Page 48 of Haunted

“No light it is.” I call on my darkness. It centers me as I rise to my feet. It throbs within my body. I can tell the Dark Master inside this prison approves. My energy leaps from my body as an extension of myself. I sense where the walls close in around me and where the path opens onward.

I begin my journey, with only my dark power guiding me.

The paths are narrow and descend for leagues inside the mountain. My vision never gets used to the blackness. I try calling out to Neifion. Nothing. My connection with him is blocked down here. I don’t like this. Anything could happen on the surface. Neifion told me the resistance would start their distractions at high moon, which should have been shortly after we landed on Uffern.

The heat becomes unbearable the farther I descend. Sweat drenches my body, and soon I’m stumbling along, my body refusing to cooperate. My legs are stiff, as if blood congeals in my veins.

I do not have my light to steady me. I have no hope within this tomb. I push my darkness into my extremities, willing it to be a cooling balm. My sluggishness eases somewhat, but I have to grope along the walls. When my throat threatens to close up, I take one more step before collapsing to all fours. I gasp. Dirt clings to my sweaty palms. I crawl forward. Is there no end? No relief from the heat?

Siana told me my courage would fail. Press onward, she said.

I crawl for what must have been twenty minutes.

Then I see light, a glow that grows the closer I come. The narrow tunnel spills out to a chamber sweltering with heat. My eyes land on the fiery inferno that gave birth to this mountain—a river of liquid rock that bubbles and pulses and rushes from the chamber and into the underground.

A narrow bridge of stone arches over the river. On the other side is a doorway, the way I must continue.

A gurgle of lava explodes at the edge of the bridge and splashes the lip of it. I close my eyes. The first test weeds out those too physically weak to progress, Siana said. Usually the mortals. No mortal could withstand these temperatures. I understand. The path to the Dark Master is not meant for those without immortality.

I’m weary, but I scrape my way across the bridge, to its center point, which narrows dangerously.

I do not stop.

Lava splashes the sleeve of my shirt, and I gasp as my skin burns.

One palm in front of the other.

I can no longer see. My vision is nothing but a blur, a wave of orange as bright as the depths of the lava river.

Finally, I’m off the bridge. When I reach the tunnel entrance, I pull myself to my feet and continue onward, leaving the light from the lava chamber behind.

Into more darkness. Much to my relief, the temperature lowers.

After rounding a corner, cool air blows across the floor of the tunnel. The farther I go, the faster the air blows across my feet and legs until it blows across my face too. I cry from relief. I feel a renewal. A hope. And though I am in the depths of darkness, alone, I don’t feel as if I’m going to my death.

Another chamber opens up. I know this because, along the edges, a soft blue light glows. I inhale a breath of air that’s cool.

Unnaturally cool. Magic. Dark magic.

In the center of the chamber is a rounded pedestal of sculpted stone with a flat top and fluted column on which two objects lie—a thin taper candle and a knife with a carved bone handle.

I stare at the candle and the knife. Siana told me there would be trials, but she did not tell me how to overcome them. My hand hovers over the knife and candle, trying to sense their energy, their purpose. I will intuition to speak.

I go into a place in my mind. A candle or a knife? A light or a weapon? Good or evil?

I lose myself in meditation. The Dark Master wants me to choose the knife. Then what? There is no other way from this room but the way I came. I have to choose.

I hesitate. What if I choose the candle? What will happen then?

My hands relax at my sides as I consider. Just take the knife. It’s logical. It will serve the Dark Master’s purposes and make him think I’m loyal.

When I attempt to grab the knife, something clamps around my wrists and jerks my arms behind me. I lash out with my dark power, hoping to hit whatever or whoever has me. My energy gets no farther than just past my body.

I meet resistance.

A shield.

My blast rebounds into me, and I collapse, once again, in the dark.

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