Shadows Entwined (Shadows Descent #3)

29. Violet

29

VIOLET

I stare in horror at the pile of dust that was Magdeline just moments ago. “What the fuck?”

“She was holding on just long enough to pass on her knowledge,” Thorne says softly, his hand on my shoulder. “Her time was up.”

I swallow hard, fighting back tears. I barely knew the old woman, but her loss feels monumental. She was our guide, our link to understanding this insane situation we’ve found ourselves in. But also, is that going to be me in three thousand years’ time, or whenever? I am just going to cease to exist, forgotten and scattered to the winds. I’d never really thought about immortality in the sense of that time coming to an end. I hadn’t even really thought about being immortal. It also begs the question of whether my first fifteen hundred years count. Am I that old in the real sense, not just the cosmic sense? All these questions I don’t have the answers to and don’t have anyone to answer them. However, I don’t have time to fuck about with these thoughts right now. We have a few hours before the Convergence starts. If we need to defeat the Old Ones before then, we need to get moving.

“We should go,” Caine says, placing a gentle hand on my lower back. “Time’s running out.”

I nod, taking a deep breath to steady myself. “Right. Okay. So... how do we do this?”

Thorne holds up the purple book. “With this, apparently.” He flips it open, his brow furrowing as he scans the pages. “It was blank to me before, but I can read it now. The words are like voids themselves.”

“That’s not creepy,” Flint mutters.

“That’s magick,” I retort, and he throws me a smile. He seems different now. Older, more wise. Whatever trial he went through has given him something extra. Something I feel we are going to need.

Thorne nods, still reading. “According to this, we need to form a circle and channel our combined power. The book will act as a focus, opening a gateway to the void.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Caine says, twirling his fancy new ice spear, with which he clearly has a new love affair. “Any particular location?”

“How about not down here,” I state, turning from the pile of ash that is now scattering in a non-existent breeze.

“So, we have to find our way out of here and then fight some old gods. This is going to be an epic day,” Flint comments.

“One step at a time,” I mutter. “Getting out of here isn’t going to be easy.”

“It never is,” Thorne says and closes the book, shoving it into the front of his pants.

I arch an eyebrow, and he grins. “Someone could sneak up behind me and steal it. This way, I’ll see them coming.”

“She’s just jealous you’ve got something down your pants that isn’t her hand,” Caine says and stalks off back the way we came.

I giggle as he’s not wrong, but then my blood freezes. “Caine! Wait!”

Caine stops abruptly at my shout near the ice bridge he created earlier, which vanishes before our eyes. “What?” he asks, turning back to face us.

“The bridge vanished!” I cry out.

He looks down and scowls. “Well, that’s annoying. I’ll just create another one.”

“Something tells me that isn’t going to work,” Thorne mutters. “Our powers have gone again.”

I stare at the empty chasm where Caine’s ice bridge used to be, a sinking feeling in my stomach. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Our powers are gone again?”

Caine frowns, concentrating hard. A few ice crystals form on his fingertips, but nothing substantial. “Not completely gone, but definitely diminished. I can’t create anything big enough to cross that gap.”

“Same here,” Flint says, holding out his hand. A small flame dances on his palm before sputtering out. “Nowhere near full strength.”

“Great,” I mutter. “So, we unlock all this incredible power, only to lose it when we actually need it. Fantastic.”

Caine steps back from the edge of the chasm. “We need to find another way out of here. And fast. The Convergence isn’t going to wait for us to figure this out.”

“Facts,” Thorne says and ambles over to the other side of the chamber.

The ground rumbles, and we look at each other before moving forward to stick with Thorne.

“What do we do? Where do we go? There is nothing here to indicate a way out,” I say.

As if in answer to my question, the ground shakes again. A low grinding sound fills the chamber as one of the walls shifts, revealing a hidden passageway.

“Well, that’s convenient,” Flint mutters, eyeing the new opening warily.

“Too convenient,” Caine agrees, gripping his ice spear tightly. “Could be a trap.”

I shake my head. “We don’t have much choice. Time’s running out, and we need to get out of here.”

Thorne nods grimly. “Violet’s right. Trap or not, it’s our only option right now.”

Taking a deep breath, I step towards the passageway. “I’ll go first. If anything happens, you guys can...”

“Absolutely not,” all three of them say together, moving to block my path.

“We go together,” Thorne says firmly. “No one plays hero alone.”

I want to argue, but the determination in their eyes stops me. “Fine. Together then.”

We form a tight group, with me in the middle and the guys flanking me on all sides. Slowly, cautiously, we enter the dark passage.

As soon as we’re all inside, the wall grinds shut behind us, plunging us into darkness.

“Well, okay then,” Flint mutters.

I feel Caine’s hand find mine in the dark. He is freezing cold. So much so that he burns my skin, but I don’t mention it or utter a sound. We need each other right now.

