouldn’t kill me right away.

First, they would confine me. I would be interrogated, studied, and analyzed, and either quietly disposed of or made into a weapon.

I was ridiculously easy to control. As long as the DDC held Tia and Noah hostage, I would do whatever they wanted.

The lives of my children would be hanging in the balance.

No, hiding was my only option. I wasn’t ready to become a martyr.

When we walked out of that gate, I had to convince everyone that I was still Adaline Moore, an assessor and non-combatant, who wandered out of the breach by pure luck.

Except that I probably looked different, I carried a magic sword, my dog was twenty-five percent larger than when we went in, and I would’ve survived in the breach for at least a week with no supplies, weapons, or combat Talents to protect me. Now that was truly unheard of.

Piece of cake. Right.

I had no idea how to pull that off. And worrying about it was premature. I had plenty of time to think of some kind of plan.

After five minutes of walking, we stopped before a hole in the wall.

It was about ten feet across and roughly semicircular, as if cut in the rock.

It reminded me of the small cave where Bear and I took shelter to fight off the mauve flowers.

The hole looked empty and dark, except for one thing.

A complex dial the size of a dessert plate hung in mid-air in the exact center of the opening.

I flexed . The entire entrance fluoresced with bright electric yellow. No touching. A barrier, invisible to my normal vision. Only the dial was free of the glow. It had to be the source of the barrier.

I stared at the dial. Five concentric circles carved out of bone and inlaid with a metal the color of rose gold.

Each of the circles was marked with eight smaller round indentations, spaced at even intervals.

The top indentation was dark, the second going clockwise was mostly dark with a pale rose gold crescent on the right side, the third was half gold, half dark… Phases of the moon.

Five circles, five moons, eight phases each.

Thousands of combinations.

Something stirred in my mind. A vision flooded me.

I saw a hand with slender fingers and brindled skin reach for an identical dial and manipulate the circles with its red claws, selecting the phases.

A panorama of a night sky unfolded above me with five moons of different colors in different phases.

A holy cosmic combination, part of a twisted faith and a lynchpin of a sacred ritual known only to the initiated.

The vision faded. I had the key now, but not the explanation. Who left the dial barrier here, what was behind it, and most importantly, should I open it?

Was there something dangerous locked in that hole? It could contain treasure, valuable knowledge, or some kind of eldritch horror that would disintegrate us.

I could just keep walking.

I searched my mind for anything else, any other knowledge relating to the barrier or its originator. I found nothing.

This was so frustrating. I knew there was more there, hidden in that glowing gem that somehow lived inside of me, but I just couldn't access it. It showed me glimpses and only when it wanted to.

I stared at the dial. I had to know. If I walked away now, the barrier would eat at me until I doubled back and opened it. It would be a waste of time and effort. And if I walked away, there was no telling if I would ever get the chance to return.

I reached for the dial and turned the top circle. The first moon in waxing gibbous, the second in waning crescent, the third full, the fourth in its third quarter, and the last a dark new moon. The five moon irregular pentagon.

The circles of the dial slid, spinning on their own. The opening flashed with green, and the dial clattered to the ground. The way was open.

* * *

The air was stale and stank of old urine mixed with a harsh odor that reminded me of burned plastic.

I walked into the cave side by side with Bear. She sniffed the air currents and bared the edge of her teeth. Yeah. Right there with you.

The cave was empty. I’d hidden the dial in my backpack. I was pretty sure I could reset it, and a portable impenetrable barrier might come in handy.

We reached the far wall. A dead end on the right, a dark passage leading off to the left.

We turned left, then right, through a short hallway, and walked into a small room.

A light source glowed on the wall, an apple-sized crystal shining with weak yellow light and wavering almost like a torch. It was on its last legs.

Below the light, a creature lay tied to the wall by some sort of metal cord attached to a collar around its neck.

It was probably around three and a half to four feet long and sheathed in thick grey fur.

A fluffy tail the color of smoke curled around it, hiding most of the animal from view.

All I could see were large triangular ears, tipped by tufts of bright red fur like those of a lynx.

A low snarl rumbled in Bear’s mouth.

“Shh,” I told her.

Was this a pet? A guard dog equivalent? If so, what was it guarding? There was nothing in the room.

The creature’s ears had ragged edges as if something was violently torn out of them. Dried blood caked on the rims. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been treated well.

I flexed . The beast was alive and breathing, but my talent didn’t tell me anything more and the gem stayed silent, too.

I took a careful step forward. Another.

The animal lay still. That wasn’t normal. It had to have heard me. Those ears weren’t just for show. It was deliberately choosing to ignore my approach.

