Rhys flew us in close to low tide, dropping us off before taking to the skies, where he'd circle and monitor the guards of the island and mainland while we hunted.
The muck on the small piece of land reeked. Squelching and us with every step in the narrow walkway toward the temple ruin. Barnacles, seaweed, and limpets clung to the old cobbles of the trail, and every step into the chamber made something inside my chest sing with a symphony. Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Everything inside me called.
Rhys and Amren had checked the site for wards beforehand, finding none. Which was either very convenient or very, very bad.
Thanks to the open doorway, we didn't dare risk a light, but with the cracks that littered the walls and the moonlight overhead, it provided just enough illumination for us to get our job done.
Knee-deep in muck, the tidal water gliding over the stones below us, Amren and I surveyed the chamber, barely more than forty feet wide.
"I can feel it." I spoke as I felt that tug in my chest, yanking me toward the object we were looking for. "It's...sleeping." even as it pulled me toward it, it felt dormant. Wanting to wake but unable to do say as it started locked away in the temple.
"No wonder they hid it beneath the stone mud and sea," Amren muttered distastefully, the muck squelching as she turned in place.
I surveyed the architecture, "I don't feel anything in the walls. But it's here." The ground.
Indeed, we both looked down at the mud we stood on simultaneously, cringing at the mere thought of digging through the mess.
"We should have brought a shovel." She said.
"Would've made things a whole lot easier." I agreed. There was no time to get one. The tide was fully out now, and every minute counted. We both knew that.
I took slow steps, every movement a battle, as I moved through the firm grip of the muck. I honed in on that feeling inside me. That call.
I stopped in the center of the room—dead center. Here, here, here, here. Book seemed to scream.
I leaned down, very much contemplating abandoning the entire mission solely because I had to dig through the disgusting mess.
But I began hauling it away. "Hurry." I told Amren sunrise wasn't far off.
Amren hissed in disgust but swooped down and began helping me pull away the mud.
We dug.
And dug. And dug. And dug. And dug. Until we were covered in salty mud and debris, finally coming to a stop once we uncovered a large lead door.
Amren swore. "Lead to keep its full force in, to preserve it. They used to line the sarcophagi of the great rulers with it—because they thought they'd one day awaken."
"Maybe they will. That is, if the King of Hybern has his grubby little hands on the Cauldron any longer."
She snorted just before she shuddered and pointed. "The door is sealed."
I wiped my hand on the only decently clean part of me—my neck—before scraping away the last dregs of mud from the door. Every touch I layed on the lead door sent bursts of shivers through me, of cold. But there—a carved whorl on the center of the door. "This has been here for a...very long time." I murmured as something icy shot through me.
Amren nodded, "I would not be surprised if, despite the imprint of the High Lord's power, Tarquin and his predecessors had never set foot in here—if the blood spell to ward this place instantly transferred to them once they assumed power."
"But why covet the book then?" I asked, more to myself than anything, but Amren answered anyway.
"Wouldn't you want to lock away an object of terrible power? So no one could use it for evil—or for their own gain? Or perhaps they locked it away for their own bargaining chip if it ever became necessary. I had no idea why they, of all courts, was granted half of the Book in the first place."
I shook my head in understanding, laying my hand on the flat whorl.
A jolt went through me like the lightning I harnessed. I grunted, some sick and dark feeling running through me, bearing down on the door.
My fingers froze to the door as though ice had splintered through them. It felt as though it was leaching my power. My essence. My very life from me. Drinking it as Amren drank.
But I felt it hesitate. Felt it pause as if I were some sort of mystery.
I used that pause. Sending out my power like veins, flowing throughout the door. As I opened my eyes, I saw spirals upon spirals of light like white stars flowing across the lead door. Breaking it down as it eroded the magic and the metal altogether.
The lock pulled harder and harder as I clenched my jaw, as I felt the door leaching my power from me even as I sent it out.
But then there was a click. And a groan. And I sighed in relief.
I pulled back, watching as the door sunk down and swang away into a deep abyss beyond. Tucking into the stones below as a salty sea breeze came from within even as tendrils of power scoured the air around us.
Amren's face had gone paler than usual, her eyes shining brighter. "I never saw the Cauldron," she said, "but it must be terrible indeed if even a grain of its power feels...like this."
Indeed the power filling the chamber was smothering. My head. My lungs. My chest. All felt like they were wrapped in some sort of blanket.
