Chapter Four

“You are powerful, but unbalanced. No good.”

I blinked at the anchoress, disbelief taking my breath. She had been throwing magic at me for hours. I had done everything she told me to, jumped over all the bars she set in my way. I’d done it to prove she should help us. And this was the outcome? “What do you mean? I’ve stopped all of your enchantments.”

“That doesn’t mean you would be able to resist the soultaker’s magic.”

“I’m sure I can.” I looked around, seeking something to convince her. “The kings will help me.

Fon appeared by my side. “We will protect the guardian.”

She snorted. “You are likely to be in as much trouble as her.”

Why had she built up my hopes only to dash them now? I blinked back tears and straightened. I needed to show this woman strength, not weakness. “I am ready to face the underworld.”

“We all are,” Vashri added.

“I said no.”

My anger burst free. “Do you even care what happens to Charnrosa? You have to help us!”

“I care for Charnrosa, child. But I also care for you.”

“I’m not a child.” She kept calling me that, but I was an adult – and old enough to make my own decisions. I dragged in a breath so I could speak calmly. “I know going to the underworld is dangerous. I know there is a risk. But I’m prepared to take it. I have to get the kings back.”

“And you would pay any price? Even your own life?”

“Yes!”

“No!” Vashri and Fon countered in unison. I glared at them.

The Anchoress’s twinkling eyes watched me. “You shouldn’t be so eager to throw away something precious.”

“I’m not eager, I just – I’ll do whatever is needed to get the kings back, whole and well. We have to defeat the Emperor.”

Before I’d finished speaking, the anchoress was already shaking her head.

“We have been to the underworld before.” Fon meant him and Vashri. “We can summon creatures from the underworld, we just can't follow them into their world. That’s all we need your help with.”

“You can’t follow them because you don't belong there, boy.” I thought boy was a demotion from child. The anchoress didn’t appear impressed with Fon's bullish nature. “Where would we be if people could cross just by willing it?” She waved a hand, cutting off his reply. “Get some sleep. You can return to the village in the morning.”

With that, she lay down beside the fire, pulling a fur over herself. I only had time to take a breath, and the air filled with the grating sound of snores.

“She can't be asleep.” I approached. “Mother?”

“Curse her!” Fon exploded. “I'm not waiting for her to insult us more in the morning.”

He stomped to the front of the cave, vanishing into the fissure that led onto the mountainside.

“It's not safe!” I shouted.

“Let him cool down,” Vashri recommended.

Shaking my head, I started after him. He might fall off the side of the mountain in the dark. We had already lost two kings. We couldn’t lose a third. “Fon! It’s too dark!”

A flare of light burst through the fissure. “I am the king of fire. I make my own light!”

I faltered to a stop, facing Vashri. “Should we go?”

His gaze settled on the pile of furs. “She might think differently in the morning.”

“It’s usually Fon who’s the optimistic one.”

Vashri turned. I don’t know what he saw on my face, but he opened his arms. I walked into them. His broad chest was warm. I felt better immediately when his arms went around me. I breathed in his scent and listened to the thud of our heartbeats. “What else can we say to persuade her?”

What Vashri might have suggested we would never know, because a blood-curdling scream burst through the cave entrance.

I bolted through the narrow fissure to blink in dazzling brightness as I arrived in the outer cave. Fon had cast fire which filled the space with glowing light.

“What happened?” I asked, my eyes dredging Fon to find the damage, heart racing.

His light dimmed, settling to a glow. “Wraiths,” he said. “Creatures of darkness. I banished them with light.”

“Are you all right?”

“Perfectly.” He seemed surprised I would ask.

“There was a scream.”

“That wasn’t me.”

A laugh blurted abruptly out of me; tension released. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

Fon threw an arm around my shoulders, pulling me against him. “Never doubt me again, guardian,” he said sternly.

I swallowed my giggles. “I swear I never shall.” I wrapped my arm around his waist. “Stay, Fon,” I urged him. “In the morning, the—”

Another eldritch shriek from inside the caves pulled my heart half out of my body. Fon and I nearly got stuck, both trying to rush through the fissure at once. Fon drew ahead, his hand snaking back to snatch mine and pull me after him.

Inside the main cave, Vashri and the anchoress stood back to back. Each had a lit branch from the fire and were using them to drive back the three shadows creeping around them.

Fon’s magic swept through the chamber and the creatures shrieked as light and heat forced them to retreat.

But we were in a cave. Shadows were everywhere.