“Got that torch?” I ask Thorne.

He replies by flicking it on. The single beam of light is swallowed up by the darkness. We move forward cautiously, the passage is wide enough that we can edge forward in our little group.

Every step echoes ominously, and I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Suddenly, Thorne stops abruptly. “Dead end,” he says, shining the light on a solid wall blocking our path.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Caine growls. “We can’t go back. The entrance sealed behind us.”

Panic starts to rise in my chest. Are we trapped? Is this how it ends, suffocating in some ancient tomb before we even get a chance to face the Old Ones? What is the point in being this so-called daughter of magick and having no powers to save us?

I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. “Okay, let’s think this through. There has to be a way out. Maybe there’s a hidden mechanism or something.”

Thorne nods, running his hands over the wall. “Good idea. Everyone, start feeling around for anything that might be a switch or lever.”

We spread out, our hands desperately searching the cold stone for any sign of a way forward. Minutes tick by with no success, and I can feel the tension rising.

Suddenly, Flint lets out a surprised yelp. “Guys, I think I found something!”

We rush over to him. He’s standing in front of a small indent in the wall, barely visible in the dim light of Thorne’s torch.

“It looks like a handprint,” Flint says, tracing the outline with his finger.

I lean in for a closer look. The indent is roughly hand-shaped, with strange symbols etched around its edges. Something about it seems familiar, though I can’t quite place why.

“Is this like a Cinderella test?” I mutter.

“What’s that?” Thorne asks.

I turn to him with a frown but then remember who I’m talking to. “Long story short, we try our hands in the indent, and if one fits, it might open something up.”

“You try it,” Flint says. “Yours is the smallest, and it looks quite small.”

Makes sense. I nod, taking a deep breath and lifting my hand closer to the indent. A strange tingling sensation hits my palm.

“Be careful,” Caine warns, but I’m already pressing my hand into the indent.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then I gasp as white-hot pain shoots through my hand.

“Fuck,” Flint exclaims and clasps my wrist, staring at the stake sticking through my hand.

“Ow,” I mutter. “That burns.”

But before anyone can make a move, the stake retracts back into the wall, leaving a clean puncture wound through my palm. Blood drips onto the stone floor.

“What the hell kind of security system is this?” Thorne mutters, shining his light on my injured hand.

“The Jesus kind?” I groan, pulling my hand away and cradling it, even as it heals slowly.

“Huh?”

Exasperated, I let out a sharp sigh. “Nothing. Never mind. Is anything happening?”

A low rumbling fills the passage, and the wall in front of us splits down the middle, revealing a new pathway bathed in soft purple light.

“I guess that worked,” Flint says, eyeing the new opening warily.

“Yeah, but at what cost? This place now has Violet’s blood in its foundations.” Caine says ominously, taking my hand and examining it closely. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I nod. “Yeah. I’m fine. Vampire healing. We should keep moving.”

We step through the opening, finding ourselves in a vast cave. Unlike the dark, oppressive feeling of the previous areas, this room feels... alive. The walls shine with a soft light, casting everything in an ethereal glow. There is a low humming noise coming from the empty room, which echoes, making it appear louder. A slight breeze makes my ponytail tickle the back of my neck. I turn and feel it on my face, a slight caress of fresh air coming in from somewhere.

“There’s an opening somewhere,” I mutter and follow the breeze. “I can smell the forest. We have to be close.”

“Yeah, I can smell it too,” Flint says. “Let’s get out of here. We are wasting too much time.”

“There!” I exclaim, rushing over to the side of the cave where I can see a crack in the wall. The air is cold and pure here.

Suddenly, tendrils of purple energy erupt from the walls, blocking our path. They squirm and twist in the air, forming a barrier between us and freedom.

“What the hell?” I gasp, stumbling backwards.

Caine steps in front of me, ice spear at the ready. “We might not have magick, but we still have this.” He rams the spear into the crack and pushes on it to leverage the gap open. It creaks and groans as the stone moves.

When we see it working, the rest of us lean on the massive ice shard, pushing to get to freedom. As the gap widens and the air rushes in, I feel my magick returning and wonder how I healed so quickly without it. Maybe latent vampire magick was still in my system, protecting me from too much harm.

“Bit more,” Caine grunts. We double down, pushing with all our strength until the gap widens enough for us to rush through into the frozen forest, right in front of the Nexus tree.

“Oh, that’s about right,” I remark. “Too bad this isn’t the place we need to be now!”

“But maybe it is,” Thorne says, pulling out the purple book. “What better way to make sure we get to the right place than to channel the magick from the Nexus?”

“Okay, fair point, brainiac,” I grit out, pulling the band out of my hair and retying my hair into as tight a bun as I can manage. If we are going into a fight, I don’t want my hair being used against me. I doubt ancient gods chick fight, but you never fucking know. Water bitch might be a hair puller.