thunderstruck | book #2 | discontinued

X X X V I

Ackmard had given up. For the first time since he could remember, he was not desperate for the key. He was exhausted in more ways than one, Tykon's cold stare and even colder words haunting him as he walked through the underground tunnels to find his sister and her new shelter. More than that, he was unused to feeling so uncertain of himself. He had tried to shake it off, tried to forget the image of his father sitting around the dinner table as though he had never left, tried to tell himself that Tykon and his mother no longer mattered to him, but something was gnawing at him, unease and something else—something foreign that he didn't want to acknowledge. Something that felt too much like guilt.

He reached the end of the tunnels where a door sat with dozens of different locks, levers, and dials to unlock it—not that they were needed. The people of Astracia, who were now no doubt resting above him in the darkness and comfort of their homes, were far too arrogant to check beneath the ground on which they walked. They probably thought the battle was over. It made Ackmard smirk to think about.

He placed his lit torch beside his feet and twisted the dials before using his magic on the spelled locks, waiting for the creaking of the old door to signal its opening. Nothing happened. He pushed against the old, dusty brick then, tearing his hands slightly as he did. Still, it didn't budge, though he could hear voices now on the other side.?

"Hello?" he questioned, his voice echoing off the crumbling walls. "Erika?"

A clicking arose on the other side of the door, then, and a moment later it opened, revealing Erika. Her red curls were sticking out at all angles, making her look as though she had been dragged through a thorny bramble filled with wicked forest nymphs, and she wore nothing but a silken slip over her lean figure. Ackmard glanced at her unimpressed, pushing past her to the small space where she had placed a couple of chairs and a bed.

"The door is faulty. I will have Bliviar fix it."

The others must have been asleep in the next room, for no one was here—no one save for a frighteningly pale man with tussled raven-black hair, who was buttoning up his shirt with a lazy grin by the bed. He looked familiar, though Ackmard could not place where he had seen him before. He was certainly not a Dark One, though he could have been, with harsh, hollow eyes and blackened, burned hands.

Ackmard raised an eyebrow, turning to his sister expectantly. He noticed now her flushed cheeks and swollen lips. "And who is this? You have been busy, sister."

"He is an old friend who can get me what I want—several things I want, in fact." She grinned at him, her green eyes flashing with lust as he disappeared wordlessly down the corridor. A strange feeling overcame Ackmard; had he been thrown out of the loop so that space could be made for this new man? "And the door is not faulty, dear brother. I changed the locks."

Ackmard shrugged off his leather jacket and placed it on the back of the nearest chair. "Why? Did someone find you here already?"

"No," she said lightly, prowling around the edges of the room and pretending to be interested in the uneven brickwork. Her bare feet scraped against rock but she did not seem to notice. "I wanted to keep you out. I did not think you worthy of coming back."

He tensed at her words. She knew, then, that he not been able to get the key. "I did what you asked. I had Annika retrieve the key from her father."

"And where is the key now?" Her voice turned icy, but Ackmard was no longer afraid of her. He was tired of doing her dirty work, tired of running around Astracia for her sake. He had done it for far too long.

"The key was a fake. Someone had clearly gotten there before us and swapped it with a duplicate, though I cannot imagine who. I can no longer track its energy."