Page 45 of Chaos Unleashed

“Pretty much,” she smirks, showing a level of humour that I’m surprised she still has considering the shit she must have been through.

I return her smile, “Thank you for warning me. Unfortunately, I have to go in there. Make sure that you get everyone out, and they know that they can head home. The bodies of the princes are scattered around the castle and on the grounds if they need proof that they are actually dead. I know I would.”

She nods, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

I dip my head once in acknowledgment of her words, but I've never been very good at handling gratitude, especially in this situation, since I killed them in revenge. The fact that it has saved these people is a massive bonus, but the reasons at first were mostly selfish.

She seems to understand that I don’t know how to reply because she smiles once more and then does this cute little wave before she disappears again, and I hear the soft snick of a door closing.

“Well, that was certainly an interesting conversation,” Xerxes says from my hand, and I flatten my palm out again so he can rest on it properly.

“I’ll fucking say, she threw a lot of information at me that I’m going to have to pull apart later and tell Grey, especially the thing about the princes having a following with the souls. I assume that they were managing to get some Underworlders over to the Fae realm at least because of the Underworlder Wraiths that we came across.”

“Yes, that’s certainly one of the biggest things that need to be addressed, but the more immediate worry for me is that we need to head through the doors and into the side of the castle that has probably taken hundreds of lives.”

I can’t help but chuckle, “Yeah, that may be a concern, but we need the key fragment. It’s not like we have much choice.”

“We could come back later? You know, bring the guys and Grey, the person who can most likely control the thing that wants to kill us?” he suggests.

“I’m not saying that you're wrong and that your idea wouldn’t be an excellent idea, but something is telling me that I need to get it sooner rather than later.”

Xerxes sighs heavily, “I had a feeling that you were going to say that.”

His response makes my smile widen, “Don’t worry, we’ve got Poca, Meri, and Oryn with us, and I’m pretty handy with a sword. We should be able to handle whatever is in there. Will the magic guide still work if you go back in my pocket?”

His voice is filled with relief as he replies, “Yes, it should do. Thank you. I’d much rather hear it from somewhere safe than get dropped in the middle of a fight and then get eaten because that would be just my luck. I’ve survived wars, warlords, crazy maniacal dragons, deranged Fae, and trigger-happy gods only to die by being eaten by some unnamed creature.”

“Erm, X, sweetie, you’re rambling,” I interrupt when it doesn’t sound like he’s going to stop any time soon. Poca lets out this sound that sounds suspiciously like a chuckle, and I glance behind me to see all of them with varying looks of amusement on their faces; they’re clearly finding this as funny as I am.

“Shit, I am, aren’t I?” he asks and then continues before I have a chance to reply to him, “I do that when I’m reaching the end of my nerves, and actually, I think I’ve done really well to hold onto my nerves for this long I mean I really like you and you’ve been so kind to me even though I nearly killed one of your mates and I didn’t deserve for you to spare me, but I don’t want to lose you, and I had to see them hurt you and I couldn’t do anything, and I thought you were going to die and then you exploded with power and you are fine and went on a massive rampage that sounded terrifying and now you’re faced with even more danger and instead of running away like most people would you're just ready to dive straight in with barely any fear and quite frankly you scare me but your also one of my best friends, and I know that’s kind of weird, but shit.”

By the time he’s finished, my eyebrows are in my hairline.

“Wow, that was one hell of an info dump. We’re good, I’m okay. We’ve been through enough that I consider you one of my closest friends ever, and that says a lot because I spent a long time without friends. I promise that when we’re back in the Shadowlands, you can go to your library and have nothing but comfort and peace for as long as you need it.”

Chapter Seventeen

Farren

“Thank you,” he replies, “and sorry for the ramblings.”

“I get it,” I reply, and then add excitedly, “let's do this.”

As I put him in my pocket, I swear that he starts muttering about crazy women, but I can't quite make out his words, even so they make my smile widen. Once he’s safe, I glance over at my creatures as I twirl my sword, and my smile turns vicious.

“Are you guys ready to do this?” I ask, the excitement unmistakable in my voice as they all yip or chirp in agreement, all of them as eager as I am, “Good, let’s go.”

I take a deep breath and then step further into the unclean side of the hallway, heading toward the door that the string of magic is leading me to. To be honest, it makes a lot of sense that Hades’ vault is in Hades' private quarters, I mean if I had lots of powerful and unique artefacts you bet you bet your ass I’d be keeping them as close to me as possible. Gathering my magic around me so it’s ready to strike at a moment's notice, I push through the grimy door.

The first thing that hits me is the smell; it's pungent and not pleasant in the slightest. I know the smell better than I’d like to; it’s the smell of rotting corpses. The door is harder to push open than it should be, and I have a horrible feeling that I know why. Sure enough, when I’ve opened it enough to squeeze me and my creatures through, my theory is proven correct.

Bodies are piled behind the enormous double doors and in the immediate area surrounding them. All of them are in varying stages of decomposition, all of them wearing different styles of clothing. Some are obviously staff members wearing simple styles left in rags over bones. Some are clearly the Helliers, their weapons still clutched in their half-rotten hands; some are dressed in fine silks with jewellery still draped on them, and I’d be willing to bet that these were once important Underworlders that didn’t bow to the princes demands like they wanted them too so the princes disposed of them.

Of course, there are also bodies of shifted creatures, and I have no idea who they were originally. What is especially concerning is that mixed within these creatures are ones that are not weak by any standards, ones that I know are hard to kill, and yet here they are, dead, most of them missing limbs and all with their final expressions frozen in fear. Or at least those that still have faces are still frozen in fear; most of them are too decomposed to make out facial expressions.

From the looks of all their positions, the majority of them were either shoved through the door and killed immediately or killed while they were trying to get back out of the door; that’s the only reasonable explanation for why there’s such a big pile up behind the door. The light is still glowing softly and heading further down the vast, darkened corridor in front of me. I suppose it was too much to hope that the vault was in one of the rooms directly behind the door.

The magic is giving off just enough light to see in front of me but not much else, and I briefly toy with the idea of throwing up a brighter magic light of my own. The magic is going to attract whatever creatures that stalk these hallways anyway, so I may as well. Just as I’m about to cast it though, doubt makes me pause, in this kind of situation I think it’s best not to ignore any niggling feelings that I have, and because of this I hold off from launching my magic light, and instead grip my swords tighter.

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