Another step.

One more.

The fox-thing lunged at me. It was lightning fast, but I expected it and shied away. Dark claws raked the air an inch in front of me, so close they fanned my face. The collar jerked the fox back.

Bear shot forward.

“Stop!”

Bear halted.

“Back!”

Bear snarled, clicking her teeth, but didn’t move forward.

The fox bared sharp fangs, the chain on its collar taut.

“Back, Bear.”

The shepherd backpedaled until she was one step behind me.

“Good girl. Sit.”

Bear sat, but she really didn’t want to.

The fox creature retreated to the wall and crouched. It walked on two feet and when it lowered itself, it didn’t sit on its haunches. It crouched like a person, like someone used to bipedal locomotion.

A caravan of raccoon-foxes, donkeys, some alien being wrapped in rags, bemoaning its fate… I’d seen its kind before in a vision. Their fur was of a different color, and they wore clothes, but the resemblance was unmistakable. Same species. The leave-you-in-financial-ruin guys.

The fox-thing watched me with big golden eyes. It would be adorably cute, if it wasn’t in such a terrible state. Blood had dried into crust on its chest. Long scars covered its arms. Something or more likely someone had either beaten or tortured it.

The room was empty except for the dying light and the prisoner. No water. No food. No containers indicating that any of that was ever delivered. The fox was chained here and left to die.

And it could see the way out. The light illuminated the passageway behind me.

There was no door on the cell. It looked like the exit out was right there, just a few yards away.

The fox would watch the light on the wall as it wavered and grew dimmer and dimmer and realize it was a metaphor for its life.

Soon the light would die, leaving the cell in the dark, and the fox would die with it, fading from hunger and thirst.

If the fox-creature did somehow break the cord and rush out, thinking it was free, it would run straight into a barrier which would leave it in agony.

Once the pain subsided, it would realize that an invisible wall blocked its escape, a wall that could only be opened from the outside.

It would see the dial, but it could never touch it.

This was a human level of cruelty. Killing it would have been more humane.

“Can you understand me?”

The fox stared at me, its eyes hot with menace.

For all I knew, it was some kind of criminal sentenced to die in this cell for a horrific killing spree.

I flexed . The fox didn’t glow. It wasn’t toxic, it wasn’t an immediate source of pain or danger the way the barrier was. It didn’t glow red like the hunter I had glimpsed. It simply was.

I took an empty canteen from my waist, pulled the full one off as well, and poured about a third of our total water supply into the first canteen.

The fox watched me with an almost feverish focus.

I screwed the lids back on, reattached the fuller bottle to my belt, and held the other one in front of me.

“Water.”

I tossed the canteen to the fox. It snatched it out of the air. Its long fingers twisted the lid with practiced dexterity, and the fox drank in long greedy gulps. It emptied the canteen and stared at me.

Whatever it had done, I couldn’t leave it here to die.

I pointed at the metal cord and shaped my sword into a short thick cleaver.

The fox bared its sharp fangs again.

I waited.

Two burning eyes glaring at me with fierce intensity.

“I don’t want to kill you.”

I pointed at the cord again, made a chopping motion with my cleaver, and took a step back with my hands up.

The fox rose and padded to the opposite wall, stretching the metal cord as far as it would go. Okay. The ball was in my court.

I walked to the bracket securing the cord to the wall. It didn’t seem particularly sturdy, as if whoever put it in place wanted the prisoner to break free. Otherwise, why even bother with the barrier? The cord itself seemed light and felt like a meld of plastic and metal.

Here goes nothing. I swung the cleaver and brought it down onto the cord. The blade cut through the five-millimeter thickness, severing the metal in a single clean strike. The cord fell to the ground.

The fox dashed past Bear into the passage and vanished from sight, dragging the metal cord with it.

Bear tilted her head and let out a puzzled noise.

“I know, right? Not even a thank you.”

I looked around. Nothing left here.

“We’ve done our good deed for the day. Let’s see if it goes unpunished. Come on, girl.”

We were halfway across the stone bridge when I saw a clump of dark fur up ahead. The fox had made it about a hundred yards before the exhaustion and starvation brought it down. It fell and dropped my canteen on the stone bridge.

I crouched by it. It was still breathing. Bear sniffed it and looked at me.

“No, not food.”

I stood over it for a moment. I could just leave it. But it was hurt and alone, trapped in the breach. Just like me and Bear.

I sighed, made my sword into a knife, and sliced through the collar on the fox’s neck. The strange half-plastic, half-metal band fell apart. I retrieved my canteen, picked the fox up, and headed forward, back to our original route.