Page 27 of Crown of Envy

“There!” Zara gasped.

Off the path, partially obscured by a jutting rock formation, stood another statue. But this one was different. Around its neck hung a heart-shaped green pendant that pulsed with an inner light matching the compass.

“The Heartstone. It has to be,” I whispered.

Damon took an involuntary step toward it, then caught himself. “Oh, no. Not falling for that again,” he muttered, shaking his head as if to clear it.

Brody’s grip on his sword tightened, his knuckles white. “It’s off the path,” he warned, his gaze darting between the statue and the writhing shadows that seemed to be closing around us.

“We can’t leave it,” Zara pleaded, her eyes wide with desperation. “My sister…”

The raw anguish in her voice tugged at my heart. But it wasn’t only Zara’s sister who needed the stone. Justice flashed into my mind, his brave face masking the pain and weakness consuming him. Maybe the Heartstone could make him stronger, give him a fighting chance against whatever was slowly killing him.

The ironclad responsibility pressed down on me, as heavy as the oppressive air around us. Two lives, possibly more, hanging in the balance. The decision to risk everything for the Heartstone suddenly felt both impossibly difficult and absolutely necessary.

“Justice needs it, too,” I whispered. The others turned to look at me in surprise and understanding. “The Heartstone. It might be able to help him, make him stronger.”

Their expectant gazes were fixed on me, waiting for a decision. The compass pulled insistently toward the statue, its glow matching the pulse of the amulet. Every instinct screamed danger, but we had come too far to turn back now.

I tightened my grip on my blade. “We go together,” I decided, my voice steadier than I felt. “Watch each other’s backs. And no matter what happens, no one touches that statue except me.”

As we stepped off the path, the shadows seemed to retreat, slinking back into the darker recesses of the cave. The absence of their writhing presence was almost more unnerving than their visibility. My skin prickled with goosebumps, every nerve ending on high alert.

I couldn’t shake the feeling we were walking into a trap. My mind raced through the possibilities, each more terrifying than the last. Maci and her demons could be lurking in the darkness, waiting to spring an ambush. The thought of her cruel smile made me shiver.

Or more likely, I realized with a sinking feeling, we were about to come face-to-face with the creature that had turned all those people to stone, including Zara’s sister. Some kind of Medusa, perhaps? The mythological implications made my head spin. Whatever it was, it had to be incredibly powerful to overcome Zara’s coven.

As we inched closer to the statue and its precious cargo, the Heartstone’s green glow intensified, casting long, distorted shadows behind us. The silence was oppressive, broken only by our shallow breathing and the occasional drip of water echoing from deep within the cave.

Damon’s voice broke the tension. “Anyone else feel like we’re starring in our own horror movie? Because I gotta say, I don’t like our odds of being the final survivors.”

Brody shot him a warning glance, but fear lurked behind his stern expression. We were all thinking the same thing. We were voluntarily walking into the lair of a monster, armed with little more than hope and desperation.

With each step, the feeling of being watched intensified. Whatever was waiting for us, whatever had lured us this far, was about to reveal itself.

Whispers vibrated off the cave walls, growing louder.

Come and take the stone. Soon, you’ll be ours.

As I reached toward the Heartstone, fingers trembling, I couldn’t help but wonder. Had we made the biggest mistake of our lives?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The moment my fingers brushed the cool surface of the Heartstone, the cave erupted into chaos. The whispers suddenly crescendoed into a deafening roar, making us instinctively cover our ears.

The retreating shadows surged forward, coalescing into a nightmarish form. From the darkness emerged a creature that defied description, a horror that seemed composed of living shadow and stolen stone.

Its body was massive, easily twice the height of a man, with a torso that looked like roughly hewn granite. But this stone wasn’t static. It shifted and flowed like liquid, revealing glimpses of faces trapped within, their expressions frozen in terror. I recognized some of them from the statues we’d seen earlier.

Where a head should have been was instead a writhing mass of shadow tentacles, each tipped with a glowing green eye that matched the Heartstone’s color. The eyes swiveled independently, fixing on us with an alien intelligence.

The creature’s arms were long and spindly, ending in hands with too many fingers, each digit tipped with a crystalline claw that glinted wickedly in the green light. Its lower body seemed to merge with the shadows on the cave floor, giving the impression it was rising out of the darkness.

As it fully materialized, an otherworldly energy that made my skin crawl charged the air. The creature’s presence seemed to distort reality, the cave walls warping and bending in impossible ways.

A voice, not heard but felt, resonated within our minds. “You dare to trespass in my domain? To steal what is mine? Foolish mortals. You shall join my collection.”

Damon managed to rasp, “I take it back. This isn’t a horror movie. This is way, way worse.”

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