Fon and Vashri focused on the fire, and the glow that had been banked for the night burst back to life, flames rising half as high as I stood.

As Fon dropped his artificial light, the shadows simply sharpened.

My skin prickled. One of the shadows close to me thickened. I shifted to get away from it.

Only for something cold to slide over my arm.

“Ugh!” I shook it away, stepping towards the fire. Fon sent a flare of light and heat towards me. Another scream and the shadow vanished.

Fon met my gaze with a grin. “I could do this all night.”

“I have no intention of dealing with this nuisance until morning,” the anchoress snapped. “They need to be stopped.” She squatted by the fire, passing her lit branch to me. I wafted it around to keep the wraiths at bay, pointing it towards any fingers of shadow that reached from the edges of the cave before they could meet me.

The anchoress was muttering. I was impressed. She was drawing magic from stone. My heart ached, thinking of Axxon, who could do the same effortlessly, allied with his element.

Another shriek rang through the air as Vashri drove back one of the wraiths.

A low rumbling began. I tensed, my hand tightening around the flaming branch as my gaze darted around, seeking the next danger.

“Peace.” The anchoress sent me a smile.

“You’re doing this? Do you mean to bring the mountain down around us?”

“I’m not strong enough for that. The Old Man is wakening. He can deal with a few wraiths.”

“The Old Man of Ullaglen? He’s real?”

The rumbling continued.

“The mountain is alive, just as the rest of us are.”

“And it’s on our side?”

The anchoress grinned as a scattering of dust fell from the ceiling. “The Old Man doesn’t like to be disturbed. The mountain only wants to sleep.”

“I know how he feels,” Fon muttered.

Ignoring him, the anchoress continued, “It’ll soon get rid of this nuisance.” She gestured us to join closer around the fire. “Give them some darkness. We may as well draw them all out.”

I wasn’t ecstatic about that strategy, but the anchoress lived in the mountain. She should know what she was doing.

The rumbling continued, dust rising to cloud the air and give the wraiths more shadows to flit through. Fon’s arm slid around my waist and Vashri stood on my other side, his shoulder touching mine. The anchoress stood opposite. Her eyes were closed, giving her a serene expression.

My heart bounced inside my ribs as though it wanted to jump out and rumble down the mountain with the loose rocks rattling across the shaking ground. I debated closing my eyes, but I knew I wouldn’t look serene if I did. Not with three wraiths pushing out of the shadows and stretching towards us.

“We won’t let them touch you,” Vashri promised. Light flared as Fon conjured more fire.

And his fire cast shadows that didn’t fully dissipate when I waved my branch. Its light was fading, the blackened branch burning through. The cold, oily sensation slipped over my skin as something tried to creep up my leg. I turned and jabbed the branch at it and it vanished, but the shadows were now in front with the fire at my back. I could see my shadow thickening as a wraith crept into my own darkness.

“Could the Old Man speed up?” I murmured, sweeping the branch again so the wraiths vanished and had to start again.

I didn’t believe it was due to my appeal, but the rumbling increased. A crack split the rock, shivering down the wall and splitting the ground by my feet. Darkness shone within, but the wraiths didn’t want that gloom. They wanted us.

The Old Man was in charge. Shrieking with fury, the wraiths were sucked towards the gap in the ground, their oily slicks stretching over rock as they fought the compulsion drawing them closer. Their shadows became fingers as their squeals of anger and distress increased, setting my teeth on edge.

The first shadows met the edge of the hole created by the mountain, pulled into it despite their efforts to free themselves. One figure then another was sucked down into the shade of the crack. The third gave an ear-splitting squeal as it was drawn into the darkness.

The mountain gave another shudder, then a slam closed the gap, a puff of dust the only sign the ground had ever been disturbed.

I cast a look around. The shadows were back to normal.

A final rumble and the mountain stilled. The wraiths were gone.

The anchoress grabbed my branch and thrust it back into the fire. She spat a gob of phlegm after it. “Wraiths! They belong in stories, not in my cave.”

I opened my mouth. This was exactly what we’d been saying!

She spoke before I could. “Get some sleep. I need to open you a way to the underworld in the morning.”

“You’ll help us?”

“Yes, child … guardian.” She bowed her head and I wasn’t sure whether I should read the gesture as defeat, or simply an acceptance of inevitability. “I’ll help you reach the underworld.”

I barely had time to grin at Fon and Vashri before she’d laid down and snores were again the only thing to disturb our peace.