Page 120 of Heir

When they were safely past, Aiz began to shiver, a deep shuddering that had Ruh—apparently unaffected—turning in alarm.

Aiz felt as if they’d entered another world with less air, less life, less hope. A void that sank into her bones, hostile. She’d felt this way before: when she was fourteen and first learning to control her windsmithing. She’d lost control of a Sail and spiraled to the earth, the wind an enemy. Her ears popped from the pressure, her stomach was in her throat, and as the ground approached, she’d blacked out.

It was Cero who found her, his face stark white, tears streaming down his cheeks as he called her name, his throat raw.

“Onward, Ilar,” Ruh whispered, bringing her back to the cave. “Look. Light.”

Aiz dismounted, Tregan’s lead in one hand and Ruh’s fingers in the other. The child guided her forward, and Aiz became aware of her heartbeat, louder and louder with each step.

But it was not her heartbeat. As she entered a perfectly round chamber, its ceiling and far wall lost in shadow, the air completely still, Aiz realized the sound—the feeling—was coming from a hole in the center of the room.

The void.

Its pulsing felt oppressive. All-consuming. The stench hit Aiz next, the dust of crushed skulls, the seep of old blood. The floor was covered in the bones of animals and humans, some with scraps of flesh still attached.

“Ruh—” Aiz breathed. “Go. Back the way we came. Take Tregan.” Whatever was in here, Aiz would battle it alone.

“Il-Ilar—” The child cowered behind her. “Look.”

Deep in the shadows, something stirred.

A skeletal figure emerged out of the darkness, and Aiz was certain it was a specter of some sort. But no. She was flesh and bone—mostly bone—and she wasn’t much older than Aiz.

“Hail, sister of shadow,” the woman rasped, as if she was trying to remember how to speak. “Do you come to relieve me? I have waited long years, serving our master.”

Sister of shadow?This, then, must be a Durani. A chaos storyteller. She thought Aiz was another of her order. When Aiz didn’t answer, the girl took a step closer. “Why do you not speak?”

Ruh wept now, terrified. “Ilar, we’re not safe—”

“Ah, sacrifices,” the girl said. “Bring them closer, sister.”

Aiz shook her head. “No.” She drew her scim with a shaking hand. “Where is Mother Div? What is this place?”

The Durani looked around at the bone-strewn floor, the blood-brown walls. Her regard settled on the hole in the center of the room, and when she looked back at Aiz, her eyes were pure white.

“This is the home of the first story,” she spoke, her voice deeper, guttural. “Elsewhere lives the story of joy and wisdom. But here lies desolation and misery, the only universal tongue, for pain needs no translation.”

“Ilar.” Ruh pulled at her desperately. “We need to leave!”

“Do you not wish to hear the story?” The girl smiled, a leering rictus. Ruh whimpered. “I thought children loved stories, and you”—she sniffed—“you are steeped with them.” The girl lifted her hands to Aiz and stumbled forward as if to embrace her.

“Ah, sister, you have brought our master a great prize. A child of ancient magic.”

Aiz grabbed Ruh then, throwing him onto Tregan’s back, and slapped the mare hard on the rump, hoping to the Spires that the child would hang on.

Then she whirled to face the Durani. “You will release Mother Div.” She lifted her scim. “Or I will destroy you.”

The Durani curled her lip. “Who are—”

Aiz attacked, and though the Durani was nimble enough to skitter out of reach, she stumbled, and Aiz nicked her over her heart. It was a tiny wound—no more than a trickle of blood. But the Durani gasped as if Aiz had shoved a scim into her gut.

“No—” she whispered. “You fool!”

Aiz’s blood quivered. A wave approached—no, it was here. The void pulled and yanked, compressing into a single point before exploding outward, knocking Aiz to her knees. Pain shot up her thigh, her bones snapping from the force of the blast.

The round chamber, lit before by the strange blue walls, fell dark. Aiz grasped her shattered leg, moaning, and tried to crawl away. Thedarkness seethed like a churning ocean, the shapes within it terrifying in their immensity.

Death closed in. Then it was upon her; pain burned through flesh, bone, and blood, and her vision went dark.

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