"Hurry." I said, a small ball of faelight shooting through the door and illuminating the curve of stairs, gray and worn, slick with some sort of slime.
I drew my hunting knife, wasting no time as I began to descend, bracing my hand on the stone wall to keep from slipping. Amren followed shortly after me.
I made it one rotation down before the fae light danced on waist-deep, putrid, and dirty water. I scanned the passage at the foot of the stairs. "It looks clear. There's a hall and a chamber beyond that."
"Then hurry the hell up," she answered.
"Oh, Amren, I'm feeling the love." I said. She rolled her eyes.
But I listened, stepping into the dark water and biting down a yelp at the freezing temperature, the oiliness of it. Amren gagged from before me, the water nearly up to her chest.
"This place no doubt fills up quickly when the tide comes back in," She observed as we swooshed through the horrid water, frowning at one of the many draining holes in the wall.
We went only slow enough for her to detect any ward or trap. There were none—none at all. Though, who the hell would ever come down here willingly?
Fools, that's who.
The long stone wall ended in another lead door. Beyond it that power filling the chamber gathered. "It's in there." I whispered.
"Obviously." she threw out.
"Oh, you realized. I would have thought your old age would make that hard." I said, throwing that right back.
She hummed, "Bold of you."
"Can't really kill me down here without risking the Book, can you?" I grinned.
She looked at me, "You can be quite amusing sometimes."
"Likewise." I repeated. She was amusing in a very blunt and murderous way. My favorite kind.
Both of us were shivering. The cold was deep enough that I wondered if I'd be dead were I still human.
Once more, I laid my hand flat on that door. The draining of my power was worse this time. So, so much worse. So much that I did let out that yelp. I had to brace both of my hands on the doors if only to keep from falling to my knees and crying as it ransacked me.
I sent my power out faster that time. The spirals of light branching out as though their life depended on it.
What's going on? A male voice said in my mind.
Rhys.
I didn't answer. Couldn't. Not as everything in me was focused on breaking down the spells blocking us from getting in.
I leaned on the door just slightly as the lock clicked. I spared myself a moment, just a moment before I stood on shaky legs.
I stumbled back, falling into Amren's waiting arms. "Nasty, nasty lock," she hissed with a shudder.
As quickly as I could manage, I peeled myself away from her, bracing my hands on the wall as she went to push open the door. Water emerged, pushing Amren away. I used every last bit of my strength to keep myself standing, letting out a strangled cry as the water pushed against me.
My head was spinning. Another lock, and I might very well pass out.
We both halted, watching as the faelight bobbed into the chamber in front of us. The dry space beyond us was empty save for a round dais and pedestal.
And a small box of lead atop it.
Amren stepped beyond the threshold, and I followed, my hands shuffling against the wall as I willed my strength to come back. She stopped, satisfied there were no wards or tricks. "Let's be quick about it." she beckoned. I nodded in agreement.
We both carefully surveyed the chamber: floors, walls, ceilings. No signs of hidden mechanisms or triggers.
Though no larger than an average book, the lead box seemed to gobble up the faelight as it whispered. And now I heard it as clear as day. As if Amren were whispering just next to me.
Who are you—what are you? Come closer—let me smell you, let me see you...
We paused on opposite sides of the pedestal, the faelight hovering over the lid. "No wards," Amren confirmed, her voice barely more than a shuffling of boots on stone. "No spells. You have to remove it—carry it out." lovely. Just lovely. "The tide is coming back in." Amren added as she surveyed the ceiling.
"So soon?" I questioned. We should have more time.
"Perhaps the sea knows. Perhaps the sea is the High Lord's servant..." she trailed off. I knew what she was saying. I chose to ignore it.
But if we were to get caught down here when the water came in...I pushed down the panic that had tried to seize my mind. Forcing it into a cage and locking it up tight.
I lifted my chin. The Books words haunting me once more.
Who are you, who are you, who are you—
I denied it.
"Come on," Amren urged.
I willed the box to quiet. It did.
I snatched the box from the pedestals quickly as I could. The metal bit into my hands almost painfully, the power an oily smear through my blood.
An ancient, cruel voice hissed:
Hello, World Breaker.
Then the door slammed shut.
─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
A/N: Hey, slayers. I'm hoping to have the official chapter one of Game of Aces out later today! I'm also realizing that I have absolutely no idea how to write about the real world without it sounding like a cheesy high school movie. I literally only know how to write fantasy. This has been eye-opening.